There were some good players in that team – Kenny Hampson and Glen Foster at the back, Jason Nash, who is now back at the school as a PE teacher and head of year, and little midfielder Sean Atkinson who could dribble for fun and who Dad loved to watch. I played up front, a Norman Whiteside figure, and had some success. The highlight was probably the day I scored seven in a game on my way to more than 40 in a season.
I went to watch my first league match when I was about seven. Dad had several season tickets at Manchester United and decided I was now old enough to be introduced to the glory that is Old Trafford. This might come as a big surprise to those sceptics from the blue side of Manchester, but there were and are a lot of Man United fans living in Lancashire. It became a regular routine – play football on Saturday morning, grab a quick shower, dash home for a bite to eat while watching Saint & Greavsie or Bob Wilson on Football Focus and then pile into Dad’s red van with four or five other fans in the back and head off to the match. We’d park near some warehouses, not far from the ground. Dad always tried to get a good spot to make a quick getaway after the game but, as he would never dream of leaving before the final whistle, it was usually pointless and we ended up in a traffic jam. On the short walk to the ground, we’d stop at Vincent’s Italian Ice Cream van to pick up a 99 and then meet up with Dad’s friend Kevin Thomas and his family under the Munich clock.
Even though these were not the glamour days at the Theatre of Dreams, I was still wide-eyed. Despite having Lou Macari, Gordon McQueen, Bryan Robson, Ray Wilkins and a young Mark Hughes, United were a workmanlike side who enjoyed a few good cup runs. Mostly the old boys around me talked fondly of the Busby Babes, the tragedy of Munich and the golden era of Charlton, Law and Best. Dad would also tell me about the great players he had seen at Burnley in the 1960s and, if I looked away when Ian St John or Jimmy Greaves were on TV, he’d say, ‘Listen to these guys, Ronnie. They were great, great footballers and they know what they are talking about.’ One of the biggest thrills for Dad when I played for Essex was finding out that Jimmy is a big cricket fan, and they often sat together, watching matches at Chelmsford. Greavsie’s son Danny ran the Essex shop for a while, and my wife Lorraine would help him out some days.
In those days, the average crowd at Old Trafford was around 28,000, so it was always a thrill when you listened to Stuart Hall on Sports Report on the way back from a game and heard him tell of 48,000 being ‘packed into the ground like red-and-white sardines’. Twice a season – against City and Liverpool – the crowd would be a 58,000 sell-out. These were always extra special occasions, particularly when we won.
As talkSPORT listeners will know, I’m still a Man U fan today, although I like to think that I’m not one-eyed and can appreciate other teams and great players whatever strip they wear. Even though Liverpool were ‘the enemy’, I still loved watching their great teams on Match of the Day and rather wished we had signed players like Kevin Keegan, Ian Rush and Kenny Dalglish. Things started to look up at Old Trafford after Alex Ferguson took over, although I can remember the time when the Stretford Enders were calling for him to be sacked. A good job they didn’t get their way! Dad used to watch the reserves as well and told me about a kid to look out for called Ryan Giggs. I saw Steve Bruce make his debut and Gary Pallister arrive and a string of great players like Paul Ince and the incomparable Roy Keane help put the club on the right track. Meanwhile, the youth set-up was discovering talents like David Beckham, Paul Scholes and the Neville brothers, Gary and Phil, who I played cricket against at Greenmount CC.
But for me the most exciting entrance – it was so much more than a mere arrival – I’ve witnessed while watching United was the day a Frenchman strutted on to the Old Trafford stage, his collar turned up, his chest stuck out as though he owned the place. Eric Cantona had just won the championship with Leeds United and Fergie had snapped him up for a bargain million quid. His presence seemed to instil confidence and self-belief in all the others. He was the catalyst for the breathtaking run of success that followed. He made a great club a great team and so, when Lorraine and I bought a proud-looking Doberman in 1999, he had to have a red collar and was named Eric.
Dad and I hardly ever had the same opportunity to enjoy watching first-class cricket together because of our playing commitments. I can only remember going to see one Lancashire county match before I joined the ground staff and I only watched one Test match as a boy. That was at Old Trafford in 1980. Sonny Ramadhin got us a pair of tickets in the VIP section for England against the West Indies and I turned up clutching my sandwiches in my kung-fu bag. Those were the days of the great West Indian pacemen and I recall Michael Holding taking a run up that seemed to start about two rows in front of where I was sitting. The Windies also had some very talented batsmen, including Clive Lloyd and Viv Richards. England had a few good players too, like Mike Gatting, Geoffrey Boycott and Ian Botham, but the star of the show was a little guy named Malcolm Marshall, who was quite new on the scene. He was only about 5ft 9in – tiny compared to his fellow quickies – but he steamed in, knocked over three quick wickets and caused an England collapse. I was massively impressed. Little did I realise that about 12 years later I would play against him. I only faced one ball, but at least I can say I batted against arguably the greatest fast bowler the world has ever seen.
The first West Indian paceman I ever faced was much more hostile. Franklin Stevenson came over to play for Greenmount in the Bolton League and he relished the uncovered wickets that at times made him almost unplayable. I was already in the Heaton first team and, at the age of 14, found myself watching this giant Barbadian charging towards me. Franklin was noted for his clever use of the slower ball, but I never saw any evidence of it that day. Fourteen or not, I was merely an obstacle to be removed and he tried to bounce the shit out of me from the first ball. I ducked and weaved and let a few fizz past my head. Several more whacked into my ribs and chest, but somehow I survived and gradually found a way of getting bat on ball and went on to score a half-century. We lost the game but such was the spirit at Heaton that the lads bought me a pint of bitter shandy to celebrate my achievement. It was a great feeling to be one of the boys when the rest of the boys were men, although, when I took my shirt off to go to bed that night, my body was blotched purple with bruises.
That reaction was fairly typical of Heaton. They had no money to pay amateurs and only a little for overseas professionals. Former Barbados and Kent all-rounder Hartley Alleyne was probably the biggest name they signed, but he’d already been around the wealthier local clubs before joining Heaton. I remember playing against him in the Huddersfield League. But if Heaton were seldom among the trophies, they enjoyed their cricket and were genuinely pleased to celebrate a young player’s success. They always made youngsters feel welcome and on a Friday night there could be more than a hundred kids playing cricket beneath my bedroom window. Jack Taylor was in charge of the juniors and Jeff Todd was club captain. They loved the fact that I was eager to learn and gave me tremendous encouragement. There was never any question of ‘when you get older’ – if you were good enough, you were old enough and they threw you in the deep end. I was in the Under-13 side before my seventh birthday and quickly got used to playing against boys much older than me.
Having hung around the dressing room a lot with Dad, I was used to the atmosphere and unbothered by the language. I didn’t blink twice when a guy named Phil Roberts, who was built like a tank, started coaching me at the age of 13 and yelled after one particularly bad, cross-bat shot, ‘If I ever see you play another shot like that, I’ll kick you up the fucking arse, you pillock.’ I got the point.
League cricket in Lancashire is an institution. It’s hard for people down south to realise just what a big part it plays in life up there. There are clubs all over the place – there must be 40 in the Bolton area alone – and, without wishing to preach, I believe it’s important that these leagues are supported. The clubs are great places for youngsters to grow up – there’s a nice social side as well as the sport and the whole family can get involved. Cricket clubs are not snobbish like some golf clubs and you don’t find the parents yelling obscenities at the officials like you do at a lot of youth football games. I think that most kids that come through the ranks