BRITISH COMICS
MY NUMBER IS NINE
This
episode, taken from The Wizard issue: 1695
Bradwick City are the best team in
the First Division – yet nobody supports them! Why?
Centre-Forwards
are crazy. Otherwise they aren’t much use to a team. When I say that
centre-forwards are nuts I’m excluding the fellows who shirk the jarring crunch
of a tackle, the bruising shock of an iron shoulder, the searing pain of
stamping studs on the bones of your feet, the risk of splitting your head open
on a bony skull. But I wouldn’t call such fellows centre-forwards at all. I
will start with an illustration of why centre-forwards are crazy. It happened
near the end of our last game. I’m Stan Stagg. Where do I play? Need you ask?
My number is nine. I’m Bradwick City’s centre-forward. Bradwick are in the
First Division of the League. It was a football critic who wrote this about me
a few weeks ago – “Stagg is one of the country’s best centre-forwards, though
he has yet to obtain the favour of the England Selectors. “He is a shambling
fellow with dark, untidy hair, who slouches about the field like a man with a
chronic grievance who is carrying a chip on both shoulders. “He has a flair for
appearing to be taking no interest in the game whatsoever and then
materialising in the right spot at precisely the right second. “He kicks a ball
as if he hates it.” In the match about which I’m going to write we were playing
Huntford United at home. With ten minutes or so to go nothing had disturbed the
goal nets except the breeze. When I write about playing at home, that signifies
no advantage at all. I suppose that thirty thousand spectators were watching
the game. You will note that I have not described them as supporters.
Supporters? The idea makes me laugh. At the slightest chance they gave us the
bird. Bradwick, you see, is one of those mushroom industrial cities where the
few locales have been swamped by incomers. To the Scots, who were watching we
did not compare with the Rangers or Celtic. Welshmen, indeed to goodness,
measured us up against Cardiff City and found us lacking. You can guess what
the Lancashire folk said about us, comparing us with Preston North End, Bolton,
Manchester United, and the other Lancashire clubs. I think one reason for our
unpopularity, whether home or away, was that we were regarded as a snooty team.
It was definite team policy to play football at all times, under all
circumstances. We knew we were good. We believed we were so good that, by and
large, we could lick the other team plus the referee and the linesmen if need
be. We believed we could do it while playing strictly to the rules even if the
other side were grabbing every advantage that trickery could obtain. Because of
this attitude we were often called Big Heads. Maybe it’s true. You can make up
your minds as regards that after reading my story. That’s what I’d like you to
do. First, meet our team. I reckoned I was crazy to play centre-forward and
Mick Granville had the same streak for the risks he took as goalie. If the game
had been played with red-hot cannonballs he would still have stopped ‘em. The
right-back and captain was George Anderton. He was so calm and unruffled that
he would finish a game with every hair still in place. Our left-back, Vic
Hooper, would have tackled a runaway train. Arthur Marton, the centre-half, was
the tallest man in the side and as quite off the filed as his younger brother,
Ticker, was noisy. Ticker Marton played left-half. In Willie Duncan and Nipper
Lloyd we had two fast, tricky wingers, though the latter was only a
bantamweight and small bantam at that. I had no complaints about the
inside-forwards, Eric Chadwick and Bert Hutchings. The latter was the veteran
of the team and saved himself a great deal of running about by using his brain.
He was nicknamed Baldy. Yes, I know I’ve left out the right-half, but now he
has to come in. His name was Harold Harley. He had a pale face and sandy hair.
There is just one man in football I hate and that man is not Harley, but my
dislike for Harley came near to it. He got in my hair and I got in his. At the
time about which I’m writing we had not spoken to each other for a week. I shall
have no respect for the judgment of the England Selectors until they give the
blighter an international cap, though. You see, although in my opinion he is a
stinker, I also think he is the best right-half playing in British football. I
happen to know he thinks I’m the best centre-forward. He thinks I stink too!
An “Impossible” Goal
The
ball went out near the halfway line and it was our throw. I stood in the middle
of the pitch looking as if my feet were held down by tent pegs and guy ropes.
My sleeves hung loosely and my shirt with it’s number nine on the back was
outside my shorts. My stockings were just staying up. Our great trainer, Doug
Barrington, did not care for it and called me a scarecrow. But he did not tell
me to alter my get-up. He knew I had a reason for looking as I do. When I play
football I must feel loose and free. Harley picked up the ball and turned it
over in his hands in a certain way. It was a signal and I knew where he was
going to throw. Huntford United had given away five goals in eleven games, so
strong was their defence. But the crowd were on to us as if we had failed to
score against the Bath Chair Rovers. Harley faked a throw up the wing and I
loped swiftly into the space into which he flung the ball. I trapped it and
took it along in the same movement. Armitage, the Huntford centre-half, one of
the hardest stoppers in football came ramping towards me. He turned the scales
at fourteen stones and was as quick on his feet as a featherweight boxer. I
could nearly feel his breath on my face before I flicked the ball past him. He
barged into me and rocked me backwards. He felt as if he were cast in
reinforced concrete. Baldy Hutchings was on to the ball like a terrier and
netted. The linesman with the red flag wig-wagged it violently. The referee
gave a long blast on his whistle and pointed to the spot from which Baldy had
shot. He had judged Baldy to be offside. Baldy was not offside. He had been
behind the ball when I passed. We did not protest. We did not approach the
referee. We did not say a word. It was not our way. As I have told you, we
reckoned we were good enough to beat the other team, the referee and the
linesmen. So, when the referee made a bloomer, we treated it with silent
contempt. The referee glared round as if expecting to have to argue, but all he
saw were our backs as we turned them on him. Armitage bawled at Clarry Clint,
the right-half, for letting me get away. We soon came on again. Ticker Marton
cracked the ball towards me. I took a bash in the back from Clarry Clint but
passed back to Harold Harley. I could read his thoughts and he could read mine.
He held the ball for a few moments and then lobbed it down the middle. Before
the ball actually left his foot I spurted, brushing past Clint and jinking so
that he could not get at my feet to hook me over. The ball was going to bounce
high between Armitage and me, and I guessed he would take a full-blooded kick
at it. Because centre-forwards are crazy I went after that ball as hard as I
could run. If your number is nine you make sure of getting to the ball first
and counting your teeth afterwards. I did not spare a glance for Armitage. My
eye was on the ball. I rammed my head into the ball and then saw the studs of
Armitage’s boot as I jerked my face back. The goalie, Cardew, hurled himself to
the side and just deflected the ball round the post for a corner. Armitage
clapped his hands as a signal for the United to pack the goal area. Nipper
Lloyd placed the ball in the quarter-circle for the corner-kick. I stood near
the penalty spot with Armitage covering me. Nipper smacked in a power drive,
the ball rising head high towards Baldy. Our veteran was mighty quick with his
header. He nodded the ball down towards the goal and there was so much velocity
behind it that it cannoned off Cardew’s hands. With players tearing towards the
ball I launched myself at it as if fired from a torpedo tube. The ball was
inches off the ground as I banged my head against the ball and sent it into the
net. The studs of a boot raked my cheek and then Armitage fell on top of me. He
came down hard and my spine bent under his weight. The newspapers were likely
to state that Stan Stagg had scored another of “his impossible goals.” They
would be wrong. It was not impossible. There was a chance and I took it because
I am a centre-forward and centre-forwards are nuts. The crowd were cheering,
but it was not worth bothering about. Earlier on they had jeered when I’d shot
over the crossbar. I flipped an eyelid at Baldy and he winked at me. We were
not a team to indulge in hand shaking and hugging when a goal had been scored.
When we saw the ball in the net we were satisfied. A minute or two afterwards
the game ended. Armitage came up to me with his hand out. He was a stopper and
a good one. He had handed out some vigorous tackling and blocking. I did not
like it, but I could take it. He had not come on to the field with the
determination to cripple me. He wasn’t like the man I hate – a centre-half who
is a killer by instinct and design. You are going to hear about him now. The
match with Huntford had been played on a Wednesday, Bradwick’s early closing
day. I did not hang about afterwards and within an hour was sitting in a Diesel
train on my way home. The front seat of a Diesel is a good place for looking at
the scenery. I had ten miles to travel to reach Hestford, the small town in
which I have lived all my life with the exception of the two years when I was
doing my National Service. The landscape was largely slag-heaps, ash tips,
scraped earth, scrummy pools and canals. Hestford had been a small country town
which had become the centre of a mining region. Tradition dies hard, and
country folk still came into town on market days. The interests of the district
are football, racing whippets and pigeons in that order. The train reached
Hestford and I walked across the platform with my hands in my pockets. I did
not have to take them out to show my season ticket. The porter on the gate
looked at the scrapes on my face. “What have you been doing to your face?” he
asked. “A budgerigar scratched me,” I said. I heard him laughing as I walked
away. I was spoken on and off as I went along Station Street. There was a fat
man standing at a corner, thumbs hooked in the top of his trousers. He had a
ragged moustache and a bit of a squint. The blue scars of a miner were in his
skin and if you looked hard you could see faint burn scars as well. His name
was Eli Cooper and he had a funny, squeaky voice. It was a strange thing that
Bradwick City had never been popular with the Hestford folk. They supported
Ledworth Rovers, a Second Division team, fifteen miles away. “Ah, you made hard
work of it, didn’t you, Stan? Said Cooper shrilly. “Les went over on his
motor-bike and says you should have had a bagful of goals. “There was a reason
for it, Eli,” I said. “Our team have got a rotten centre-forward.” Eli was the
last man in Hestford off whom I should try to score with some cheap gibe. You
see he had a crazy streak, too. Only a fellow who was crazy would have gone
through the fire-doors without a mask when there was a gas explosion at
Hestford Main Colliery and fetched three men out of an inferno, finishing with
his own clothes blazing and in hospital for months. Eli could say what he liked
about my football. There was only one man in Hestford that I hated! I turned up
a steep street to reach the terrace where I stayed with my widowed sister, Vi.
Here husband had died as a result of war wounds about four years previously.
Shrill yells rose from a rough bit of ground and I looked down on to my first
football pitch. The Tin Can Dribblers were having a game and among them was my
nephew, Alfie, a lad of nine. Though a tin can was their usual football, that
evening they had a red rubber ball. It was unlikely to last long. It would soon
get lost. While I was there it required a frantic dash by Alfie to stop the
ball bouncing into the black water of an old quarry. At the top of the street
was a terrace consisting of five houses in a row. I lived in Number One. The
front door of Number Five opened and Ray Copsbrook, the centre-half of
Greyborough, another First Division team, stepped out. He was tall, and broad
across the shoulders. Ray Copsbrook was the man I hated. He was a killer
centre-half. He was the meanest, dirtiest player in football. You will be
hearing a great deal about Copsbrook and of my tussles with him. I had been
sixteen when my attitude towards Copsbrook turned to hate and I am going to
tell you why. It will be necessary to flash back, as the film people term it,
but it is the only time I shall go back in the course of this narrative.
My Big Chance
After
I left school I played centre-forward for Hestford Vics, a team in the Ledford
and District Youth League. At that time Copsbrook played for the Rovers,
another club in the same League. Although we lived in the same row of houses we
had not attended the same schools. My father, a steeplejack, had got me into
the Foundation School, an ancient institution in the town. Copsbrook went to
one of the secondary schools. I scored many goals for the Vics and this led up
to a big surprise. Most of the Vics were former pupils of the Foundation School
and, in the winter when it was difficult to train, we had the use of the gym on
one evening a week. Mr Pritchard, the sports master, kept his eye on us and was
a help in many ways. I can remember as if it were yesterday how we were
training in the gym one night in October when Mr Pritchard, who was later than
usual, appeared in the doorway. He fetched his whistle out of his pocket and
gave a couple of toots. “I have big news for you and especially Stan Stagg,” he
announced in the hush. “Stan, I’ve heard that you’ve been picked to take part
in the Youth Trial at Cammington Park on Saturday week.” I just stood and gaped
at him. “I’m not as surprised as you look,” he chuckled. “I think you have an
excellent chance of getting your cap and playing in the Youth International
against Scotland. “That’s not all,” went on Mr Pritchard. “Hestford has
certainly got into the picture because Ray Copsbrook has also been selected.
You’ll be playing against him, Stan, as he has been picked for the Reds and you
for the Blues.” The idea did not depress me because in out League against the
Rovers I had scored a couple of goals. After gym I celebrated my selection with
the other lads with a blow-out comprising pop and fish and chips. In spite of
the feed I felt I was treading on air as I made my way home with the news. When
I reached the top of the hill I saw Copsbrook. He was sitting on his bike by
the lamp-post talking to a pal, “Have you heard the news?” I demanded. “We’ve
both been picked for the Youth Trial.” “We never have!” he blurted out. “I
expect we’ll get a letter in the morning,” I said. “Mr Pritchard has just told
me. Copsbrook’s eyes gleamed. “If you’re pulling my leg I’ll scrag you!” he
said. “We shall be up against each other,” I said. “We’re on opposite sides.”
Copsbrook grinned. “That’s bad luck for you,” he replied. He spoke jauntily and
I never guessed there was any threat in the words. Both my mother and dad were
alive in those days and they shared my excitement. On the following Saturday I
had a goal-scoring spree in our League game and put the ball in the net seven
times. The next week seemed about a month long. Saturday came at last and at
half-past ten in the morning twenty-two lads fanned out on to the pitch in
Cammington Park, the ground of the famous Albion. I was among them, proud as a
peacock in my jersey with the number nine on the back.
Stan v. Copsbrook
The
ground had a capacity of 70,000. I have played there many times since when it
has been crammed. On the morning of the Youth Trial the gate probably did not
amount to seven hundred. At first it was a scrappy game, with the teams
consisting of individuals who had to establish some sort of touch. We were on
the defence at first while I mooched about wondering if I were ever going to
see the ball. At last our outside-left, a very tall, thin fellow, got a pass
and went down his wing at a terrific bat. He swerved in and put the ball
towards me along the ground. I was just outside the penalty area and had the
inspiration to shoot. I shot without trapping the ball and it whizzed wide
of Copsbrook and the Reds’ goalie and
finished in the corner of the net. It was the big moment of my life. Within a
minute or so the Reds equalized with what I considered to be a soft score. It
was not long before our lanky outside-left made another run. This time
Copsbrook advanced towards me to blanket any first-time shooting chance. The
outside-left was a cute player. He did not pass directly to me, but placed the
ball behind Copsbrook. He put a bit too much weight behind it, however, and it
skipped towards Willis, the back. I raced for the ball flat-out. It did not
matter to me that Willis was a heavy-weight compared with me. With my gaze on
the ball I went for it. I was crazy in those days, too. Only goals counted.
Willis, perhaps worried by the occasion, lashed hurriedly at the ball. He
failed to get much loft on it. Biff! It hit me smack between the eyes and flew
from my head into the goal. I was not completely dazed and was conscious that
I’d scored. That made up for everything. The referee took my arm. He asked me
if I were all right. I said I was and he did not whistle for the trainer. By the time the game had run another couple
of minutes my head was clear again. When I next got the ball I steered it out
to the left. The winger failed to dodge Willis. There was a skirmish and the
ball went out for a corner. The kick led to a melee in front of the goal. In
the swirl of figures I saw a chance of getting the ball and darted for it. I
clashed with Copsbrook. We were at close quarters when he brought up a knee to
my groin and I dropped, writhing in agony. The referee did not whistle till he
saw me tucked up. “He hurt himself when he rushed into me, ref.!” exclaimed
Copsbrook. Copsbrook had been so slick with the foul that he was not suspected
of dirty play. When I had been carried to the side of the goal the referee
restarted the game by dropping the ball. There was no free kick. I was off the
field for about five minutes during which time the Reds equalized. “Sorry you
laid yourself out, Stan,” said Copsbrook loudly on my return. I didn’t say
anything. What was the use? I got stuck in and got the ball after my teeth had
been rattled by a shoulder charge from Betts. I shot hard and it was another
corner as the goalkeeper tipped the ball out. . Copsbrook and I sprang for the
ball as it came over and I deflected it with my head to the left. We landed. An
instant later I felt excruciating pain as he brought his heel down on my
instep. The outside-left scored from my header, but, gritting my teeth, I went
down. The referee whistled for the goal and then saw me stretched out. “What
happened?” he exclaimed. “His foot got under mine as we dropped,” said
Copsbrook and there was a look of dismay on his face at hurting me! He was a
great actor all right! I was carried away, and when they got my boot off it was
found that a bone was broken. I played no more football for months. . Copsbrook
was capped for the English Youth Eleven. Since then he had become a famous
centre-half. He had not played for England as a senior, though many sports
writers urged his inclusion. He was robust. That was what they called him.
Certainly he played a relentless game, said these sports writers, but what was
wrong with that? But there was plenty that they had not spotted about him. .
Copsbrook was so slick when he hurt a man that he had never been detected.
Every centre-forward who had come up against him knew what sort of player he
was, however. Many feared him. I did not fear him. I hated him. He had gained
his Youth cap by crippling me. I lived for the day when I could blast his
reputation with a goal scoring blaze. When Copsbrook came out of the house he
looked at the marks on my face and just raised his eyebrows. I turned my head
away from him and hurried on. My next clash with Copsbrook was soon to take
place. On Saturday we were playing Greyborough. Goals against him there, a lot
of goals, would gag the sports writers. There would be an end to the demand
that he should be picked for England. In a small town like Hestford the fact
that Copsbrook and I were not on speaking terms was, of course, widely known.
My sister, who was several years older than I, opened the door for me. “In
trouble again,” she said when she saw my face. “I got it heading the winner,” I
replied. “You’re daft,” she said. That was when we heard the yells and saw the
lads gathered in an agitated cluster at the edge of the quarry pool. “One of
them’s fallen in!” Vi screamed. I ran down the street as fast as I could swing
my legs and swerved on to the rough piece of ground. Terrified faces were
turned towards me as I sprinted towards the pool. “Alfie fell in!” one of the
boys yelled. I flung my coat off and, as I eyed the dark surface, I saw a pale
blob some yards out from the side. Without waiting to take off my shoes I dived
in. The cold was paralyzing and took my breath, but I struck out and clutched a
handful of jersey. I hauled Alfie to the side and dragged him out. Vi had kept
her head. One of our neighbours was an ambulance driver and she had him with
her. He came running down in his shirt sleeves. Alfie was so limp and still I
was afraid he was dead, but I can say at once that the ambulance driver’s
artificial respiration brought him round. I stood watching the ambulance man,
stood in my wet clothes while the chill seeped in. In fact, it was not until we
had carried Alfie home and put him to bed that I really realised how cold I
was. I woke in the night with the shivers and in the morning I had a raging
cold. I was wrapped in the eiderdown when at about ten o’clock I used the
phone, rang up the ground and spoke to Doug Barrington, our trainer. “I’m going
to nurse a bit of a cold today, Doug,” I said. “Yes, you sound thick in the
head,” replied the trainer. “D’you think you’ll be fit for Saturday?” I had an
honest chance of dodging a tussle with Copsbrook, for you did not get over a
cold like mine in a day or two, but I’m a centre-forward, and, therefore,
crazy. “I won’t miss it,” I said. “You can count on me to turn out at
Greyborough!”
MY NUMBER IS
NINE 40 episodes appeared in The Wizard issues 1695 – 1734 (1958)
© D. C. Thomson & Co Ltd
Vic Whittle 2004
