while winking and grinning at my mates in the room. Everyone would be laughing and Harris wouldn’t have a clue what was going on.
Mr Harris was the saving grace for me, though, because he was also our football teacher. I went there at 11 and was straight in the first team with the 15-year-olds. We played in green shirts, but there was no other kit. Most of the boys wore jeans and army boots, even when representing the school. One of our first matches was against our big rivals Hay Currie, and they beat up Mr Harris after the game. He was the referee and he should have gone crooked and given them a couple of goals. They were big, scary boys – a few of them were members of notorious gangster families in the East End, proper villains in the making – and at the end of the match they chased him as he was trying to drive away on his moped. They pushed him off, trod on his wheels and smashed up the spikes. We all just stood there. We didn’t fancy fighting them, either. Where I came from you either had to be good at fighting or good at running – and I was always a fast runner. I represented the school at everything: football, cricket and athletics, but our equipment was a joke. I came third in the 400 metres at the London Schools Championships, and I ran in slippers. I was only a yard behind the first two, but they had spikes.
When I first went there the school football team practised in the playground, but after a while we started to get a bus out toGoresbrook Park in Dagenham. The problem was, by the time they had got all the nutters organised on these old green buses, and then sorted everybody out amid the pandemonium at the other end, it was time to come home. We would waste whole afternoons like that. It was only when I got picked up by Tottenham Hotspur that I saw how important it was to train properly.
I was in the C class, for the lowest academic achievers, which did not help. There was a boy called David Thompson, who had a car that he had nicked, a little Mini that he used to leave parked up the road. He could only have been about 14, but he was already a man. He was useless at football, but we got him in the school team because he used to run at people and frighten the life out of them. Not with the ball. He never had the ball. He’d just run at them, ‘Grrr!’, they’d get out of the way and we’d score. It wasn’t a good team, though. My football career started in earnest when I was picked to play for East London Schools. It was at that moment that any chance I had of leaving with qualifications ended. Each Tuesday and Thursday I would excuse myself from school at about two o’clock, with another boy called Johnny Blake, and we’d go over to Hay Currie for our East London Schools training. It wasn’t a long journey but we’d act as if we needed two hours to get there, and then just hang about until all the Hay Currie kids had gone home, and our session began. It was a great thing, and a big thing for me, because East London were a proper team with a proper green-and-gold quartered strip, and Mr Sturridge, the teacher who ran it with Mr Hurley, was also responsible for the England Schoolboys team. It was my first experience of real coaching. We were a unit, we were all mates andgood players, and joining up with that group was the highlight of my week.
I think East London Boys kept a lot of kids on the straight and narrow. I don’t think I would ever have fallen as far as Mr Enniver feared, but I would definitely have got into a lot more trouble had I not been so busy playing sport. I also played cricket for East London, and ran too, and because I was of a high standard I began coming into contact with professional coaches, like Eddie Baily from Tottenham Hotspur and Dennis Allen, Martin’s dad, who played inside-forward for Charlton Athletic. That was probably the best time of my school football years, when Dennis starting coming in once a week to take our team. I think Mr Harris got Dennis in
Mr Harris was the saving grace for me, though, because he was also our football teacher. I went there at 11 and was straight in the first team with the 15-year-olds. We played in green shirts, but there was no other kit. Most of the boys wore jeans and army boots, even when representing the school. One of our first matches was against our big rivals Hay Currie, and they beat up Mr Harris after the game. He was the referee and he should have gone crooked and given them a couple of goals. They were big, scary boys – a few of them were members of notorious gangster families in the East End, proper villains in the making – and at the end of the match they chased him as he was trying to drive away on his moped. They pushed him off, trod on his wheels and smashed up the spikes. We all just stood there. We didn’t fancy fighting them, either. Where I came from you either had to be good at fighting or good at running – and I was always a fast runner. I represented the school at everything: football, cricket and athletics, but our equipment was a joke. I came third in the 400 metres at the London Schools Championships, and I ran in slippers. I was only a yard behind the first two, but they had spikes.
When I first went there the school football team practised in the playground, but after a while we started to get a bus out toGoresbrook Park in Dagenham. The problem was, by the time they had got all the nutters organised on these old green buses, and then sorted everybody out amid the pandemonium at the other end, it was time to come home. We would waste whole afternoons like that. It was only when I got picked up by Tottenham Hotspur that I saw how important it was to train properly.
I was in the C class, for the lowest academic achievers, which did not help. There was a boy called David Thompson, who had a car that he had nicked, a little Mini that he used to leave parked up the road. He could only have been about 14, but he was already a man. He was useless at football, but we got him in the school team because he used to run at people and frighten the life out of them. Not with the ball. He never had the ball. He’d just run at them, ‘Grrr!’, they’d get out of the way and we’d score. It wasn’t a good team, though. My football career started in earnest when I was picked to play for East London Schools. It was at that moment that any chance I had of leaving with qualifications ended. Each Tuesday and Thursday I would excuse myself from school at about two o’clock, with another boy called Johnny Blake, and we’d go over to Hay Currie for our East London Schools training. It wasn’t a long journey but we’d act as if we needed two hours to get there, and then just hang about until all the Hay Currie kids had gone home, and our session began. It was a great thing, and a big thing for me, because East London were a proper team with a proper green-and-gold quartered strip, and Mr Sturridge, the teacher who ran it with Mr Hurley, was also responsible for the England Schoolboys team. It was my first experience of real coaching. We were a unit, we were all mates andgood players, and joining up with that group was the highlight of my week.
I think East London Boys kept a lot of kids on the straight and narrow. I don’t think I would ever have fallen as far as Mr Enniver feared, but I would definitely have got into a lot more trouble had I not been so busy playing sport. I also played cricket for East London, and ran too, and because I was of a high standard I began coming into contact with professional coaches, like Eddie Baily from Tottenham Hotspur and Dennis Allen, Martin’s dad, who played inside-forward for Charlton Athletic. That was probably the best time of my school football years, when Dennis starting coming in once a week to take our team. I think Mr Harris got Dennis in
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