Tortured by Jeff Holmes

Author:Jeff Holmes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pitch Publishing
Published: 2020-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Twelve

THE 1932/33 season ended with Sam pocketing a league winners’ medal. Rangers had edged Motherwell to the title, with Celtic a distant fourth. Individually, the campaign hadn’t been as successful as the previous one for the Irishman. Sam had managed just ten league goals (from 25 starts) as opposed to the 33 scored by Jimmy Smith in 34 games. Bob McPhail had notched 30, and even Jimmy Marshall and Jimmy Fleming had outscored Sam.

But when the touring Rangers party arrived back on home soil from the continent, the players said their goodbyes and headed off to spend quality time with family. In Sam’s case, there was only one possible destination – the Ayrshire resort of Girvan. Sam, Sadie and the two girls headed south and settled in their usual digs, close to the beach and all local amenities, but their annual holiday was cut short by a summons from Bill Struth: Sam was to return immediately to Ibrox.

There was little else for it but to comply, so he shrugged his shoulders and headed back to Glasgow. Approaching the main door at Ibrox, he thought back to the last time he had been ordered to the stadium – two years earlier for his midnight meeting with Struth. Somehow this was different, though. It felt different. This time, trepidation replaced nervous anticipation. Struth wasn’t calling him back to offer a pay rise or tell him what a wonderful season he’d had. No, something wasn’t right, and there was only one way to find out.

He was ushered upstairs to the manager’s office, and his heart pounded with every step he took up the marble staircase. He was a bag of nerves as he approached the office door. Another defining moment in the Sam English saga.

In his 1963 interview with the Daily Express, Sam recalled, ‘I wanted to remain in the game – and with Rangers. But after two seasons the boss called me to Ibrox from a Girvan holiday. Bluntly, he told me Liverpool had made an offer and that I would be transferred.

‘I admit that some of the edge had gone off my game. Goals came less readily. The heart had gone out of me. Still, it was a blow to leave Ibrox. There and then I thought I might as well give up the game, but when I spoke to Liverpool manager, George Patterson, he said to me, “Come and try it at Anfield. Maybe you’ll find it different there.”

‘I cannot remember how the boss said goodbye, or even if he did. Struth was a distant man.’

There were few media announcements in the 1930s. If Struth wanted to get a story out, he would summon certain ‘trusted’ journalists to Ibrox and feed them a line. On this occasion, though, a few reporters had caught wind of this ‘sensation’ and one journalist in particular reported that Sam English was to leave Rangers – but that his destination was Dens Park, Dundee. Of course, the story was only half right. On Monday, 24 July 1933, Sam signed for Liverpool.

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