All Crazee Now by David Tossell

Author:David Tossell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pitch Publishing
Published: 2021-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

PRESSURE POINTS

REG: I just don’t understand what’s happening any more. Everything I was taught as a child seems to have gone by the board. It’s like living in no-man’s land, except you can’t see the enemy and you don’t even know where your comrades are.

Rooms (Robert Holles; Thames Television, 1975)

Loved in Yorkshire since the early 1960s and admired around the country – although hardly considered national treasures – Geoffrey Boycott and Don Revie were occupying the thoughts of those determining the fortunes of England’s national teams in the summer of 1974. Boycott had been dropped as England’s opening batsman after a couple of failures against India and even the riposte of a big unbeaten hundred in the County Championship could not force the selectors to bring him back for the third Test. While Boycott, already a veteran at 33, was seeing his place go to David Lloyd, a man seven years his junior, it appeared that age might also be a factor in the identity of the next England football manager.

Joe Mercer, at 64, was considered sprightly enough to take temporary charge of England in the seven end-of-season games that followed the dismissal of Sir Alf Ramsey, but when it came to a full-time successor, reporters seemed hung up on the idea that the new man would have to be recently retired as a player to properly meet the nation’s demand for exciting and revolutionary change. Recently-departed FA secretary Denis Follows, who might have been expected to possess some insight into the selection process, had stated, ‘I omit Don Revie because I believe England now need a man under 40, a tracksuit man, possibly more able to identify with the younger players.’

It was a strange corner to risk being backed into, especially as the defining characteristic of old man Mercer’s interim reign was his close bond with the players. ‘Joe came breezing in and everything was done for a laugh,’ said Emlyn Hughes, who was chosen to captain the side. ‘He was just what the team needed.’433

While Revie was waiting in the wings with his near-obsessional need to know and document everything about the opposition, Mercer was more like CJ, the bluff boss in BBC’s The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, whose attitude was, ‘I didn’t get where I am today by knowing the difference between one country and another.’434 Mercer had even told the players before his first game, ‘I didn’t want this bloody job in the first place. We are all going to have a laugh and a joke.’‡

Revie was dismissed as a candidate by many early reports because, heaven forbid, he would be 50 by the time of the next World Cup finals. Meanwhile, Bobby Robson, Coventry’s Gordon Milne, Queens Park Rangers’ Gordon Jago and Bolton Wanderers’ Jimmy Armfield might not have any trophies, but the numbers on their birth certificates were apparently more palatable. Brian Clough, of course, was young enough and, according to most newspapers, the most popular choice among the football public. But his future buddy Boycott was as likely to get the job as he was.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.