Between the Sticks. Alan Hodgkinson
to change, but I felt mine was about to. What’s more, I knew it was what I would do afterwards that would count. That’s when I would find out who and what I was. Deep down I was confident I would give a good account of myself in my League debut, but I was conscious this was just a start. I would have to continue to progress, to get better as a goalkeeper with each and every game if I was to achieve my dream of making a career in the game. I had learned a lot in my first year at Sheffield about goalkeeping and, the more I learned, the more I realised how much there was to learn. I calmed my nerves by convincing myself my debut was not an ordeal to overcome but a doorway to the future.
We stayed at the Station Hotel which, you’ll not be surprised to know, is next door to the station, St James’s Park being only half a mile away on the periphery of Newcastle’s city centre. After an early sitting for dinner our party took off to the Empire theatre. At a time when very few people owned a television set, theatres would present a bill boasting all manner of variety acts in support of the star of the show. That night we were entertained by dancers, a comedian, a spinner of plates and a magician before the American singing star Guy Mitchell eventually took to the stage to thunderous applause.
Going to an early evening performance at a theatre or cinema was the norm for a top team when playing away from home. The idea behind these trips was to relax the players and, I suppose, at a time when hotel rooms did not have TVs, to dispel boredom. There was also the idea that a night out together galvanised team spirit and togetherness. Such trips remained part of the pre-match routine for a team playing away right up to the early 1970s, when there was a complete revision of what was best for players in terms of preparation for a game, and the ubiquity of television took variety acts and, audiences, away from theatres.
After the theatre we took tea and toast in the hotel lounge, another ritual of away trips, before taking to our rooms at 10pm I was sharing a room with right-back Cec Coldwell but I slept fitfully. My mind wouldn’t rest. I lay in bed thinking about the game, what I would do, what I might do. I tried to sleep and cursed myself for not being able to as I knew I needed a good night’s rest. I eventually dozed off around half-one, but was up and about before seven the next morning. I just couldn’t wait for the game – my doorway to opportunity.
As we players changed in the dressing room Reg Freeman came and sat next to me. In keeping with daily training, Reg had hardly said a word to me since we had assembled at Bramall Lane on the Friday morning.
‘This is your big chance, Alan,’ Reg said, as if I needed any reminding. ‘Just go out and play your normal game.’
That was it as far as words from Reg went. He gave me no instructions about what he required from me at corners, goal-kicks, or distributing the ball when I had gained possession. No advice as to how he wanted me to organise our defence. Reg’s lack of advice was par for the course as far as managers of this era were concerned. I remember once having a conversation with Jack Charlton about his debut for Leeds United against Doncaster Rovers in the very same season I made my Football League debut. The Leeds manager was the great Raich Carter of Sunderland, Derby County and England fame. According to Jack, Raich had never spoken to him at any point from him joining Leeds in 1952. Minutes before taking to the pitch, Jack was in a quandary as to what exactly his manager wanted him to do at centre-half. As the Leeds players left the dressing room, Jack turned to Raich. ‘What do you want me to do, boss?’ asked Jack. ‘I want you to see how fast their centre-forward can limp,’ replied Raich.
A sonorous noise from 52,000 Geordies assailed my ears as I ran down the tunnel and out into the Tyneside sunshine. I had never played in front of such a large crowd before, but rather than being overawed I felt good about it. Of course I had butterflies in my stomach but the worst part had been the twenty minutes or so prior to taking to the pitch. Now I was out there, fielding shots from my teammates in the pre-match kick-in, although I was many miles from home and in front of 50,000 partisan Geordies, I felt strangely at home. I felt I was in my rightful place in life – keeping goal and for Sheffield United.
Newcastle had a formidable side. Their team included one of my boyhood heroes, the great Ronnie Simpson, in goal. Casting my mind back to my debut, who would have thought, thirteen years later and coming up to thirty-eight years of age, Ronnie would be keeping goal for Celtic when they defeated Inter Milan to become the first British team to win the European Cup? What’s more, in the first fifteen minutes of that final, Ronnie’s heroics in goal kept Celtic in the game. I can’t recall if Joe Shaw won the toss but I do remember having to change ends before the game got underway. When this happens, goalkeepers always shake hands and wish one another good luck as they pass each other. As I reached the centre circle on my way to the Gallowgate End of the ground, Ronnie shook my hand firmly.
‘Know it’s your debut. Good luck, son, give it your all and don’t let your mind wander to the crowd. Always concentrate on the game and you’ll be fine,’ Ronnie said.
I thanked him, wished him luck and carried on my way. As a young debutant, Ronnie’s kind words meant much to me and were typical of the man. In addition to Ronnie, the Newcastle team also included Bobby Cowell, Alf McMichael, Bob Stokoe, Vic Keeble, George Hannah and the aptly named Jimmy Scoular, without doubt the hardest player I ever encountered in my entire career in the game. Jimmy served in the submarines during the war and was to football what Brian Close was to cricket: a dedicated, determined, combative and talented player who never knew the meaning of fear. Jimmy was as hard as teak. When the going got tough he would remain as unmoved as a rock in a raging sea. With his balding head, a neck that could dent an axe and a mouth like a pair of pants whose elastic had perished, he cut an imposing and frightening figure on a pitch.
The star of the Newcastle team was Jackie Milburn, affectionately referred to by Magpie fans as ‘Wor Jackie’ and, when his fame spread globally, ‘World Wor One’. Jackie’s beginnings with Newcastle could have come straight from the pages of a Boy’s Own story. In 1943 he wrote to the club for a trial. He turned up with borrowed boots and his lunch of a pie and bottle of pop in a brown paper bag. The trial match took the form of Stripes v Blues. Jackie sat out the first half. Come half-time the Stripes were losing 3–0. In the second half Jackie played centre-forward for the Stripes and scored six goals, Newcastle manager, Stan Seymour, signed him straight away. Days later, Seymour played him in a wartime Northern League match at Hull City in which Jackie scored five. After the game a delighted and astounded Seymour said to Jackie, ‘You’re some goal-scorer, eleven goals in two games!’ ‘One and a half,’ Jackie reminded him. It is the stuff of legend.
Jackie was, and still is, a Tyneside legend whose goals and rampages in opposing penalty boxes contributed in no small way to Newcastle’s three post-war FA Cup victories (1951, 1952 and 1955). In 1951 he scored in every round of the FA Cup, including both goals in the Final against Blackpool. He was a spectacular centre-forward who used his exceptional speed, powerful shot and thundering heading of the ball to great effect, scoring 200 goals in his eleven seasons with Newcastle, making him Newcastle’s all-time greatest goal-scorer in League and Cup matches (Alan Shearer scored seven more should you include European games).
It is unthinkable now but following a Newcastle win, when the players received their wages and win bonus, the club always gave them an extra bonus of a packet of twenty cigarettes. The majority of Newcastle players didn’t smoke, but Jackie did, so they gave their cigarettes to him. Off the pitch Jackie always seemed to have a fag on the go, and sadly this may well have contributed to his death from lung cancer at the relatively young age of 64.
As great a goal-scorer as he was, Jackie Milburn didn’t score against me on my debut, though Bobby Mitchell did. A hard low drive on the turn which came through a thicket of legs and I didn’t see it until the last moment. That equalled matters, for a fine effort from Jimmy Hagan had put us in the lead. In the second half we gave as good as we got and with some fifteen minutes remaining, Jack Cross met a cross, and steered the ball past Simpson. It was a lead we were to preserve, though I was kept a tad busy in those last ten minutes as Newcastle threw everything at us bar the proverbial sink. In the final minutes, I managed to make a point-blank save from George Hannah and, diving to my right, finger-tipped a bullet header from ‘Wor Jackie’ around the post. When the final whistle blew I was so happy I nearly jumped over the main grandstand.
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