Jimmy Adamson

Dave Thomas

Description

Jimmy Adamson was a football enigma, revered by some, disliked by others - a supremely elegant player of the '50s and early '60s, a title winner and a respected coach, but a manager whose spirit was ultimately shattered. In 1962, Adamson had the world at his feet: FA Cup finalist, Footballer of the Year and invited to become England manager, having been assistant at the World Cup in Chile. But Adamson said 'no'. In 1970 he predicted that Burnley would become the 'Team of the Seventies', but despotic chairman Bob Lord's selling policy saw the vision fade and die. Controversially sacked in 1976, Adamson moved to Sunderland and then endured two torrid years at Leeds United before turning his back on the game. This is a poignant story of broken dreams, failed ambitions and personal tragedy, ending in estrangement from the club he loved. A story of what might have been.

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 01 août 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781909626065
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Dave Thomas, 2013
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
First published and printed in 2013
First published in eBook format in 2013
eISBN: 978-1-90962-606-5
(Printed edition: 978-1-90917-865-6)
eBook Conversion by www.ebookpartnership.com
Contents
Acknowledgements
Foreword by Sir Bobby Charlton
1. Fetch my luggage
2. Send me a winger
3. Alan, Bob and Harry too
4. Through the 1950s
5. Peak season 1961/62 and a World Cup
6. From player to coach
7. 1970 takeover and a prediction
8. A time of struggle
9. Goodbye Ralphie and a test of endurance
10. 1973 triumph
11. Back at the top
12. Almost the Team of the Seventies
13. Horribilis, Blackpool, January 1976
14. Genius but not everyone s cup of tea
15. Sunderland via Rotterdam
16. Leeds United
17. Goodbye football
Finale
References
Photographs
Acknowledgements
Writing this book was a labour of love but it needed help from many people.
The five grandchildren: Katie, Sarah and James Bolton; Jennie and Sam Halstead; plus nephew Mark Adamson.
Support came from five locations - Ashington, Burnley, Rotterdam, Sunderland and Leeds.
Ashington research: Alan Parker and Mike Kirkup in particular, Ken Brown, Jim Nichol, Ken Dixon, Bill Ogilvie and Alf Martin.
The Burnley chapters: The Burnley Express , Burnley Library, Tony Scholes, Tim Quelch, Ray Simpson, Gerard Bradley, Terry Ridout, John Lingard, Derek Gill, David Binns, Veronica Simpson, Peter Higgs, Paul Fletcher, Dave Thomas, Colin Waldron, Jim Thomson, John Angus, Jimmy Robson, Frank Casper, Elizabeth Flynn and Jimmy McIlroy.
Rotterdam research: Tony Scholes, Alfons Meijboom and Cliff Hacking. The Sunderland chapter: Gary Rowell, Stan Ternent, Rob Mason, John
Gibson, George Forster and Martyn McFadden.
The Leeds chapters: John Wray in particular, plus Paul Harrison, Paul Dews, Gary Edwards, Graeme Smith, Michael Green, Stan Ternent, Dave Merrington, Brian Flynn, Eddie Gray and Martin Dobson.
For help with pictures, Burnley FC, Sunderland FC, Gerard Bradley, Howard Talbot, Katie Bolton and Jennie Halstead, Neville Chadwick, Andrew Varley, Football Monthly archives and the Press Association.
For the foreword: Sir Bobby Charlton.
For reading and commenting on various draft chapters: Mike Kirkup, Alan Parker, John Gibson, Colin Waldron, Paul Fletcher, Elizabeth Flynn, Rob Mason, Dave Merrington, Martin Dobson, Eddie Gray, Gary Edwards, Chris Watson, and Peter Ellis.
Reading and checking the complete draft: Winston Sutcliffe.
My computer technician: Mrs Harriet Thomas who never grumbles when I vanish for hours into my little room.
At Pitch Publishing: Paul and Jane Camillin.
I delved into a whole host of books but the following were particularly important:
Never Had It So Good 1959/60 ; Tim Quelch, Pitch Publishing Leeds And Scotland Hero ; Peter Lorimer, Mainstream Marching On Together ; Eddie Gray, Hodder and Stoughton
Harry Potts - Margaret s Story ; Margaret Potts and Dave Thomas, Sportsbooks
My England Years ; Sir Bobby Charlton, Headline
Foreword by Sir Bobby Charlton
T HE 1950s produced so many wonderful players in an age when there were no great riches to be earned; there was no such thing as squad rotation and terms like transition and channels were unheard of. The pitches were frequently mudbaths, the footballs weighed a ton; we played on ice and in snow and there was minimal protection from referees from all the hardmen who plied their trade back then.
One player who strode around those pitches surviving all the bruising confrontations was Burnley s Jimmy Adamson, a tall, slim, elegant player who to my astonishment never played for England. What was all the more surprising was that the England manager Walter Winterbottom often turned to Jimmy for help with coaching. He respected him to the extent that he asked Jimmy to be assistant manager of the England team in Chile in the 1962 World Cup. And that is where our paths crossed for a lengthy period.
Our paths had crossed on the field of play many times when Burnley played Manchester United and some of the games were memorable during a period when Burnley had a wonderful team; its flowing moves orchestrated by Jimmy McIlroy and of course Jimmy Adamson.
They had players of the calibre of John Connelly, John Angus, Brian Miller and Ray Pointer, all England internationals. They won the title in 1959/60. They played in the European Cup as it was called then. They reached the FA Cup Final in 1962 and came so close to doing the double. And in that same year Jimmy was rightly named Footballer of the Year.
But in fact the paths our lives took started in the same place, in Ashington, and quite amazingly in the same part of Ashington - Laburnum Terrace. My own family later moved to Beatrice Street but it is an amazing fact that Laburnum Terrace produced not just three First Division footballers, but three Footballers of the Year. The three of us - myself, my brother Jack and Jimmy - all won this prestigious accolade.
Jimmy was offered the England managership in 1962 when Walter Winterbottom left the post. He declined the offer for various reasons which this book makes clear. He later joked that by turning it down he helped England win the World Cup, so perhaps in a roundabout kind of way I actually owe my winner s medal to Jimmy. But, many years later when Bob Lord had no further use for him, he regretted his decision to decline the offer.
In Chile I came to greatly respect him and we talked on the plane on the way back home for several hours. I wrote about that journey home and all that we talked about, as we sat together, in my own book My England Years in a chapter devoted to Jimmy. Later, I used to drive over the moors to Burnley to visit and talk with him again, such was the impression he made on me when he spoke of his visions and ideas for the England team and England players.
It was no surprise to me that he eventually became Burnley s manager and in the 1970s he had a brief period when although his attractive, passing team won no trophies, they came so close to becoming what he wanted them to be - The Team of the Seventies . If there are reasons why that dream died, this book describes them and certainly tells of how the chairman of Burnley, Bob Lord, by decreeing that the best players should be sold to pay the bills, and eventually dismissing Jimmy, ultimately broke his heart.
He went on to Sunderland for a couple of years and then to Leeds United. But for Jimmy, football was never really the same when he left Burnley so after a tough time at Leeds he turned his back on football altogether.
His story is one of great success until the mid-70s, but this was then followed by broken dreams and frustrated ambitions. He suffered personal tragedies in his family life and for many years was estranged from Burnley Football Club because of the breakdown of his relationship with Bob Lord. It was only shortly before he died that I am happy to say that the relationship with the club was mended when he attended the unveiling ceremony of the Jimmy Adamson Suite.
He was a great footballer, a fine coach, a football visionary and I was truly saddened to attend his funeral in November 2011. I had the greatest admiration for him so it is a pleasure to provide this foreword.
Sir Bobby Charlton, 10 May 2013
Chapter 1
Fetch my luggage
I ONLY ever managed to speak to Jimmy Adamson once. It must have been sometime in 2005 and I knew that by then he rarely spoke to people about football. He d had nothing to do with the game since the time he left Leeds United in 1980. They had joked there that he was the Yorkshire Ripper. The police used to go round the pubs of Leeds and play the infamous hoax tape of the Geordie voice belonging to the guy who claimed to be the Ripper. They would ask, Does anyone recognise this voice? Voices would shout back, It s Jimmy bloody Adamson. By 1980 he was none too popular at Elland Road.
The end for him came after yet another defeat when Leeds lost 3-0 to Stoke City on 6 September 1980. He d had a year of abuse, Adamson out chants, banners and demonstrations. The Stoke defeat was already the fourth of the new season in just five games. Each day he must have longed to return to the warmth and sanctuary of his home and the love of his wife, May. He kept his innermost thoughts to himself during this period and afterwards said nothing during all the years that he was out of the game. If he endured untold heartache, then he put on a brave front. If the pressure became intolerable a drink or two blurred the edges. As each Stoke goal went home he surely knew it was one more reason for the directors he could never trust to dismiss him.
The win against Norwich a couple of weeks earlier had given false hope as his arm punched the air in jubilation at the end of the game. Following that there was a home defeat against Leicester City and more vicious fury from a seething, savage section of the crowd betraying their tribal Brigantes origins. The writing was on the wall; it was a matter of time before the curtain came down on what only a few years earlier at Burnley had seemed such a glittering managerial career following his golden years as a player.
A couple of drinks before the Stoke game would have eased his tensions, and made facing the intimidating crowd a little more bear