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....by Simon Cooper Published by authorhouse. Or go on <a class="postlink" href="http://www.amazon.co.uk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.amazon.co.uk</a>
or direct link <a class="postlink" href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_2_17?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=football+for+life+by+simon+cooper&sprefix=football+for+life" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_2_1 ... l+for+life</a>
Cut and paste
CHAPTER ONE
“KICK IT BACK TO ME SON”
Chapter tunes
The Beat - Can’t get used to loosing you
The Clash - Jimmy Jazz
Pink Floyd - Mother
If we all think back to our earliest memory of how we were
introduced to football, nine times out of ten it’s with your friends
or family, most probably your dad taking to you to the park to see
if you had “the gift”.
I was no different to any other son, nor was our kid Louis. I
remember it to this day, my dad taking us to a fi eld in Agecroft in
Salford with a bright orange Mitre football. As we got out of the
car he would run a few yards and think he was Dennis Tueart, I
remember him showing us how to kick the ball with the inside of
your foot, “this is called a pass” he would say!
At the time we found the dog funnier, as it would chase the ball
every time my old fella tried kicking it to us. Our kid and me
would be in hysterics as he would chase the dog dribbling the ball
with its nose all around the field. (It was a Jack Russell) So due
to this, our dads coaching sessions didn’t last very long and the
rest of our football education came from the schoolyard. In the
infants’ school it was rare someone brought in a full size football
so most of the time we played with a tennis ball with no nets. It
was just a pack of kids trying to dribble round the yard, the ones
who were crap just whacked it as hard as they could and everyone
made chase.
Around this time I remember an assembly being called as our
school, Mather Street Primary had won the junior league in the
local area. I remember being sat there as they were applauded
in, dressed in the full navy blue kit with smiles like Cheshire cats.
Every one of them was a hero and a legend in school and it is what
every lad including myself wanted to emulate playing football.
When we moved up from infant school to junior school the fi rst
thing we noticed was that playtimes just involved pure football.
The schoolyard was set out the ideal size for an enclosed football
pitch with a fence down one side and the school windows on the
other. At the goal ends you had a big red brick shed with a slate
roof, and the other goal was created by an enclosure for the bins
and waste food from the kitchens to create car access for the
yard. It was perfect for non-stop football, as it never went out for
a throw-in unless we had a crap goalkeeper who could not kick.
To top it off, ours was the fi rst year that the headmaster had
decided to divide the yards into male and female yards. So our
yard was all male, this made play time football time! 60 young
kids, 30 a side, one ball, no ref and no rules, just the PE teacher
looking on from a window for potential players for the school
team. Some days it would be City v United, other days it would
be picked teams, 1st years were always picked last therefore we
were always last!
Within my first year I had learned in that schoolyard how to
distribute the ball quickly, whether it be passing or shooting. If
you didn’t you would get clobbered off a 4th year player and taken
out. This carried on out of school as on our street we had an array
of football talent that were all older than our Louis and me. You
all as readers will have your own mentors but on our street it was
Jimmy Ford, Mickey Ford, Johnny Mac, Chris Lamb, and Andrew
Lamb. They were all older lads that we played with for hours at
the side of Pifco Mill in Failsworth. Some games in the 6 week
school holidays were played for up to 8 hours with breaks only
allowed if someone’s parents turned up with “jublee’s” or a bag of
ice pops. A Casey (leather football) would not last a full day due
to wear and tear, and fl yaway’s (cheap balls) would pop.
We literally played till the ball was worn out or popped, then go
home and watch Kick off with Elton Welsby on a Friday, or Saint
and Greavsie and Match of the Day on a Saturday. We became
football mad!
At about this time my mum and dad got divorced, and this had
a major impact on my life, I started to become a rebel and was
getting in trouble a lot in and out of school. I was getting involved
in car crime as well as burglary of commercial premises that were
mainly all the local mills in Failsworth. Also other less serious
things like annoying neighbours by collecting dog pooh in old
newspapers, placing it on a doorstep, lighting it and running away
hiding. The neighbour would come out of his house and stamp the
fi re out caking his shoe and pants in pure dog pooh…happy days.
Or tying cotton to people’s door knockers and pulling it from 10
metres away hidden behind bushes or a car, then watching the
neighbours be baffl ed with no one being at the door. We would do
this till it haunted them!
Due to all the trouble I was bringing to our home, my mum decided
in her great wisdom to get us a black and white portable TV for
our room to keep us in the house more. This was a dream and no
one on our street had one.
As my mum always watched Coronation Street over the years me
and our kid would watch Villa, Forest, Liverpool, Ipswich and
Everton have European success with all the kids off the street
watching live European midweek matches in our bedroom. Yes
every one had a TV but we just all loved watching it together on
the box in our bedroom, then replaying it ourselves in our heads
in the school yard the next day.
At the weekend my mum and dad agreed through the courts that
we could spend Saturdays with my dad. He started taking us to
Maine Road to watch City, at first it was a bit frightening as in the
late 70’s City were doing well with Tony Book as manager and the
ground was hammered every week which was a bit daunting for a
lad of 6 years old and his 5 year old brother.
My dad was a bus driver, and at that time if you were a City fan
from the north side of Manchester you got a bus from Aytoun Street
next to the Britannia Hotel in the city centre which took you to
the game. All the bus drivers were given free access to the game
and congregated at the back of the old wooden Platt Lane.
I remember it was a game against Spurs in the 76/77 season, and
I wasn’t really interested in the game as I was just astonished at
the amount of people all in one place, the noise, the smells, the
faces, the songs, the swearing, the conversations and the fact
that Dennis Tueart, our hero was somewhere on the pitch. It
was just too much for me to take in, and I was in the zone, just
dumbstruck! I wouldn’t say at that time it was enjoyable, it was
just a new adventure with my dad and I was happy just to be with
him. Not having my dad there Monday to Friday I used to miss
him and I knew our big connection was football and I missed his
coaching sessions.
The City thing hadn’t really kicked in with me yet, but I was slowly
coming round to it. I remember to this day when that happened.
It was that game…Spurs…………..
City scored and my dad grabbed both our Louis and me and swung
us around like rag dolls, I remember seeing the joy on his face and
all the other fans around us. The noise was like nothing I had ever
heard before; it grabbed the inside of my stomach and wrapped
it around my heart so I could feel it beating. It was something I
was to become addicted to, and still am. Our kid and me just
looked at each other, smiled and hugged our dad, we had found
something that connected us all and brought us all joy - It was
football!
I remember the second and third goals went in and we were
over our dad before he could even celebrate. We were now that
confi dent, we were joining in the singing with the rest of the Platt
Lane… “CITY WE LOVE YOU, WE LOVE YOU CITY WE DO…OHHH CITY
WE LOVE YOU” The game ended up with Booth, Tueart, Barnes,
Hartford and Kidd scoring and City winning 5-0. It was heaven!
Things that stick in my mind about that fi rst game was the
togetherness of everyone inside that ground. It didn’t matter how
old you were, how you looked, dressed or even where you came
from. If you were in the City end you were accepted, it was one
big happily family with one thing in common Manchester City F.C
The blues were now my family, our Louis’ family and my dad’s
family, we were all connected with everyone in that ground and it
was great to be a part of that.
Afterwards I remember having to always leave early and my dad
would have to start the bus on Lloyd Street near the Parkside pub
waiting to take the City fans back to the city centre. He would
then return the bus to the Queens road depot and take us back to
his house in Salford with a pink fi nal that our kid and me would
fi ght for. The pink was a sports paper that had all the days match
reports in and every stat you would want. After reading that for
an hour or so, me and our kid would get out Subbuteo, which was
the 70’s and 80’s equivalent of your Playstations FIFA game in the
modern day. It was a felt pitch laid out on the fl oor with two
teams of little fi gures of men with a half ball attached to their
feet. When we played it was major pride at stake, and many a
time we would have to glue the men back together because one of
us had smashed a full team of these little fi gures up the previous
week through having a rage at losing.
We also collected Panini stickers and football cards that came
with a free chewing gum stick with every pack.. Every kid at
school collected these and it was a major currency that got you
by in junior school. Games were played such as “Topsys” in which
two players stood 5 cards each against the wall, each player then
had to throw other cards at the wall cards and knock them down,
whoever took the last card down won whatever was on the fl oor.
At one point our kid and me had a two-foot tall pile of cards
we had collected and won at school. Panini sticker albums must
have cost parents a fortune, and I remember being king for a day
when our mate Andrew Lamb robbed a full box from Ivells the
newsagents on Oldham Road. We ate that much chewing gum our
jaws ached for days.
Proceeds of this book will go to MS Research and The British Heart Foundation.
or direct link <a class="postlink" href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_2_17?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=football+for+life+by+simon+cooper&sprefix=football+for+life" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_2_1 ... l+for+life</a>
Cut and paste
CHAPTER ONE
“KICK IT BACK TO ME SON”
Chapter tunes
The Beat - Can’t get used to loosing you
The Clash - Jimmy Jazz
Pink Floyd - Mother
If we all think back to our earliest memory of how we were
introduced to football, nine times out of ten it’s with your friends
or family, most probably your dad taking to you to the park to see
if you had “the gift”.
I was no different to any other son, nor was our kid Louis. I
remember it to this day, my dad taking us to a fi eld in Agecroft in
Salford with a bright orange Mitre football. As we got out of the
car he would run a few yards and think he was Dennis Tueart, I
remember him showing us how to kick the ball with the inside of
your foot, “this is called a pass” he would say!
At the time we found the dog funnier, as it would chase the ball
every time my old fella tried kicking it to us. Our kid and me
would be in hysterics as he would chase the dog dribbling the ball
with its nose all around the field. (It was a Jack Russell) So due
to this, our dads coaching sessions didn’t last very long and the
rest of our football education came from the schoolyard. In the
infants’ school it was rare someone brought in a full size football
so most of the time we played with a tennis ball with no nets. It
was just a pack of kids trying to dribble round the yard, the ones
who were crap just whacked it as hard as they could and everyone
made chase.
Around this time I remember an assembly being called as our
school, Mather Street Primary had won the junior league in the
local area. I remember being sat there as they were applauded
in, dressed in the full navy blue kit with smiles like Cheshire cats.
Every one of them was a hero and a legend in school and it is what
every lad including myself wanted to emulate playing football.
When we moved up from infant school to junior school the fi rst
thing we noticed was that playtimes just involved pure football.
The schoolyard was set out the ideal size for an enclosed football
pitch with a fence down one side and the school windows on the
other. At the goal ends you had a big red brick shed with a slate
roof, and the other goal was created by an enclosure for the bins
and waste food from the kitchens to create car access for the
yard. It was perfect for non-stop football, as it never went out for
a throw-in unless we had a crap goalkeeper who could not kick.
To top it off, ours was the fi rst year that the headmaster had
decided to divide the yards into male and female yards. So our
yard was all male, this made play time football time! 60 young
kids, 30 a side, one ball, no ref and no rules, just the PE teacher
looking on from a window for potential players for the school
team. Some days it would be City v United, other days it would
be picked teams, 1st years were always picked last therefore we
were always last!
Within my first year I had learned in that schoolyard how to
distribute the ball quickly, whether it be passing or shooting. If
you didn’t you would get clobbered off a 4th year player and taken
out. This carried on out of school as on our street we had an array
of football talent that were all older than our Louis and me. You
all as readers will have your own mentors but on our street it was
Jimmy Ford, Mickey Ford, Johnny Mac, Chris Lamb, and Andrew
Lamb. They were all older lads that we played with for hours at
the side of Pifco Mill in Failsworth. Some games in the 6 week
school holidays were played for up to 8 hours with breaks only
allowed if someone’s parents turned up with “jublee’s” or a bag of
ice pops. A Casey (leather football) would not last a full day due
to wear and tear, and fl yaway’s (cheap balls) would pop.
We literally played till the ball was worn out or popped, then go
home and watch Kick off with Elton Welsby on a Friday, or Saint
and Greavsie and Match of the Day on a Saturday. We became
football mad!
At about this time my mum and dad got divorced, and this had
a major impact on my life, I started to become a rebel and was
getting in trouble a lot in and out of school. I was getting involved
in car crime as well as burglary of commercial premises that were
mainly all the local mills in Failsworth. Also other less serious
things like annoying neighbours by collecting dog pooh in old
newspapers, placing it on a doorstep, lighting it and running away
hiding. The neighbour would come out of his house and stamp the
fi re out caking his shoe and pants in pure dog pooh…happy days.
Or tying cotton to people’s door knockers and pulling it from 10
metres away hidden behind bushes or a car, then watching the
neighbours be baffl ed with no one being at the door. We would do
this till it haunted them!
Due to all the trouble I was bringing to our home, my mum decided
in her great wisdom to get us a black and white portable TV for
our room to keep us in the house more. This was a dream and no
one on our street had one.
As my mum always watched Coronation Street over the years me
and our kid would watch Villa, Forest, Liverpool, Ipswich and
Everton have European success with all the kids off the street
watching live European midweek matches in our bedroom. Yes
every one had a TV but we just all loved watching it together on
the box in our bedroom, then replaying it ourselves in our heads
in the school yard the next day.
At the weekend my mum and dad agreed through the courts that
we could spend Saturdays with my dad. He started taking us to
Maine Road to watch City, at first it was a bit frightening as in the
late 70’s City were doing well with Tony Book as manager and the
ground was hammered every week which was a bit daunting for a
lad of 6 years old and his 5 year old brother.
My dad was a bus driver, and at that time if you were a City fan
from the north side of Manchester you got a bus from Aytoun Street
next to the Britannia Hotel in the city centre which took you to
the game. All the bus drivers were given free access to the game
and congregated at the back of the old wooden Platt Lane.
I remember it was a game against Spurs in the 76/77 season, and
I wasn’t really interested in the game as I was just astonished at
the amount of people all in one place, the noise, the smells, the
faces, the songs, the swearing, the conversations and the fact
that Dennis Tueart, our hero was somewhere on the pitch. It
was just too much for me to take in, and I was in the zone, just
dumbstruck! I wouldn’t say at that time it was enjoyable, it was
just a new adventure with my dad and I was happy just to be with
him. Not having my dad there Monday to Friday I used to miss
him and I knew our big connection was football and I missed his
coaching sessions.
The City thing hadn’t really kicked in with me yet, but I was slowly
coming round to it. I remember to this day when that happened.
It was that game…Spurs…………..
City scored and my dad grabbed both our Louis and me and swung
us around like rag dolls, I remember seeing the joy on his face and
all the other fans around us. The noise was like nothing I had ever
heard before; it grabbed the inside of my stomach and wrapped
it around my heart so I could feel it beating. It was something I
was to become addicted to, and still am. Our kid and me just
looked at each other, smiled and hugged our dad, we had found
something that connected us all and brought us all joy - It was
football!
I remember the second and third goals went in and we were
over our dad before he could even celebrate. We were now that
confi dent, we were joining in the singing with the rest of the Platt
Lane… “CITY WE LOVE YOU, WE LOVE YOU CITY WE DO…OHHH CITY
WE LOVE YOU” The game ended up with Booth, Tueart, Barnes,
Hartford and Kidd scoring and City winning 5-0. It was heaven!
Things that stick in my mind about that fi rst game was the
togetherness of everyone inside that ground. It didn’t matter how
old you were, how you looked, dressed or even where you came
from. If you were in the City end you were accepted, it was one
big happily family with one thing in common Manchester City F.C
The blues were now my family, our Louis’ family and my dad’s
family, we were all connected with everyone in that ground and it
was great to be a part of that.
Afterwards I remember having to always leave early and my dad
would have to start the bus on Lloyd Street near the Parkside pub
waiting to take the City fans back to the city centre. He would
then return the bus to the Queens road depot and take us back to
his house in Salford with a pink fi nal that our kid and me would
fi ght for. The pink was a sports paper that had all the days match
reports in and every stat you would want. After reading that for
an hour or so, me and our kid would get out Subbuteo, which was
the 70’s and 80’s equivalent of your Playstations FIFA game in the
modern day. It was a felt pitch laid out on the fl oor with two
teams of little fi gures of men with a half ball attached to their
feet. When we played it was major pride at stake, and many a
time we would have to glue the men back together because one of
us had smashed a full team of these little fi gures up the previous
week through having a rage at losing.
We also collected Panini stickers and football cards that came
with a free chewing gum stick with every pack.. Every kid at
school collected these and it was a major currency that got you
by in junior school. Games were played such as “Topsys” in which
two players stood 5 cards each against the wall, each player then
had to throw other cards at the wall cards and knock them down,
whoever took the last card down won whatever was on the fl oor.
At one point our kid and me had a two-foot tall pile of cards
we had collected and won at school. Panini sticker albums must
have cost parents a fortune, and I remember being king for a day
when our mate Andrew Lamb robbed a full box from Ivells the
newsagents on Oldham Road. We ate that much chewing gum our
jaws ached for days.
Proceeds of this book will go to MS Research and The British Heart Foundation.