To Cap It All. Kenny Sansom
it came to keeping her safe. Boys have always been expected to walk their girls home and ensure their safety, but it didn’t quite work out that way for us.
I would hold her hand as we walked down East Lane and Camberwell New Road, and everything was hunky-dory until we came to the last part of her journey, which involved her walking down a dark alleyway. I was scared of dark alleyways, but full of wonderful advice.
‘Now, Elaine, you make sure you walk down the middle of the alley. Keep away from the fence and gateways on your right and the brick wall on your left – you don’t want someone to jump out and attack you.’
Elaine the Brave didn’t bat an eyelid. Off she went – all 5 foot nothing of her, and I would wait at the mouth of this scary black tunnel until she made it to the other end and yelled, ‘It’s all right, Kenny, I’m safe.’ And off my lovely would go on the final leg of her journey. It’s funny how you can convince yourself you’ve been a brave soldier. ‘Watch your back, Elaine,’ I’d yell from underneath a brightly lit lamppost.
On our first real date, Elaine took me to the Wimpy Bar and bought me – guess what. Yes, a Wimpy. Well, she was older than me, had more money than I did – and I loved Wimpys.
By the time we were 16, we were dining in the Steak House at the Elephant and Castle. It was close to the cinema, so we didn’t have to walk far for dinner after we’d watched Bruce Lee as he kung-fu’d all over the screen. I took Elaine to see The Texas Chain Saw Massacre as well. No romantic films for us, but she didn’t seem to mind. It was all about being together. With hindsight, I guess it was all about me. But if she was happy doing what I wanted to do I wasn’t going to complain, was I?
We’d scoff down a three-course meal before heading off up the road to the Tin Pan Alley. Afterwards, I’d see her back to her alleyway again – and all the time I was thinking about getting up for training the next day. But I’d always ring her up when I got home to let her know I was all right.
Our young love was not without a hitch or two, though. I was dead jealous of any boy who dared to get close enough to breathe in her air. It was a terrible thing for me to be surrounded only by boys all day long at school while I knew she was in a mixed school and some boy might try to take her away from me. I complained all the time and it caused lots of rows.
We were forever breaking up and making up. Sometimes after a quarrel she would stand outside my home and throw stones at my window. My mum would call up the stairs, ‘Kenny, that little girl’s outside again.’
I’d try to act cool (I couldn’t quite pull it off, mind you) and wait a respectable amount of time before slipping outside to give her a kiss and make up. From day one we promised each other we’d always be together.
When we were 17 and had left school I was training hard and she got a job in some offices. I hated her being at work while I had free time, so I’d go to meet her whenever I could. I always got there early and waited outside on the corner of the street hoping she’d catch sight of me and leave early.
Apparently, I caused a bit of a stir, as her boss thought I was some scallywag casing the joint. ‘I think we’ve got a burglar outside,’ he said one day and was just about to call the Old Bill when Elaine jumped up to the window to try to look out. In the end she stood on a box and then she declared excitedly, ‘Oh, that’s only my Kenny. He’s not come for the money: he’s come for me.’
‘Go on, get off home,’ he’d say exasperated.
MY MUM
Everything that happened during my childhood paved the way for my glory days in top-flight football. I was the lucky boy born with a gift that I enjoyed working hard to improve on. It was no hardship to train all the hours the sun was up, and at night I’d dream of being the best footballer in England. They say you need to have a dream to make a dream come true – and I certainly had a dream. So did my mum. She was getting so excited about my budding talent and, like most mums, all she wanted was the best for me. No problem was so big that it couldn’t be sorted out. She knew this from harsh life experience.
Six of her siblings had died in childbirth or childhood, so she knew all about loss and grief. When my dad left home she knew he’d come back, and he did, many times. But, when she reached the point where ‘enough was enough’, she switched off and focused on keeping the home fires burning, and her family became her life.
The scenes in our front room could have come straight out of The Waltons. We always had ‘goodies’ to devour in front of the television, especially at weekends, when crisps, nuts and other snacks and tasty bites were laid out on the table. We washed this down with Coke or some other pop that wasn’t exactly good for our health but made us feel all lovely and warm inside.
Outside in the parks my little brother David and I played and played until our skills were finely honed. We were both perfecting every aspect of our game and hoping and praying to make it to the top. We’d continually head balloons to each other over washing lines. Later we progressed to a proper football, which wasn’t exactly an easy swap because the footballs back then were very hard with laces you had to avoid if you didn’t want a black eye.
David couldn’t balance on fences or climb trees as well as I could, and, although he joined me in leaping across rooftops, I believe I was the instigator of these dangerous activities. I know David was as good as I was on the pitch, and it has always saddened me that we didn’t both make it like the Neville brothers, but I think I was hungrier and more willing to work and work till I dropped. I was very competitive and hated losing and I’m certain that it was this passion for the game that made all the difference.
As my ability grew, my mum was quick to realise both my potential to become a professional footballer and what opportunities it would give me – such as travelling and a good income on the right side of the law. She had aspirations that went way beyond what other parents wished for their kids. She was determined to do everything in her power to ensure I led a different life from the one I was in danger of falling into – a life in the underbelly of London’s gangland. Not because I was the type to fall prey to a life of crime, but purely because of the environment and association I had with boys who had a less fortunate upbringing than I had.
Many of my peers found themselves detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure, and Mum had the foresight to steer me clear of danger.
Later she was to hold my face and say to me, ‘You built my life, son.’
The fact of the matter is, she built mine. If my mum hadn’t been on the ball and known how I ticked, my career would have been over before it had even begun. Way back then she understood the lonely and insecure part of me and acted on an instinct – had it not been for her actions on one particular winter’s night, the chances of my going on to play professional football would have been slight. Like my brother David, I would have been lost in the shadows of fortune and fame.
‘I’VE COME TO COLLECT YOU, KENNY’
I was at that tricky pubescent stage of development when hormones are flying around and mood swings take you from laughing your head off at some funny joke one minute to becoming angry or miserable the next without really knowing why.
I was still football crazy and loved training as much as ever, but I was beginning to hate the long, laborious, one-hour-long Tube ride across London to Ruislip. I was never good at sitting alone with my own company and, as the draughty, smelly train rattled through the tunnels, I’d be sitting there wondering what everyone else was doing, thinking of all the things I imagined I was missing out on, such as going to the pictures with Elaine, or hanging out at youth clubs with my mates.
I was used to being surrounded by familiar faces, noise and often madness and mayhem. Being alone for hours on public transport faced with nothing but my thoughts for company makes me think about Alan Sillitoe’s story, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (and the film of the same name). Two hours a night may not seem much, but it got me down.
I