When Footballers Were Skint: A Journey in Search of the Soul of Football

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In those days, when you married they gave you a club house to reside in, you paid your rent and that was how it worked. There was no buying your own house because you couldn’t afford it.’ A Wolves side fuelled by monkey glands were going ‘to run Portsmouth off the field’ – but Pompey won 4-1 Specials Winning Vs Not Losing: The difference in approach that could make or break a football team

When Footballers Were Skint: A Journey in 9781785904660: When Footballers Were Skint: A Journey in

Don Ratfcliffe, the popular Ratter who was another team-mate of Matthews’s in his second spell at Stoke, says: ‘I got on very well with Stan and used to fire his bullets for him. He was a very quiet fella, but he was funny and used to tell me things to say to their defenders. Winterbottom’s revival hopes ended with the Munich air crash in February1958, 15 days after which Edwards died from kidney damage. Seven of Edwards’s Manchester United teammates had died in the crash itself. The narrator was a bit iffy, but the content was well researched and made you nostalgic at times, but the Bosman ruling changed everything, not always for the better and now we have owners that don’t give a flying for fans & their communities...and they call it progress!

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His first international appearance was against Scotland at Wembley where he played with poise and without a hint of nerves in a 7-2 victory. By then he had already set the first of his youngest-ever records by appearing in the Football League First Division aged sixteen years 185 days. Long before perma-tanned football agents and TV mega-rights ushered in the age of the multimillionaire player, footballers’ wages were capped – even the game’s biggest names earned barely more than a plumber or electrician. Occasionally, Matthews would instruct his hitmen to deploy psychological rather than physical retribution. But the thing about him that really caught the public imagination was whether he did or didn’t experiment with the use of monkey glands.

When Footballers Were Skint 2018 by Jon Henderson - Waterstones When Footballers Were Skint 2018 by Jon Henderson - Waterstones

A player may have had to graft for a while playing in the small leagues. On the other hand, an individual could wait for a lifetime opportunity while sitting on the bench for a Premier League team. They could even be a prodigy with boundless energy waiting in the wings for their youth side. Whichever way circumstances dictate, there is only one chance to make an impact. From his home in South Africa, he is talking about his time as a Newcastle United player from 1956-60. I’ve met hundreds of nice females,’ he says, ‘including my missus, who’s a good Nottingham girl who puts me in my place.’ The same goes for the World Cup. Now that the tournament in Russia is under way no one is talking about how the bid was won. Nor will they be in Qatar in four year’s time. All eyes are on the football alone. The pound signs are forgotten and replaced by goals. Football is dead. Long live football.I couldn’t have been born any better really. I was working-class Yorkshire, south Yorkshire, where most people were skint. Some of them had got work at the colliery and some hadn’t and it was the mine owners who ruled – only the one thing they didn’t do was dare fight my dad.’ Interestingly, though most of my interviewees mentioned Edwards among their favourite players, there were few anecdotes, just expressions of quite how formidable he was. Long before perma-tanned football agents and TV mega-rights ushered in the age of the multimillionaire player, footballers' wages were capped – even the game's biggest names earned barely more than a plumber or electrician.