Authors: Gordon Banks
Dougan made his debut for Leicester in our 3–1 defeat at Liverpool on the opening day of the 1965–66 season, but gave ample evidence of his quality as a player. He was a windmill of a striker whose talent and swirling personality were to leave their mark not only at Leicester City but on football in general. He
did a good job for us, though his views were as forthright as ever: ‘I was bought cheaply,’ he said, ‘and in comparison with my contract at Peterborough, paid cheaply.’ Not surprisingly, Derek was also a force in the Professional Footballers’ Association.
The Doog was never slow when it came to offering advice to his team mates. One Friday morning our centre half Ian King received a message to report to the manager’s office. In our previous match we had lost 2–0 at Nottingham Forest, a match in which Ian had not enjoyed the best of games. He was worried Matt Gillies was going to pull one of his manoeuvres, whereby he would talk to a player about his recent performances and work the conversation so that the player talked himself out of a place in the side.
‘When he asks me how I played against Forest, I’ll have to be honest and say “Not very well”,’ said Ian, ‘then Matt’ll say, “If you know you’re not playing well, then you’re out.”’
The Doog told Ian not to worry.
‘When the boss asks how you think you’ve been playing lately, bluff it out,’ he advised. ‘Say to Matt, “I’ve been great. Haven’t you been watching me, boss? Forest’s centre forward Frank Wignall never got a touch. I played him out of the game. I’m playing well, really well. Everybody is saying so. Why are you asking how I’ve been playing lately?” That way, Matt will be on the defensive. You’ll plant seeds of doubt in his mind and he’ll not feel justified in leaving you out of the team.’
Ian set off for Matt’s office in a very positive mood, determined to bluff it out and maintain his place in the side. Sure enough, during their meeting, Matt asked Ian how he thought he had been playing of late.
‘I’ve been great,’ said I an. ‘Haven’t you been watching me, boss? Frank Wignall never got a touch. I played him out of the game. I’m playing well. Really well.’
‘I know,’ said Matt, ‘but do you think you can play much better than you have been playing lately?’ (Check.)
‘Yes,’ replied Ian, without thinking.
‘Then you’re out,’ said Matt. (Checkmate.)
Following my injury I returned to the Leicester team in late September for a League Cup tie at Manchester City. It was to be an unhappy return, our 3–1 defeat putting an end to our hopes at the first time of asking. (Manchester City also put an end to our FA Cup hopes that year.) Our league form was once again inconsistent. We enjoyed some memorable results, including a 5–1 win at St James’s Park over in-form Newcastle United and five-goal victories over West Ham, also away from home, and Fulham. Having been beaten 5–0 at home by Manchester United, we then went and won 2–1 at Old Trafford, a series of results that summed up perfectly our topsy-turvy season. We played well in fits and starts, but all too often flattered to deceive. In the end our final league placing of seventh was respectable enough, but the overall feeling among the Leicester players was that it should have been better. Matt Gillies had added to our ranks full back Peter Rodrigues, a £45,000 signing from Cardiff City, and the club’s youth policy also saw David Nish and Rodney Fern elevated to the first team, but the consistency (both in performance and team selection) was never there.
Against Manchester United we had a strange record over the years, especially at home. We seemed to play really well against United, only to suffer defeat. In 1964–65 we played United off the park at Filbert Street but had to be satisfied with a 2–2 draw. And when the two sides met at Filbert Street in 1965–66, we were the only team in it, yet we lost 5–0. Rarely has a team had so much possession and besieged the opposition’s goal for so long only to incur a heavy defeat. Our tally of thirty-six corners and twenty-four shots on goal is an indication of just how much pressure we put on United that day. We hit the woodwork three times without finding the net. United had five efforts at goal and scored from every one! We started the game in much the same way as we were to continue, piling the pressure on the United
defence. Yet suddenly we found ourselves 2–0 down; first, from Best’s centre, the United centre forward David Herd rose to head the ball past me and into the net. Ten minutes later, following another sustained period of pressure from us, there was a repetition. Best again broke free on the left and Herd raced into the penalty area to meet his cross and plant a firm header past me. I had touched the ball three times in the match and on two of those occasions it was to pick it out of the net. What United gave us, of course, was a lesson in finishing. Our mistakes were severely punished, but we didn’t capitalize on theirs.
The margin of error in top-flight football is very small and nowhere more so than in goalkeeping. Unlike outfield players, a single error of judgement on a goalkeeper’s part almost invariably leads to a goal conceded. That is why I worked constantly at my game. I had established myself as a First Division goalkeeper and as England’s number one, but I never stopped practising and developing my craft as a goalkeeper, particularly my positional sense and anticipation.
While on international duty I had noticed a marked difference between British and foreign goalkeeping styles. The British keepers tended to be physically strong and dominated the whole of their penalty box. As I have described earlier, I had become very technically minded, whereas the continental goalkeepers I came across tended to stay on their own line more and rely on agility and reflexes. My style was to organize my defence so that I didn’t have to make a save at all. When a shot did come in I hoped that my positioning would make it easy to save, thus minimizing the chance of a mistake.
Yet crowds love the spectacular save while quietly taking for granted the efficient work that results from correct positioning. A prime example of this came in the England–Poland game played at Goodison Park in January 1966. During the first half Roger Hunt turned his marker, then hit a dipping shot towards the centre of goal. The Polish goalkeeper, Szeja, jumped up and with one hand tipped the ball over the bar. The Goodison Park
crowd, appreciative of Szeja’s acrobatic effort, gave him generous applause. Minutes later I was involved in a similar situation when the Polish forward, Sadek, tried his luck from similar distance. Having anticipated Sadek’s effort and got into position, I simply jumped and plucked the ball from under the crossbar. With the ball safely clutched to my chest there was almost silence throughout the ground. The Pole, in his flamboyance, had conceded a corner, whereas I had made what looked like a routine save – and retained possession.
Yes, goalkeeping can be a thankless task. But the fact that at times the fans might not have appreciated what I was trying to do never bothered me. Thankfully, though, one man did: Alf Ramsey.
I was relieved to finish the 1965–66 league season without picking up an injury. I gave nothing less than 100 per cent effort and application during the run-in, but the impending World Cup was always at the back of my mind. Leicester finished the season on a high note, beating West Ham United 2–1 in a highly entertaining game at Filbert Street. In the West Ham team that day was Bobby Moore, whom I was expecting to play alongside in the World Cup. Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters were also in that Hammers team. Geoff then had only a handful of England caps and Martin was thought of as a squad player, albeit one with considerable potential. Little did I realize the crucial roles both were about to play in the destiny of the World Cup.
In April of that year Geoff had won only his second cap, against Scotland in a cracking Home International match. We’d prepared for the Scotland match by training at Somerset Park, home of Ayr United, while staying at a nearby hotel. On the morning of the match I was given a foretaste of what was to come when bidding farewell to one of the hotel porters. He had been attentive and helpful throughout our stay and good value for the five-bob tip I’d given him.
‘Thanks for everything. Enjoy the game,’ I said.
‘Awa’n boil ye heid! I hope we pulverize ye!’ he replied, adding in the most polite of voices, ‘Oh,’n’ thank ye for the gratuity, Mr Banks.’
Though there was still an hour and a half to go before kick-off, the roads leading to Hampden Park were a seething mass of tartan-clad humanity. As the England team bus made its painfully slow progress towards the ground, some just leered at us, many jeered but a good proportion hurled insults and crashed their fists
against the side of the bus. John Connelly was beginning to feel very uneasy but Bobby Moore allayed his fears.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Bobby told him, ‘it’s just the traditional Clydeside shipbuilders’ welcome for the England team.’
In the sixties shipbuilding still dominated life in Glasgow. The shipyards, open to the sky, began at Greenock, from where they embraced the Clyde for miles. I can still hear the evocative sound of the Clyde at full tempo: an army of hammers echoing in the empty bellies of hulls, the fiendish chatter of riveters at work, the sudden squeal of metal tortured in a spray of bonfire-night sparks that died of cold as they fell. Ships could be seen lolling in cradles from Greenock to the very heart of Glasgow. Some were just keels, like whale skeletons; others, gaunt hulls of rusty red smeared with rectangles of airforce-blue paint. I saw vast oil tankers, seemingly miles long, almost ready for the bottle of champagne and then years in the Persian Gulf ahead of them. These were the shipyards of Billy Connolly and the labour activist Jimmy Reid, boiler-suit blue and testosterone driven. Come half five of an afternoon, out would spew the cloth-capped sprinters racing for the idling crocodile of Corporation buses.
As we probed our way towards Hampden it appeared as if all those Clydeside shipyard workers were on their way to the match, as well as a good many from Glasgow’s other artisans. They numbered in excess of 135,000 and at no time did I spot the friendly face of an England supporter.
Few grounds in the world could match Hampden for atmosphere and fanatical support on the day of a big game. The din of fists on the side of our bus matched the din of those shipyards – hammer, hammer, thump, an incessant racket that could unnerve even the strongest of constitutions. As the faces jumped up at the windows the invective continued.
‘We’ll dee ye sassenachs the day! We’ll have ye heids!’
Anglo-Scottish encounters would be eagerly anticipated by the players, too. With a Scots manager, there tended to be six or seven exiles in the Leicester first team squad at one time. For
England to lose would doom me to a whole season of merciless chaffing and ribbing from these exultant Scots. It wasn’t always friendly banter, either. On one occasion, during a five-a-side match Jimmy Walsh and Iriled each other so much that we actually squared up; Ian King and Davie Gibson had to step in and separate us. Our behaviour was out of character, but it shows just how high emotions ran among English and Scottish players prior to a meeting of the ‘auld enemies’.
The players were fervent, but the supporters verged on the rabid. As we disembarked from our team bus, fists were brandished and cans and bottles touted as we ran a gauntlet of abuse to the players’ entrance.
‘Ganna de ye lot the day, no mistakin’, ye shandy-swiggin’ southern bigheids!’
And that was from the commissionaire on the door.
‘Are they always like this?’ Geoff Hurst asked.
‘No,’ I told him, ‘come kick off, they get all worked up.’
When the teams walked out on to the pitch at Hampden, the noise descending from the heaving terraces was deafening: 135,000 tartan-clad souls not only made the welkin ring with one collective tumultuous roar, they appeared to crack it from east to west. After the official presentations I took off, cap in hand, to one of the goals for the pre-match kickabout. It was like being greeted by tens of thousands of irate geese, such was the incessant hissing resounding all around me. When the game kicked off the din somehow became louder than ever. Denis Law played the ball back to Billy Bremner. Billy played it forward to Jimmy Johnstone and when Jimmy made a darting run deep into the England half of the field, approval thundered down from the terraces like some Alpine avalanche.
Alf Ramsey had opted for a 4–3–3 formation for this game, though he would later modify this to 4–4–2 for the World Cup. In front of me was a back line of George Cohen, Jack Charlton, Bobby Moore and Keith Newton. The three-man midfield
comprised Nobby Stiles, Bobby Charlton and John Connelly with Alan Ball, Roger Hunt and Geoff Hurst in attack.
Once we had repelled the Scots’ initial onslaught the game settled down. Liverpool’s Roger Hunt worked tirelessly, making angled runs that pulled the Scottish defence all over the park and created space for Bobby Charlton and John Connelly to exploit.
The Hampden pitch was pretty devoid of grass after a season of constant use (unlike Wembley). Hampden was the home of Queen’s Park, who had the twin distinctions of being the only senior club in the UK to retain pure amateur status as well as being Scotland’s oldest football club, founded in 1867. I often used to wonder who on earth they played against? (That sort of question has always intrigued me. I once read that Baker Street was the first ever station on the London Underground. I thought, What was the point of opening just one? Where could you go?) In fact, during their formative years Queen’s Park played against English teams and actually competed in the FA Cup, reaching the final twice, in 1884 and 1885, losing to Blackburn Rovers on both occasions. Queen’s Park’s average gate at Hampden Park in the sixties was around 1,000. Hampden Park on the occasion of a Scotland–England game was a sight to behold, but I often wondered what it was like to play for Queen’s Park in that cavernous stadium with its Alp-like terracing when it was all but empty. The voices of the players must have echoed eerily around the fine old stadium. There must have been more atmosphere on the moon. Now it was packed to the gunwales with 130 times that number.