THE FIRST TIME EVER I SAW YOUR PLACE

Scrantlefish

It’s 44 years since I lost my virginity. No, not THAT kind of virginity. That’s subject to the Official Secrets Act. I’m talking about my English football virginity. The day I saw a Football League match in the flesh for the very first time.

English club football held an exotic mystique for those growing up in Scotland in the 1960s and 1970s. Most of us never even got to see the FA Cup Final live as our counterparts south of the border did. The few lucky souls living in the Border TV area and those even fewer in the east who could pick up Tyne-Tees were the exceptions. The rest of us got dirt track cycling and wrestling while they lapped up the sumptuous feast of the English season’s showpiece game.

Of course there were times when I wouldn’t have watched it anyway. Sunderland’s famous victory over Leeds United in 1973 means nothing to me. I was at Rugby Park, wrapped up in sorrow at Kilmarnock’s relegation the same day. But the idea that fans would stay at home and watch the English game rather than go and see their own team – the ostensible reason for the ban - was a fallacy. And everyone knew it. After all if it wasn’t affecting attendances at Palmerston Park and Shielfield – where fans COULD watch the final – then what effect would it have on Ibrox or Celtic Park?

The final aside, live TV games featuring English clubs were few and far between. Manchester United v Benfica in the 1968 European Cup Final, Leeds United against Celtic in the same competition’s semi-finals two years later. For decades the only match involving two English clubs ever screened throughout Scotland was Chelsea’s victory over Leeds in the 1970 FA Cup Final replay, played on a Wednesday night.

Arsenal fans like to sing that Spurs won the league “in black and white” but for me 1970 was the year the Gunners won the Fairs Cup on Radio 2.

Scottish authorities were fearful of English football’s attraction. When Carlisle United were promoted to the old First Division in 1974 there was much press speculation that their elevation might impact badly on Scotland as Brunton Park lay within comparatively easy travelling distance by road and rail from the central belt.

It was an unjustifiable fear. Edinburgh to Newcastle wasn’t exactly a trek across the Sahara but no one ever claimed the lure of Tyneside was any threat to Tynecastle. It was more that the Glasgow-dominated press suddenly saw a threat emerging south of the Solway.

1974: FA Cup Final on Border TV, indoor bowls, racing and wrestling for everyone else
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It was TV highlights that established the reputation of English club football north of the border. Those seen midweek on the networked ‘Sportsnight With Coleman’ or the English match squeezed into the schedule after two Scottish games on ‘Sportsreel’ on a Saturday night. Despite the fact that the Scottish club game was reasonably strong at the time and also in spite of the inbred antipathy to all things Anglo felt by every Scottish schoolboy the difference in quality was demonstrable and obvious.

It was a more competitive game too. By 1974 Celtic had won nine successive Scottish league titles. In that same period SEVEN different clubs had been English champions. Every Scottish Cup bar two had gone to the Old Firm during that time. The nine English equivalents had been won by nine different sides.

Top Scottish players abounded in England too. Almost one hundred played in the English First Division each season and the names still trip off the tongue all these years on. Law, Bremner, Cooke, Gilzean, Lorimer, Jordan, Crerand, Hartford, Morgan, Mackay, St John and many many more. Managers also. Busby, Shankly, Docherty.

Interest in the English game was immense. Just as it is now, even if some would like to pretend otherwise.

So it was that when I left school and was looking for a place to study and live, my eyes alighted on Middlesbrough. The map suggested it was close enough to travel back from as and when necessary/desired. And the league table at the end of the 1973-74 season showed a club that ran away with the Second Division title and was preparing for life at the top after an absence of twenty years.

As a combination it looked unbeatable. The course was an afterthought.

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And so to October 5^th 1974. Seven days after trudging disconsolately out of Rugby Park after Killie had been thrashed 6-0 by Rangers I found myself strolling down Middlesbrough’s Linthorpe Road, eager to sample the delights of the top table for myself.

I recall it being a mild day for the time of year, warm enough certainly for a large group of fans to be assembled outside the Empire pub. Fond as I was at the time of the occasional small libation I ordered a pint and engaged a few in conversation. Wearily I answered the inevitable question ‘Who do you support? Rangers or Celtic?’ as politely as I could – a question incidentally which still gets asked to this day. Just three days ago I had to summon up as much civility as I could to explain there ARE other options available to Scottish fans – before making my own inquiries about the club, the team, the ground, the fans.

In the days before segregation violence was commonplace. The previous week’s game at Rugby Park had witnessed the inevitable barrage of boots and bottles several times during the course of the match. A lone fan venturing into a new setting did so at his own risk so having established that the Holgate End was where the singing and dancing was, discretion dictated I should make my way to the opposite end. Discretion was not a quality I possessed in any great quantity so into the Holgate it was, admittedly under the protection of my new-found drinking buddies from the Empire.

The Boro players weren’t all unfamiliar to me. Bobby Murdoch, one of the finest readers of the game of his day, had been a regular in Jock Stein’s all-conquering Celtic side. There was another Scottish midfielder in the side and he, like Murdoch, would one day win the European Cup (three times in fact). I had first seen Graeme Souness in the UEFA Youth Tournament held in Scotland in 1970 and knew he was one of the brightest young talents in the game.

Others I knew purely by reputation. Jim Platt was Pat Jennings’ goalkeeping understudy for Northern Ireland. John Hickton was a name that featured frequently in the list of top scorers at the end of each season. Alan Foggon I knew had scored for Newcastle United when they won the Fairs Cup in 1969. Stuart Boam had been a (comparatively) big money signing from Mansfield Town.

I was aware David Mills and Willie Maddren were emerging young talents, England U-23 internationalists. Mills later became the first £500,000 signing in British football when he moved to West Brom. The tragic Maddren – so cruelly uncapped by England – later had a spell as Boro manager before succumbing to Motor Neurone Disease aged just 49.

Much of this knowledge was gleaned from the pages of ‘Football Monthly,’ ‘Goal,’ and ‘Shoot,’ those indispensable companions of the football fan of the time.

But even those august publications couldn’t help me with the others. John Craggs and Frank Spraggon I would quickly come to appreciate were every bit as hard defensively as their surnames suggested. A less fortunately named player was the substitute Alan Willey, though he played a crucial part in this game.

The final player was left-winger David Armstrong. He was already two years into the process of amassing a club record run of 358 consecutive appearances (305 in the league). Over eight years in total when no Boro side took the field without Armstrong sporting the number eleven shirt.

Prematurely balding and thus ironically but affectionately nicknamed ‘Spike’ it was hard to believe he was still a teenager. Armstrong was a skilful player. He had pace. He could dribble. He took men on. He had vision. He could pass. He had power. He could score. Frequently. Often sensationally. And of course he remained injury-free for that incredible length of time. Capped three times by England his tally would have been closer to three figures had he played for a club from Liverpool, Manchester or London rather than Boro (and later Southampton).

He quickly became – and remains to this day – my favourite Boro player.

The manager? Well, there was no football supporter in the country who didn’t know who Jack Charlton was. World Cup winner, Leeds stalwart for two decades, the brusque outspoken brother of nice guy Bobby. Later to become the world’s most famous honorary Irishman and a man who littered the dugout with around forty fag ends every game.

What athletes they were back then.

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Ayresome Park itself didn’t make a great impression. I had been to far bigger in Scotland at Hampden, Ibrox and Celtic Park. I had been one of over 137,000 at a Scotland v England match and had even seen several bigger crowds at Rugby Park than the 27,443 in attendance this day. With a capacity of 42,000 it was one of the smaller First Division grounds of the day. The four corners were uncovered but it was unusual for its time in that it had three stands. The main stand, with changing rooms, boardroom and offices underneath lay to the left, looking from the Holgate End. It dated from the ground’s construction at the beginning of the 20^th century and was built in the then traditional semi-circular style, with a huge clock dominating the centre. In the days before electronic scoreboards this was a welcome feature. It was one of many stands designed by the legendary stadium architect Archibald Leitch.

Opposite lay the South Stand, a 1930s construction but the real oddity faced directly opposite the Holgate. The East Stand. It was a rare thing in the 1970s for any football ground to possess three stands and its construction came about more or less by accident.

St James’ Park was one of the scheduled venues for the 1966 World Cup but failure to reach agreement on redevelopment plans between club and council saw the tournament organisers drop Newcastle’s ground from the competition. The only other ground that could possibly share the North-East group with Sunderland’s Roker Park was Ayresome but it too couldn’t be redeveloped to any great standard, hemmed in as it was by housing.

With little time to prepare for the tournament a simple solution was devised. Put seats into all bar the corner sections of the terracing opposite the Holgate and build a roof. The 4,000- seater – which cut 12,000 off Ayresome’s capacity - was ready in time to host three World Cup matches. The last of these was – with all due respect to Boro – the most famous game ever staged there when North Korea defeated Italy 1-0 and the name of scorer Pak Doo-Ik occupied an honoured position in the annals of world football history.

Ayresome Park: Boro's home 1903-1995

Clockwise from top: 

South Stand, Holgate End, Main Stand, East Stand
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The opponents were an afterthought. I wasn’t bothered who was playing. I was going to see an English First Division match in the flesh. That was what mattered. That was ALL that mattered but as it transpired the opposition were a pretty handy side in their own right.

Manager Bill McGarry had built a fine Wolverhampton Wanderers side. They had won the League Cup just a few months earlier and been UEFA Cup Finalists two seasons previously. In John Richards they had one of the best strikers around, ably backed up by Kenny Hibbitt. Alan Sunderland was making a name for himself. Steve Daley, like Mills, would later be a transfer fee record breaker. Stevie Kindon, Derek Parkin, John McAlle and Mike Bailey were solid reliable players. And in goal was the imposing giant Phil Parkes.

For me though the Wolves name that stood out didn’t take the field but sat on the bench. Northern Ireland international Derek Dougan. Tall, good-looking, ‘The Doog’ was unquestionably one of the biggest characters in the game, a genuinely charismatic personality. He was a man of many clubs – Wolves being his sixth. At Blackburn he had sensationally put in a transfer request on the morning of the FA Cup Final in 1960 when Rovers were beaten 3-0 by – oddly enough – Wolves. He shaved his head at Aston Villa, years before the skinhead culture emerged. He was the Players’ Union chairman & created the now well-established annual PFA awards (though in contrast to his Scottish contemporary Alex Ferguson, he moved sharply to the right politically in later life).

Derek Dougan on the front cover of 'GOAL' in 1969

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Dougan was as active off the pitch as on it. Alongside the likes of Malcolm Allison and Paddy Crerand he was a World Cup TV panellist in 1970. Almost fifty years on this is a staple of the game but at the time it was revolutionary. Prior to this the cameras only began to roll five minutes before kick-off. Players and coaches inside a studio voicing their opinions was a novel and electrifying approach. Post-match discussions centred almost as much on what the panellists had said than on the game itself.

Dougan wrote his autobiography at the age of thirty and published a novel around the time of this match. By the time of this game he was famous enough to have been the subject of  ‘This Is Your Life.’

At thirty-six his career was well into the winding-down stage. He spent just over an hour on the field this afternoon and yet he left me with the one indelible memory of the match.

Boro were quicker off the mark and before ten minutes had elapsed Souness and Mills combined to set up the ever-reliable Hickton to open the scoring. Boro were well on top and could have extended their lead before the break. Wolves for their part were hindered when injury forced Kindon to depart the scene shortly before the half-hour mark, leaving the stage set for the veteran Dougan to make his mark.

John Hickton scored Boro's opener

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And it could have been more before the break

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It was Boro who were affected by injury early in the second half when Bobby Murdoch was forced to leave the field, replaced by Willey. Just a couple of minutes later came the moment still stamped on my mind over forty years on.

Dougan, with his back to goal, took a pass from Daley, turned with the reflexes of a teenager to go past a bemused Spraggon and let fly from twenty yards out, his shot bending in the air and screaming past Jim Platt before the keeper had time to realise his goal needed defending.

It was the 311^th goal of Dougan’s long and distinguished career, his 279^th in English first class football, his perfectly symmetrical 222nd in the league, 95 of which had come in the black-and-gold of Wolves.

It was also the last goal he ever scored in top class football, a stellar strike to round off a magnificent career. And I saw it. I saw the last goal Derek Dougan scored in a career that began before I was born. A memory to treasure and one that resonates to this day.

But not even Dougan could save Wolves
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But the outcome didn’t hinge on the goal – no matter how wonderful – of a 36-year-old substitute. The game turned on the match’s other replacement, Alan Willey, who like me hadn’t even been born when Dougan started out in the game. After fifteen minutes in which Wolves looked the likelier side, the 17-year-old scored what turned out to be the winner. Dougan had scored for the last time. For Willey this was his first.

Bobby Murdoch's injury gave Alan Willey his chance
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It was a fitting way to seal a game that while entertaining enough could never be described as a classic. John Hickton’s usual goal, Derek Dougan’s last, Alan Willey’s first. On a personal level it was a double first. My first ever English league game and my first ever visit to Ayresome Park, a ground that was to become my regular ‘home’ for two decades. Many great games and many marvellous memories lay in store as, to be fair, did a good deal of heartbreak and despair over the next twenty years. 

I departed Middlesbrough, shortly before the venerable old ground itself did. Ayresome Park expired in 1995, aged 92. Not before I managed to obtain one final souvenir photo. Alas, I have nothing tangible from my first game. The only people who took cameras to matches back then were press photographers lying behind both goals. The match programme (and I have many Boro programmes) is long since gone. But up there in the video replays of the mind, I can still see myself making my first journey, entering the Holgate, enjoying the atmosphere, drinking in the occasion and above all else the firm imprint of one of the best players of his era scoring one of the finest  - and the final – goals of his career.

One last trip to Ayresome Park

Just before the turnstiles stopped clicking forever
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