I had lots of complimentary comments
about my tributes to Ron Wylie and Peter Bonetti and then heard the
sad news Norman Hunter, like Bonetti a member of the 1966 World Cup
winning squad, had passed away, a victim of Covid-19. Leeds United
legend Hunter played over 700 games for the Yorkshire club and was
indisputably one of the finest defenders in the British post-war era.
Along with Billy Bremner and Jack Charlton, Norman 'Bite Your Legs',
formed the most famous half-back line in British football in the
1960s and 70s as Leeds, under manager Don Revie, rose from the
backwaters of the Second Division to win two league titles and many
other trophies in a glorious decade. Norman had an impressive record
against the Sky Blues – he was only on the losing side to City on
three occasions in 23 games between 1967 and 1977, the majority with
Leeds but also a handful with Bristol City where he moved to in 1975.
One of those defeats was a famous game at Highfield Road in 1971 when
City recorded their first top flight victory over Leeds in nine
meetings. City winger Quintin Young had the game of his life against
the England full-back Terry Cooper and Willie Carr outshone his
fellow Scot Bremner as goals from Chris Chilton, Ian St John and
Ernie Hunt gave City a 3-1 win. Another famous game, against Bristol
City in 1977, saw Norman come face to face with his old Elland Road
mate, Terry Yorath, as the two sides battled it out to avoid a
relegation spot. In front of almost 37,000 Hunter inspired Bristol to
draw level from 2-0 down before the news of Sunderland's defeat at
Goodison Park came through. With both sides realising that the draw
was enough to keep both sides up, the experienced Hunter and Yorath
instructed their players to stop playing and the Bristol back four
passed the ball amongst themselves. Norman won 28 England caps and
but for Bobby Moore would have won 100 plus caps. In October 1973
Norman was finally preferred to Moore for the vital World Cup
qualifier against Poland at Wembley. For a man who rarely made a
defensive mistake it was ironic that his error that led to Poland's
goal that night and although the game ended 1-1 England were denied a
place at the 1974 World Cup finals.
Steve Pittam has been a City fan for
over 60 years and was one of the 'famous 50' fans who travelled to
Plovdiv for the Sky Blues' European debut in 1970. He has lived in
Dubai for many years but still gets to watch a handful of City games
each season. In the light of the current situation Steve was
thinking about 1939 when war broke out and disrupted the football
season. He was interested to know the background to that season and
what happened.
Talk
of war had been on everyone's lips since the spring of 1939 as
Hitler's power and ambitions grew. City had finished fourth in
Division Two in 1938-39 missing out on promotion by just four points
and they were one of the pre-season favourites to go up. George
Lowrie, a young but promising centre-forward had been signed from
Preston in the close season and manager Harry Storer expected him to
make a big impact.
The season started on 12 August with
the traditional public trial match and 4,058 watched the Stripes beat
the Reds 6-5 with the 19-year old Lowrie scoring a hat-trick for the
first team. This game saw the appearance for the first time at the
ground of numbers on players’ shirts. A week later Lowrie scored
the winning goal as City beat Birmingham 3-2 in the Football League
Jubilee Fund friendly match in front of 7,979.
On 26 August, with Hitler’s Panzer
divisions on the verge of invading Poland, City opened the league
campaign with a 1-1 draw at Burnley. On Monday 28 August 1939 only
18,500 turned up for the first home game of the season, a derby
against West Brom. Tommy Green scored twice in a thrilling game in
which the Bantams threw away a 3-0 lead to draw 3-3. Many supporters
already believed war was inevitable and that football, as a result,
was insignificant, and stayed away. On Friday 1 September the
evacuation of children from London commenced but it was announced
that the fixtures for the following day would go ahead as planned and
City defeated Barnsley 4-2 at home with Lowrie marking his league
debut with a goal in front of only 11,611- people’s minds were
elsewhere and gates all over the country were low. The next day war
was declared on Hitler’s Germany and all competitive league
football was immediately suspended. It would be six years before it
would restart at Highfield Road.
The Coventry board did not waste time
in reacting to the outbreak of hostilities. Two days after Neville
Chamberlain’s fateful radio broadcast all playing contracts were
cancelled and the players and the majority of the staff were paid a
week’s money. Only three people were retained: manager Harry
Storer, secretary Bernard Hitchiner and groundsman Austin – all
three accepted a 50% cut in wages. Amongst the staff paid off were
Chief Scout Dick Bayliss and trainers Dick Hill, Leslie Bruton and
Arthur Fitton.
The outbreak of hostilities could have
not come at a worse time for the club. Despite a healthy bank balance
in the spring of 1939 summer wages of around £3000 had been paid out
in addition to £1750 for the signing of Lowrie and £1300 on ground
improvements. There was a tax bill of around £1000 due in early 1940
and normally the takings from three home games would cover that sum.
The pitifully low crowds for the first two home games put a spoke in
those wheels and the club were in dire trouble. They owed Sir John
Siddeley almost £20,000, having bought the freehold of the ground
from him two years earlier. He agreed to a two-year suspension of
capital payments but with no income and some fixed costs the club
were in serious financial difficulty and had to inform the Football
League that it could not meet its commitments.
By mid-September the FA announced that
regional friendly matches could be played but no player could be
paid, as all contracts had been cancelled and any receipts from these
games had to be donated to charity. City played six friendlies on
successive Saturdays but attendances were restricted by the Home
Office to just 8,000 and City's two home friendlies against Leicester
and Wolves were watched by less than this. In October a regional
competition was commenced with players being paid 30 shillings
(£1.50) per game. Season ticket holders were given the choice of
using their tickets for the wartime competition or returning them to
the club with a guarantee that when normal football resumed they
would get a free ticket.
City’s first game in the new
competition on October 21 was a 1-1 draw at Northampton and in the
first home game the following Saturday they trounced West Brom 6-3.
Several of the players who had appeared in pre-war games had gone off
to war but City were able to put out a strong side in the subsequent
competition. The club normally issued team sheets for their home
games with a typical print run of 1000.
Between
October 1939 & the final game on June 8 1940 the Bantams played
28 league games, finishing third in their section, and five Cup
games. The public’s reaction to these quasi-friendly games was
fairly apathetic with City’s home gates ranging from 1,212 versus
Leicester on a foggy Saturday before Christmas, to 8,713 who watched
a 5-2 win over the mighty Wolves in May. The winter was a severe one
which did nothing to encourage venturing out to watch the game. For
six weeks there was little or no football in the whole country with
January 27 seeing temperatures the coldest recorded since 1894. The
highlight of that first wartime campaign however was a 10-2 win over
Luton Town on Easter Monday. Tom Crawley scored eight goals, a club
record, including three in three minutes just before half-time. The
final four games were played in front of crowds of less than 1,500
and the low gates are not surprising considering that the British
Army was in the process of being evacuated from Dunkirk as Hitler’s
army forced them to retreat to the French coast.
Finally,
Steve asked me to mention the passing of City fan John Howard. Two
years ago John had to miss the away game at Cheltenham as he
was in the George Eliott hospital having surgery for bowel cancer.
This was the first City game home or away that he had missed in over
20 years, including all cup ties. Over the last 2 years he had still
managed to get to all City games despite his cancer treatment,
including the FA Cup replay at Ipswich, only missing the last 3-4
away games. Three weeks ago he sadly passed away at Myton Hospice.
Although based in Coventry, he worked near Weston-super-Mare during
the week, travelling to all midweek games from there; Steve remembers
meeting him at Scunthorpe the night that Reda Johnson got sent off
when we were winning 1-0 - a bit of a journey but such dedication.
RIP John.
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