Appleby College - Argus Yearbook (Oakville, Ontario Canada)

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' J •«fc for ten years. During that time they were in the first division. They have not been since. I never liked Birmingham very much so I suppose dad did not. I remember kicking a ball all day in a corner of the field during pre-season training, and drinking mugs of tea with the players. There must have been about six sugars in each mug. Birmingham sold him to Rotherham. We didn ' t move house so dad drove up and stayed in a boarding house, coming down for the odd weekend. Once, I went up and ' stayed with him for a weekend. It was the time the Beatles released Hey Jude and I can remember singing it with him. We sang it at the breakfast table. That was the first time I ever saw saccharin tablets. I could not stand them from the start. It ' s uncomfortable to sit and watch your father and have people around you make com- ments about him. He ' s getting slow or Leggat ' s getting nasty out there. They were old fools who had probably never kicked a ball in their lives and who would faint if they had to play in front of fifty thousand people. They were people who couldn ' t hold a candle to him; quite Kappy to kho aim as long as he was famous, but with very short memories if he was dropped. •«. Rotherham sold him to Aston Villa, -as a manager. He coached the youth team; mostly boys under twenty-one not yet signed as professionals, on amateur teams with the club. Their games were on Saturday mornings , and I probably never missed one. Except once. I was kicking a ball about in the dressing room after dad and his team had gone out to the bus. I doubt i noticed them leave and, anyway, I thought he would come back for me. I have stayed there all morning The team was great although ' ' He .stiff ad a arge enough reputation to at- tract the bullies. He wasn ' t pole-axed every time he was on the field; but he was good enough to make anyone look stupid. cannot f emember any of them now. I knew them all then and I suppose I used to tell them off whefl they were on the field, in the game. 1 shouted as vehemently as jf my dad. I was ei K Dad signed as an amateur in order to be able to play for them. This was awful for me because those little thugs put the boot in and the referees seemed to turn a blind eye to it. I suppose it was because he was older. It ' s awful to see ydur father being kicked about. Soraetimes, I have nightmares in which I dream he is being beaten up and, despite all my efforts, I cannot help him. Shortly after dad became an ■amateur, the manager of the first team was fired and dad resigned in sympathy. I stayed with the man just two simimers ago when I went for a trial with Manchestei United ' s youth tesim. I lasted two days. » After dad resigned, he played with local amateur sides for a few years. He still had a large enough reputation to attract the bullies. It ' s not that he was fragile or unable to take care of himself; nor was he pole-axed every time he stepped on a fielS. But he was good enough to m e anyone took stupid. They vvspbd fefing iiim dd qa after he had bea them or when the ball had gone. That is so shabby. Bfft he never shied away; 1 0 not suppose he ever thought about it. Then he quit. After working as a salesman for Xerox for a short time, he was offered a job as coach df a professional team in Toronto. It was soul-destroying.

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r On Athletes by Graham Leggat My father was a professional footballer for twenty years. I first started going with him to training when I was about four. He used to take me into the dressing room before the game. I felt lost and frightened in all the heat and noise and the smells of win- tergreen and leather, but the sights of naked, sweating men getting stripped and rubbed down never bothered me. I never thought about it. The only time I was embarrassed was when the players teased me, or offered to teach me how to box. I sometimes kicked a ball about on the field. Out there, in front of the terraces, on a well-kept pitch, I would dribble the ball which came up to my knee. I do not remember feeling exhilarated at being on that field. I just played there, quite oblivious of the surroundings. I was quite content to kick a ball about. In fact, I remember being more excited at my friend ' s father ' s warehouse because I could climb about on the bags of cement. My father was very good. He was the best player of his time, in his position. He made twenty pounds a week for ten years and after that he made, at most, eighty pounds a week. He never encouraged reporters or television men. He never men- tioned to me anything about himself. I heard reports only from other people. He just played. He first started because it was a way to pay his college fees. After he got his degree, he just played. I can remember watching the games at Fulham from the Director ' s Box. I never watched for him in particular. I can ' t actually remember my dad playing. I remember other things about the games. There was a huge black gate at Fulham, with a Uttle door in it for the players and their families to step through, without letting the crowds in. I - J • remember the hordes of autograph himters waiting before and after the game; the hangers- on cornering the players and asking for complimentary tickets; the people hanging around just to be seen with the players. When we moved to Bir- mingham, Dad used to take me to see Coventry play, or Wolves. We It is unfortunate that the best players make the easiest marks. went to the V.I.P. loimge before the game for tea and sandwiches. Someone always wanted to talk to him and I would stand and listen, feeling really out of place. When we went up to the Director ' s Box to watch the game, I ' d listen to the conunents he used occasionally to make. There was a young fullback who played for Coventry that he liked. It was unfortunate that the best players make the easiest marks. Someone is always trying to make a name for himself. I kicked Leggat all over the park when I played against him. Although I never noticed, my dad was in- jured quite a lot. He broke his right leg twice and his left leg once. Or rather, someone broke them for him. They also broke his left arm at the elbow. He ' s got a pin in it still. He had the cartilage removed from his right knee. His right shin has a two-inch lump running down it. Someone came right through me one game. I never remembered him injured. He never mentioned it. When I was about seven, Fulham sold him to Birmingham City, after he had played for them

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tf The administration was more interested in pleasing the crowd than in letting him run his team. It has proved fortunate that they finally fired him. They did so after his team lost 6-0 to Bologna, a visiting Italian side. That night, before the game, I had been taken to the hospital with acute ap- pendicitis. He left the game at half-time, when the score was 1-0, and he put his assistant in charge. He came to the hospital. They never thought about that. It was easier to use him as a scapegoat. They appointed his assistant head coach. They were bloody Americans who couldn ' t even tell what shape a football is. They had no idea about who he was. He was just a name to them; a tidbit of news they could feed to the press. Now he works for a brewery as Director of Public Relations. He is still the best at what he does, but he is falling apart. He has to wear a back brace and, occasionally, one of those horrible sausage things around his neck. He cannot play too much golf or tennis because his elbow joints hurt. His knees hurt. He doesn ' t tell us and he tries not to show it but I ' ve seen him wdnce when he plays. Despite the fact that his injuries are catching up on him, he ' s the best athlete I have ever seen. In England, most of the players played because they ' couldn ' t do anything else. My dad played, initially, because it paid for his education. But not once when he was on the field did he think about the crowd or the money bonuses for scoring, or the pain. But it is impossible for the average person to see that. He sees the glamour and the money and the noise and the devoted public and the press clippings. He doesn ' t see what it ' s like on the field or in the dressing room. It is easy to say that it is a crowd-pleasing business. It is easy because, until you have been there and played with and against real players and experienced intensely the full range of emotions that sports supply; until you have been through the pain and despair and everything connected with athletes - you just cannot understand.