My Father and Other Working Class Football Heroes
The award winning book reviewed
0.3
Today's top flight footballers don't know how lucky they are. In an era of unprecedented player power, contracts worth millions are deemed unsatisfactory, a week on the subs bench has the agents scurrying from club to tabloid and back again. It's a far cry from the age of the maximum wage and the restricted contract. Gary Imlach, in this excellent social history cum biography cum son searching for a father amply illustrates how drastically the beautiful game has moved on.
I'd first encountered Gary Imlach as an intelligent and witty presenter of the NFL on Channel 4. I had little idea that his father had been a professional footballer, let alone one with such an interesting story to tell.
Stewart Imlach's nomadic professional career started at Bury. He moved to Derby before being shipped to Nottingham Forest. He was good enough to represent Scotland in the 1958 World Cup and gain an FA Cup Winners medal in 1959 yet within months of this glory he was to shunted out of Forest to Luton. He slid further down the pyramid with Coventry and Crystal Palace before starting a career in coaching which took in spells at Palace, Notts County, Everton, Blackpool and Bury. As interesting as the footballing story is in itself, it is the off the field life of the 1950s pro that is of even more interest.
It seems that the players in that era were little more than the playthings of the vain, ambitious men who ran football at that time. As Imlach says
The contract a player signed gave the club the rights to his services in perpetuity...His contract was for 12 months only. At the end of a season clubs could release a player, put him up for sale, or retain him - often on reduced wages. Any player who refused to agree terms whatever they may be, would be paid no wages. Not paid wages and sacked, or released, but paid no wages and retained. If he walked out he couldn't play anywhere else because the club held his registration.
It really was a form of legalised serfdom.
And it wasn't just club football. The chapter on the 1958 World Cup and the SFA's approach (or rather lack of it) towards the players does nothing to dispel the stereotype of the frugal Scotsman. Life hardly appeared more secure as a coach. A few bad results or the whims of an impatient director enough to bring the joinery trade to the fore. (at least Imlach had a trade to fall back on. Many others didn't) The tales of endlessly moving house, the out of season job as a joiner...relations with the press.
This book is far more than just a biography of a dedicated professional though. It is about search for the soul of the game and a sons' attempt, belatedly, at least, to find his father. As well as being a top class presenter, Imlach has provided an honest and heartworn tribute to his father and an excellent chronicle of the life of a professional footballer in less glamourous times. The current crop of premiership stars crying about their measly contracts should read this and learn quite how lucky they are.
About This Entry
‘My Father and Other Working Class Football Heroes’ was posted by Jacques Claw on Tue, 7th November 2006 at 22:25:52 GMT and filed under football.
