Making the Grade

Stan Osborne

Description

This is a wonderfully evocative, witty, thought provoking and gritty trip down Memory Lane - one that every Evertonian and 'nearly-but-didn't-quite-make-it' footballer will adore. Stan Osborne's debut book captures a very special era in footballing history and his highly detailed 'fly-on-the-wall' insight into Everton's title-winning season gives a unique perspective on a very special season - one that also underlines how different life is for today's want-for-nothing footballing starlets.

Sujets

• Fútbol
• Football

Informations

• Publié par: Legends Publishing
• Date de parution: 29 mai 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781906796532
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Published by Legends Publishing
E-mail [e-mail] Web www.legendspublishing.net
Copyright 2012
Notice of Rights All rights reserved. Unless it is part of a published review, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. For information on getting permission for reprints and excerpts, contact Legends Publishing.
All views expressed in this book are the personal opinions of the individuals concerned and not necessarily those of the author, the publisher or the football club. All efforts have been made to ensure the content of this book is historically accurate but if any individual named feels they have been misrepresented your right to reply will be exercised if you so wish.
CONTENTS
TALENT SPOTTING
NEW ARRIVALS
SEASON’S GREETINGS
BOOT CAMP
UNION DUES
PRIVATES ON PARADE
STATE OF THE NATION
PLACE YOUR BETS
TAKING THE PEE
TOP OF THE WORLD MA!
CHAMPIONS
OUT WITH THE OLD
WORLD CUP FEVER
A SLICE OF HUMMEL PIE
FALSE DAWN
LOOKING UP
STITCHED UP
PENALTY CLAUSE
COLD TURKEY
SWEET FA
IFS AND BUTTS
BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH
FADE OUT
CLOSE THE DOOR ON YOUR WAY OUT
HOWARD’S WAY
IF THE LABEL FITS
BACK TO THE FUTURE
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
Dedicated to all those kids who could have made the grade… but didn’t.
Acknowledgements To my wife Jill and my mate Andrew Hill for their unstinting encouragement and support throughout, not least their proof reading. To David Starsky and his colleagues from the Everton FC Heritage Society for their help with my research. To Mal Jenkin for his help with my search for photos from the era. To Ronny Goodlass for his help and for agreeing to write the Foreword. To David Lane of Legends Publishing for his help in getting my book into print, and Rita Lane for her proof-reading help.
References Everton, Player by Player, Ivan Ponting (Guinness Publishing 1992) Everton, The Official Complete Record, Steve Johnson (deCourbetin Books 2010) www.evertonresults.com , www.evertonfc.com , www.theevertoncollection.com
FOREWORD
I have always considered myself extremely fortunate to have realised my ambition to pull on the famous royal blue jersey of Everton’s first-team back in the 1970’s and later on to be part of the Goodison Park coaching staff under Joe Royle’s tenure as manager. I have also had the pleasure of being a match day commentator on Everton matches for Radio Merseyside over the past 15 years and have observed with interest the emerging talent as players have made their way from the Goodison production line into the first-team during that time.
I was lucky enough to graduate from The School of Science under Harry Catterick during a very special time for the club. Many promising and talented youngsters passed through the club during that era and Stan Osborne was one of the lads in my particular intake in 1969. Making The Grade tells of the adventures, trials and tribulations of life as an apprentice at that time. The hard toil on the training pitch, the tedious graft in the boot room were the downside, but the excitement of working your way through the junior ranks was the real thrill and they are all there described in minute detail. So is the euphoria of rubbing shoulders with The Holy Trinity of Kendall, Ball and Harvey and being in the company of the likes of Brian Labone, Joe Royle, Gordon West and even Harry Catterick himself. All true legends at the club who we had supported from the terraces only a matter of months before we signed as apprentices
The players, coaching staff, grounds staff and Management all come to life as Stan recounts the progress of the first-team as Everton clinched the First Division Title in 1969/70. At the same time the untold story of the progress the apprentices were making behind the scenes in the ‘A’ and ‘B’ teams is described, as well as some of the more amusing and outlandish activities and incidents we were involved in. It is an informative window into the past that looks at how young footballers had to face the highs and lows of life at the grass roots of the club then. A light is shone onto the triumph and joy for some as they made it to a full professional contract and onto the inevitable heartbreak for most of the others along with how each outcome was faced by the people concerned, with Stan’s story taking centre stage.
On a personal level, Making The Grade brings back some fond memories of being a youngster at Everton. I am sure Evertonians of all ages and football fans everywhere will enjoy looking back at a brief period in the history of a great football club during an era that was so very different to today’s Premier League.
Ronny Goodlass
F rom humble beginnings to, well… humble endings. This is a story of football’s wannabes, nearly men and might have beens – and there are a lot more of them than the David Beckhams, Wayne Rooneys and Steven Gerrards of this world. For thousands of foot-ball-mad kids over the years, who stood on the starting line in the race to become professional footballers alongside future internationals and household names, their story wasn’t quite the same.
Somehow, for many different reasons, their promising careers remained just that – promising. While their famous peers found fame and fortune after making the grade, the also-rans only found the exit door and the scrapheap of the game’s newest shiny prototypes.
The bookshop shelves are full of biographies and auto-biographies of the great players of the present and the past who graced our national sport at its pinnacle. But what of the young hopefuls who only got a toe onto the first rung of the football ladder and managed merely a worms-eye view of the beautiful game? Theirs is the forgotten story that is never heard, but is equally relevant because, just as the stars of the game emerged from the same working class roots to portray the glamour and fulfilment of their dreams, the kids who didn’t make the grade provide a very different picture. However, their story contains just as much bravery, honest toil, commitment, joy and heartache.
This book harks back to a different era; an era before multi million pound transfer deals and contracts. Before the advent of the Premier League, Sky Sports and billionaire club owners. It looks back to a more innocent time when it felt as if football clubs and their stars still belonged to the fans instead of being at the mercy of players’ agents and foreign takeovers.
This is an account of my brief experience as one of the young hopefuls at Everton Football Club during that era, but it could just as well be about any kid who started off with the footballing world at their feet, but just like the vast majority of other fledgling professional players, ended up with the weight of the world on their shoulders. This is a football story first and foremost, but as any ex-pro or apprentice pro of a certain age will tell you, actually making the grade in those days was about a lot more than just playing football. Making the grade then was just as much to do with coping with the minutiae of the ‘upstairs, downstairs’ life as a young footballer and the unexpected challenges, disappointments and knock about humour you were subjected to and the help, compassion and support, often from the most unlikely of sources, which enabled you to survive.
****
The 1968 FA Cup Final between Everton and West Bromwich Albion was a defining moment in my life. When Jeff Astle scored what proved to be the winning goal and the final whistle blew, it all became crystal clear. At the age of 14, out of the anguish, bitter disappointment and crushed dreams of that day, I knew what I suspected I’d always known – that one day I would sign for Everton Football Club as an apprentice professional footballer.
SEASON 1968/69
TALENT SPOTTING
I n many ways, the 1968/1969 Season was a significant one for Harry Catterick’s Everton but, more importantly for me and my footballing dreams, it was a crucial one. While Catterick continued with the latest phase of rebuilding his 1963 Championship Winning squad, I was busy proving myself as a promising schoolboy footballer on Merseyside with the latest Kirkby Schools FA Under 15 side, which was gaining recognition nationally amongst the scouts from Football League Clubs as a hotbed for new talent.
Since winning the League Title five years previously, Everton had maintained their position amongst the elite English clubs challenging for honours, finishing in the top six positions in the top division each year with the exception of 1966, when they lifted the FA Cup in the famous final at Wembley after coming back from 2-0 down to win 3-2 against Sheffield Wednesday. Throughout that time Everton’s policy had been to gradually discard and replace older members of the squad such as Roy Vernon, Jimmy Gabriel, Alex Scott and Brian Harris. By the time the 68/69 season began, these and other renowned Everton stars like Alex (The Golden Vision) Young, Ernie Hunt and ’66 FA Cup Final scorers Derek Temple and Mike Trebilcock were no longer at the club.
In fact the only remaining first-team players from 1963 championship winning squad were club captain Brian Labone, goalkeeper Gordon West and left winger Johnny Morrissey. Catterick’s squad had been transformed through the purchase in the transfer market of Alan Ball after the 1966 World Cup from Blackpool for a then British record fee. He stole Howard Kendall from under the nose of Bill Shankly when he wanted to sign him for Liver-pool from Preston North End. Sandy Brown was signed from Partick Thistle and little known Tommy Jackson from Glentoran was added to the squad.
Stan and Ray Pritchard selected to represent Lancashire schools

Everton at the time were considered to be the ‘Merseyside Milli