In those days the manager picked twelve players for the first team on a Saturday, the eleven who would play plus a standby reserve – there being no substitutes, of course. The remaining first-team squad players turned out for the reserves along with any regular first-teamers playing their way back following injuries, young hopefuls such as myself and, a category of player you just don’t have nowadays, the ‘loyal foot soldier’ who had years of service at the club but few, if any, first-team appearances to his name.
It was not uncommon in the fifties to find these loyal foot soldiers at most clubs. One of the most notable examples was Arthur Perry, who signed for Hull City in 1947 and left the club a few months short of ten years later without ever making a first-team appearance. Arthur spent his entire Hull career playing for the reserves before being transferred to Bradford in 1956. It’s interesting to note that, under the rules of the time, should Arthur have completed the ten years he would have qualified for a Testimonial. Poor Arthur missed out, by a matter of months, on what for him would have been a big pay-out. That said, should Arthur have qualified for a Testimonial match, the mind boggles at Hull supporters turning up to honour a player many of them had never seen play.
Playing in the Central League it was not uncommon that I found myself playing against internationals coming back from injury and players out of favour in the first team but with League appearances under their belt that stretched into three figures. My debut for United reserves took place at Goodison Park and it was something of an ignominious debut as far as I was concerned – we lost 5–2 to Everton. For all I had conceded five goals I was told, however, I had acquitted myself well and, to my delight, kept my place in the reserves the following Saturday when I felt a whole lot better about life as we beat Manchester City’s second string 1–0.
For me, every reserve team match, particularly those away from home, was exciting and an adventure. I hadn’t travelled out of the Sheffield area much in my life, bar the occasional holiday to Skegness. For me, journeys to the likes of Manchester United, Preston or Aston Villa filled me with awe and wonder. I had only read about these clubs and their grounds, and never visited let alone seen them in these pre-television days. On arriving at such places I would accompany reserve team stalwarts of the day such as Graham Shaw and Willie Toner for the ritual inspection of the pitch, only I would not be staring down at the grass. My eyes would pan around the ground itself, taking in the detail of grandstands and alp-like terracing. I’d find myself saying something like, ‘So this is Old Trafford? Where Johnny Carey and Stan Pearson play.’ It was totally magical to me. I know you may feel I am conveying a romantic and idealised view of these reserve team matches, but they were romantic and idealised to me. I was not yet seventeen years of age and I was in awe and wonder of everyone I met and everywhere I visited.
When I reached my seventeenth birthday, the United manager, Reg Freeman, called me into his office. It was the first time I had ever been in the manager’s office and probably only the third time he had spoken to me directly. Reg Freeman said he had ‘news’ for me and his news was music to my ears. He told me that, such had been my progress, the club were going to sign me as a full-time professional. This time, I had no hesitation in accepting. When he told me, I didn’t hear his follow-up words for the sound of angels singing. My immediate thought was I would have to tender my resignation from my job as a butcher’s assistant at the Co-op. It never occurred to me to ask what sort of wage I would be on, but when Reg got around to talking money, my legs did a fine impersonation of a cocktail shaker held aloft by a barman who takes real pride in his work. With my jaw almost resting on my middle shirt buttons, I listened as Reg told me I was to receive a £50 signing-on fee and a weekly wage of £7 during the season and £5 in the close-season. It was more money than I had ever seen in my life. A few days later, when the secretary paid me my signing-on fee, he did so with white fivers and I dutifully took the money straight home to Mum and Dad. As I carefully laid each fiver out on the kitchen table, Mum and Dad stood staring at the money in mute silence, their faces exuding the sort of wonder Columbus must have felt on realising he hadn’t sailed over the end of the Earth.
I spent 1953 and 1954 as the regular reserve team goalkeeper and got to know well the unique culture of reserve team matches. Today Premiership teams have squads; players not in the starting eleven or on the bench watch from the stands, as if it is beneath them to be asked to play for the reserves. Not that there is such a thing as a Premiership reserve team nowadays. The very term ‘reserves’ is considered to have negative overtones. They call them ‘Development’ squads now and no doubt someone was paid handsomely for coming up with that term. In a sense, I suppose, Development squad is more apposite, seeing as their ranks are filled with players under the age of 21.
With the passing of reserve teams, a small and lesser-spotted ritual of football disappeared. In terms of support, reserve team matches were the preserve of the die-hard supporter and children. In the fifties and well into the sixties, many a child’s first visit to their local football ground was to a reserve team game. Parents or older brothers would take along little Johnny to their first football match, a reserve team game, as the crowd would not be intimidating and the child was guaranteed a good, unobstructed view of proceedings. It was also a good way for a boy to get to know the local ground as, quite often, supporters could change ends at half-time or, should it be raining, forgo the terraces and take shelter in the paddock of grandstands that overlooked the flanks.
In comparison to a first-team match, a reserve team game often seemed to take place in an eerie canyon. Even if there were 2–3,000 present, which often there were in grounds such as Goodison Park and Old Trafford, or even Bramall Lane, such a number appeared lost on the cold, grey slabs of terracing. They would hang from crash barriers munching monkey nuts and howling their grievances. Some preferred to take up the normal place in the ground they would inhabit for match days, and such lone fans would lean against the barriers high up at the very back of the terracing like guillemots perched on cliff faces. Whichever ground you visited there was always a raucous knot of seasoned supporters on either side of the ground overlooking the halfway line. Whilst behind the goal, a row of boys would cling to the perimeter fencing and try to make conversation with me when play was concentrated down the other end of the field.
Though my concentration was total during games, there was the odd occasion when I would acknowledge a question from one of the boys behind my goal. I did so in the hope he would be as thrilled as I would have been as a boy, should a footballer ever have spoken to me. Amongst his collection of personal memorabilia, Gordon Banks has a photograph taken of him on the occasion of his debut for Leicester City reserves against Swansea. The black-and-white snapshot shows a young, smiling Banksy, hands on hips, standing in between his posts. The photograph was taken by a boy who simply left his place on the perimeter fence behind the goal, walked onto the pitch during the pre-match kick-in and asked Banksy to pose, which he duly did. The lad later posted a copy of the print to Banksy care of the club and it serves as a happy reminder of his very first appearance in Leicester City colours. As Banksy says, ‘It would never have occurred to me to say “No”, even with a minute or so to go to kick-off.’ Young supporters could do that kind of thing at reserve team games then; sadly, not so nowadays.
At the end of the 1953–54 season, Sheffield United reserves finished in exactly the same position in the Central League as they had in the previous season – fourth from bottom – not that it mattered. In all competitions, however, the reserves conceded twenty-seven fewer goals. I never gave this a thought at the time, but my performances in goal in what was my first season with Sheffield United must have indicated to Reg Freeman that I was developing along pleasing lines because, during the first week of April, I received a message to report to his office for what would be the fourth occasion he had spoken to me.
When it came to being a manager, Reg Freeman was one of the old school. We players never saw him at training; that was taken by Eric Jackson aided by Reg Wright, who was fast becoming the Swiss Army knife of the club. Reg Freeman seemed to spend most of his week in his office, emerging late on Thursday afternoon or early Friday morning to pin up the various team sheets for the forthcoming matches on the Saturday.
There were five League matches of the season remaining. Sheffield United had just about consolidated in our return to the First Division and were lying fourth from