won’t,’ said Jimmy. ‘Besides, we’ll look after you.’
My mind was a whirl. I told Jimmy and Tommy no one had spoken to me about this and asked what the arrangements were for reporting to the ground and travel.
‘It tells you there, underneath the line-up,’ said Jimmy pointing to the team sheet.
‘Oh, didn’t see that,’ I said, feeling not a little foolish.
‘Bloody hell, Alan, I hope your eyesight’s a damn sight better on Saturday,’ Tommy quipped.
I burst out laughing but it was more a nervous laugh than anything to do with Tommy’s wit. The arrangements were simple enough. Players were to pack an overnight bag and report to Bramall Lane on Friday at 11am. We were catching the noon train to Newcastle from Sheffield Midland station. Collar and tie to be worn.
I wasted no time in getting home. When I told Mum she was so happy for me she was close to tears. When Dad came in from his shift at the pit and I told him my news, I may have been mistaken but I thought I saw his chest swell. Dad was in no doubt as to what he was going to do. He told me he would go down to Sheffield station the next day, find out the train times to and from Newcastle and buy a ticket to travel up on the Saturday. Brenda too was delighted for me and said she wanted to accompany Dad to see me play. I was thrilled to bits. I arranged to meet Dad and Brenda at the players’ entrance at St James’s Park so that I could give them a couple of complimentary tickets.
When I reported to Bramall Lane on the Friday morning I was met by a sports reporter from the Sheffield Star who asked for my reaction to my debut. I still have the cutting of that report. The headline reads, ‘Thrilled To Bits’ (see, I told you I was), beneath which is a photograph of a smiling yours truly in my goalkeeper’s jersey. The piece quotes me as saying my selection ‘came as a complete surprise’, which it did. The report then goes on to say my visit to St James’s Park would be my second in successive Saturdays, ‘having kept goal for the club’s Central League side in their 4–0 defeat last week’. Not exactly the sort of thing a debutant wishes to read, albeit I am also quoted as saying, ‘I hope this trip will not have the same result.’ A quote which appears to have come straight from the John Cleese ‘School of the bleedin’ obvious’. The report also mentions the fact I joined United ‘a year ago’ and, somewhat curiously, ends by mentioning my cricket exploits with Thurcroft Main.
The team kit, boots, shin-pads and everything else required for an away game – first aid box, bottles of liniment, trainers’ bucket and sponge, towels, soaps and so on – was carried in a large wicker basket known as ‘the skip’. The skip was about the size of a small dining-room table and of similar depth. It was lugged on and off the train by the trainer and his assistant, or by the travelling reserve player, but when the kit came back soaking wet the weight of the skip doubled so that it became a four-man job to carry it.
As our Newcastle-bound train pulled out of Sheffield station I idly watched the platform glide by with increasing speed. In those days of steam trains, even though it had not rained for some days, the platform was wet, shining Bible-black and dotted with puddles.
At daily training the first team changed in the ‘home’ dressing room, the reserves in the other, so I didn’t know any of the first team players particularly well, certainly not well enough to engage them in conversation unless I was spoken to. About an hour had passed when our train stopped at York for a change of engine. In that hour I had hardly spoken a word to anyone. I had listened, though. The players’ talk was all of football and horse racing, some of it spoken amidst a game of cards. My silence was noticed by Joe Shaw, our centre-half.
‘Come on, Alan, son,’ said Joe, as he sat himself down opposite me. ‘You’re going to make your debut, put a smile on your face. Make your dream come true.’
‘I think I’m a bit anxious,’ I replied, ‘I don’t want to let anyone down.’
‘Let me tell you something, Alan, and this applies to life not just football,’ said Joe, his face adopting a serious look, ‘Whether you think you can, or whether you think you can’t, you’ll be right.’
I mulled that one over.
‘I don’t just think I can, I know I can.’ I eventually replied.
Joe leaned in closer and slapped me once on the knee with his hand.
‘Good lad!’
There are moments in everyone’s life that make you set the course of who you will be. I have learned that sometimes they are small, insignificant moments you do not immediately recognise as being pivotal and transitional. Sometimes they are big moments. I knew my debut at Newcastle was a very big moment in my life. Everyone needs one day, one chance to grasp the opportunity they have longed for. As Joe Shaw told me, a day to put a smile on their face, and make the dream come true. It’s funny how one day, ninety minutes even, can do so much. No one asks for their life to change, but I felt mine was about to. What’s more, I knew it was what I would do afterwards that would count. That’s when I would find out who and what I was. Deep down I was confident I would give a good account of myself in my League debut, but I was conscious this was just a start. I would have to continue to progress, to get better as a goalkeeper with each and every game if I was to achieve my dream of making a career in the game. I had learned a lot in my first year at Sheffield about goalkeeping and, the more I learned, the more I realised how much there was to learn. I calmed my nerves by convincing myself my debut was not an ordeal to overcome but a doorway to the future.
We stayed at the Station Hotel which, you’ll not be surprised to know, is next door to the station, St James’s Park being only half a mile away on the periphery of Newcastle’s city centre. After an early sitting for dinner our party took off to the Empire theatre. At a time when very few people owned a television set, theatres would present a bill boasting all manner of variety acts in support of the star of the show. That night we were entertained by dancers, a comedian, a spinner of plates and a magician before the American singing star Guy Mitchell eventually took to the stage to thunderous applause.
Going to an early evening performance at a theatre or cinema was the norm for a top team when playing away from home. The idea behind these trips was to relax the players and, I suppose, at a time when hotel rooms did not have TVs, to dispel boredom. There was also the idea that a night out together galvanised team spirit and togetherness. Such trips remained part of the pre-match routine for a team playing away right up to the early 1970s, when there was a complete revision of what was best for players in terms of preparation for a game, and the ubiquity of television took variety acts and, audiences, away from theatres.
After the theatre we took tea and toast in the hotel lounge, another ritual of away trips, before taking to our rooms at 10pm I was sharing a room with right-back Cec Coldwell but I slept fitfully. My mind wouldn’t rest. I lay in bed thinking about the game, what I would do, what I might do. I tried to sleep and cursed myself for not being able to as I knew I needed a good night’s rest. I eventually dozed off around half-one, but was up and about before seven the next morning. I just couldn’t wait for the game – my doorway to opportunity.
As we players changed in the dressing room Reg Freeman came and sat next to me. In keeping with daily training, Reg had hardly said a word to me since we had assembled at Bramall Lane on the Friday morning.
‘This is your big chance, Alan,’ Reg said, as if I needed any reminding. ‘Just go out and play your normal game.’
That was it as far as words from Reg went. He gave me no instructions about what he required from me at corners, goal-kicks, or distributing the ball when I had gained possession. No advice as
