Travelling to that first tournament entailed me getting onto an aeroplane for the first time in my life and it was not until some time after that I was able to get my feet back onto the ground, because we won the tournament and I scored the winning goal against Juventus. I was through on goal and smashed the ball into the net and when, in celebration, I went to retrieve the ball out of the back of the net to take it back to the centre circle, it caused an affray. Half of the Italian team jumped on me and I emerged with half of my shirt missing and my number eight floating away on the breeze. This was my first bitter experience of Italians and there were to be more in later life. We won the tournament the following year, too.
Another dream was fulfilled when, at the age of 16, I was picked for Manchester United reserves. The fixture list could not have been kinder if I had compiled it myself, because I made my debut at no other venue than Molineux, home of Wolverhampton Wanderers. I don’t know whether my failure to score was down to nerves, inability or a lack of desire to hurt my favourite club, but we won anyway. Before I was 17 I had played a dozen reserve games which, at that time at Manchester United, was almost an achievement of the impossible. One of the games in which I played was a night match at Anfield, where I was given the friendly greeting as I stepped off the team coach of spit in my face accompanied by someone shouting, ‘Piss off, Fry!’ It was a daunting experience for one so young. I wondered how the agitant even knew my name. At the time it slaughtered me, yet it taught me what to expect. First the Italians, then the Scousers … there is another side to football. So often there are examples of abnormal behaviour brought on by the passion which the game engenders. In no other sphere of life can there be such a collective will to win.
One March day in 1962, a month before my 17th birthday, Matt Busby called me into his office.
‘You have done brilliant, son. The whole staff are very pleased with your progress at Old Trafford and I have decided to offer you a two-year professional contract.’
He added that he did not want me to worry over whether or not I would be taken on and that he wished to give me advance notice of his intentions. This was a lovely stroke and, to an extent, a relief because so many kids, myself included, were wondering what might become of them. The signing of this contract did not mean much in monetary terms. There was a few quid more, but the maximum wage of £20 a week was in place then and I was to receive £12 8s 0d (£12.40) and £8 in the summer. At the time Matt was writing a column for the Manchester Evening News Pink and when we returned from Zurich after winning that second tournament trophy he wrote that, in Barry Fry, United had on their playing staff the northern Jimmy Greaves. I had been scoring a lot of goals, right enough, and I had made the most progress of all the apprentices who had joined at the same time. My big moment had arrived.
United were still in the process of rebuilding after the devastation and heartbreak of the 1958 Munich air disaster. On that dreadful day I had gone home from school to hear the breaking of the news of the tragedy on the radio. The newscaster had barely got the words out of his mouth before I burst into tears. Like many others, I cried all day and night and for days afterwards. Before United had travelled to Germany they played in London on the Saturday and won by a big margin with a sensational performance. Having been to Wembley so many times I had been privileged to see Duncan Edwards, Tommy Taylor and Roger Byrne and I had all their autographs. It was almost as if I knew this trio who lost their lives personally. I was not a Manchester United supporter then, but I have always passionately supported England and those who played for England. The crash had a profound effect upon me.
Everybody in the country, and a lot of countries throughout the world, felt very sorry for Manchester United. When they played Bolton Wanderers in the FA Cup Final that year, there was almost universal support for them. I was in the crowd at Wembley and watched as they lost 2–0 to a couple of Nat Lofthouse strikes. Jimmy Murphy had done a brilliant job in getting them there. Matt Busby was practically at death’s door in hospital and Jimmy had everything to sort out, not least the immediate rebuilding of the team. It was an achievement in itself just to have got them to Wembley.
When, two years later, I walked into Old Trafford the pall of Munich was still hanging over the place. Jimmy, Joe Armstrong and John Aston were always speaking with warmth about the players who were lost out there; how genuine and wonderful they were as people as well as footballers. They always emphasised that. The older players like Bobby Charlton, Harry Gregg and Bill Foulkes simply would not talk about Munich. It was too painful. A funny atmosphere was created whenever Munich was mentioned and it became almost a taboo subject within the club. The hurt was just too deep. In Jimmy Murphy’s dealings with the older apprentices and the first-year kids, however, he would use Munich as an illustration of how triumph could overcome adversity. He was great for Manchester United. With his aloofness and the tremendous respect he was shown by everybody, the manager, Matt Busby, was always the boss while Jimmy was the one filled with fire and passion. They were a terrific team. Busby didn’t hand out many roastings but when he did you knew full well that you had been told off. Jimmy, on the other hand, was always sounding off. He would pack the skip for an away trip and there would always be a bottle of scotch stashed in between the freshly-laundered shirts, shorts and socks. I once witnessed him take a swig during his half-time team talk and shower all the players as he tried to emphasize a point he was making. Jimmy was the Welsh team manager at this time and he spoke in glowing terms about the country and his admiration for the players, particularly Cliff Jones and John Charles. Cliff was the greatest winger out there, known and universally admired for his spectacular diving headers. I played with him later at Bedford Town and I could relate to him because I had heard so many stories about him. Two of us would converge upon him in training as he flew in from the wing and he would simply and effectively knock us both out of the way as he went through in barnstorming fashion. He was only little, but very strong. He would have made a great jockey.
When I had played 15 or so games for Manchester United reserves I thought I had truly arrived. I was a professional now, and instead of going in at nine o’clock, I sauntered in at ten o’clock or half past. There would be training for an hour and a half and, after 12.30, you would have nothing to do for the rest of the afternoon. The routine for the older lads was to go to the races at Haydock, the now-defunct Manchester, York or Chester and, unfortunately, it became a regular occurrence for me to jump into their cars and go along with them.
My first-year digs, in which Mike Lorimer had a room to himself and I shared with Eamon Dunphy, were with Mrs Scott, but when I returned from my home in Bedford to renew the arrangement, having failed to write to her or telephone in the summer, I knocked on the door expecting to be greeted with open arms. This was far from the case. Unfortunately I had forgotten my manners. She rasped: ‘What are you doing here?’ I told her that I was back and ready for the new season only to be informed that someone had taken my place. I rang Joe Armstrong, who ticked me off big time. I was a bit naive about the ways of the world and, apparently, I should have sent her a cheque. As far as I was concerned, though, the club paid for the accommodation; I had never dealt with money. It was all a bit strange.
My room-mate Eamon, who had played for the Republic of Ireland schoolboys when I played for England schoolboys in a 2–2 draw in Dublin, was everything I wasn’t. For a start, he was intelligent. He had a healthy understanding of religion and politics and showed me a facet of life which I never knew existed when he came home with me to Bedford one weekend. On the Sunday morning he was up at the crack of dawn to attend mass at 7am. Eamon was able to talk authoritatively on a whole spectrum of subjects about which I knew nothing, yet his cerebral dexterity got him into a lot of trouble at Old Trafford. He would get on people’s nerves and, small though he was, he ended up in many a fight. All hell broke loose one day when he made a snide comment to the goalkeeper Harry Gregg, who was from Northern Ireland. Harry, a huge man, lifted him eight feet into the air and was clearly going to punch his lights out. Now, I see this and go running over from the five-a-side game in which I am involved to rescue the situation. King Kong could not be humoured. This time he lifted us