hotel room, stupid boy!” In a crazy moment he phoned
England
and told the newspapers that our right back Bobby Kennedy had been shot! It wasn’t until our trainer Johnny Hart explained to Albert that there were two Bobby Kennedys that the penny finally dropped. Johnny had to phone home and explain what had happened!
*
It was a noisy place,
New York
. We could hear the police sirens all day long and we’d been warned not to take more than twenty dollars out with us or we’d run the risk of a mugging! One night we had a truly fantastic experience when we went to a Playboy club! Don’t forget this was 1968 and I hadn’t heard of this Playboy club concept before. I’d seen the gambling rooms, the men-only clubs and the cabaret clubs but never a ‘bunny’ club.
It made for an interesting experience. Bestie would have liked it in there. Girls were walking round with numbers on their costumes. You just wrote the number of the girl you wanted to speak to and she came right over! All the effort has to come from the woman – brilliant!
Out of all the places I have visited with
Manchester
City
I would pick out
San Francisco
and
Amsterdam
as the best.
Amsterdam
was a very pretty place with its cobbled streets, canals and coffee bars. It’s a good place to take the girlfriend - it’s very romantic when it’s all lit up. They say you should not go back to a place you’ve already been as invariably it’s never the same however I wouldn’t mind going back there again. If I was a bit younger and had slightly more energy to burn I’d have enjoyed the nightlife.
Some of the women in the windows looked fantastic. When we played over there in a friendly we all went for a walk round the famous ‘Red Light District.’ Funnily enough it was more of an attraction for the lads than the
Anne
Frank
Museum
! None of the team went in and sampled the local hospitality but we all had a good look. Some of them are very nice you know. Anyway – back to the football, which is where the trouble started on this trip.
We were playing the Scottish side
Dunfermline
and the game was about twenty minutes old and I had the ball at my feet when their full-back slid in on the greasy surface and in a split-second I moved the ball to my left and he caught my left shin. I played on for about five minutes and then all of a sudden I experienced a tremendous pain in my leg.
When I looked down, my sock was torn to shreds, there was blood everywhere and all I could see were veins hanging through my sock. “Jesus,” I shouted, waving to Johnny Hart on the bench. I am not going to tell you what Johnny said but I learnt a few more swear words that day.
Anyway we finished with nine men in that game, Stan Horne did his Achilles tendons and Mike Doyle, who had just flown in that morning from the England Under-23s, played three minutes and was sent off! So Malcolm played one man up and seven back in defence and we drew the game. The crowd loved it – Malcolm got into a fight, it was complete chaos but we survived!
There was no doctor on duty at the stadium so they rushed me in a taxi to the nearest hospital with an ice pack wrapped round my leg. It took us about fifteen minutes to get there and by that time my leg was completely numb – I couldn’t feel a thing.
The doctor took one look at it in this cubicle and said: “I’ll need $40 dollars from you!” Well I didn’t carry any change in my football kit and Johnny was still in his tracksuit. So he had to rush back to the ground for some money so that I could receive treatment! I was stuck in this poxy cubicle with a sodden bloody towel round my leg waiting for what seemed like an eternity.
In the cubicle next to me a drunken Irishman was swearing like mad – it seemed that somebody had stabbed him in the back during a pub brawl and he was shouting: “Stitch me up, stitch me up so I can go and get the bastard!”
In the meantime, Johnny returned to hospital with the $40. The
England
and told the newspapers that our right back Bobby Kennedy had been shot! It wasn’t until our trainer Johnny Hart explained to Albert that there were two Bobby Kennedys that the penny finally dropped. Johnny had to phone home and explain what had happened!
*
It was a noisy place,
New York
. We could hear the police sirens all day long and we’d been warned not to take more than twenty dollars out with us or we’d run the risk of a mugging! One night we had a truly fantastic experience when we went to a Playboy club! Don’t forget this was 1968 and I hadn’t heard of this Playboy club concept before. I’d seen the gambling rooms, the men-only clubs and the cabaret clubs but never a ‘bunny’ club.
It made for an interesting experience. Bestie would have liked it in there. Girls were walking round with numbers on their costumes. You just wrote the number of the girl you wanted to speak to and she came right over! All the effort has to come from the woman – brilliant!
Out of all the places I have visited with
Manchester
City
I would pick out
San Francisco
and
Amsterdam
as the best.
Amsterdam
was a very pretty place with its cobbled streets, canals and coffee bars. It’s a good place to take the girlfriend - it’s very romantic when it’s all lit up. They say you should not go back to a place you’ve already been as invariably it’s never the same however I wouldn’t mind going back there again. If I was a bit younger and had slightly more energy to burn I’d have enjoyed the nightlife.
Some of the women in the windows looked fantastic. When we played over there in a friendly we all went for a walk round the famous ‘Red Light District.’ Funnily enough it was more of an attraction for the lads than the
Anne
Frank
Museum
! None of the team went in and sampled the local hospitality but we all had a good look. Some of them are very nice you know. Anyway – back to the football, which is where the trouble started on this trip.
We were playing the Scottish side
Dunfermline
and the game was about twenty minutes old and I had the ball at my feet when their full-back slid in on the greasy surface and in a split-second I moved the ball to my left and he caught my left shin. I played on for about five minutes and then all of a sudden I experienced a tremendous pain in my leg.
When I looked down, my sock was torn to shreds, there was blood everywhere and all I could see were veins hanging through my sock. “Jesus,” I shouted, waving to Johnny Hart on the bench. I am not going to tell you what Johnny said but I learnt a few more swear words that day.
Anyway we finished with nine men in that game, Stan Horne did his Achilles tendons and Mike Doyle, who had just flown in that morning from the England Under-23s, played three minutes and was sent off! So Malcolm played one man up and seven back in defence and we drew the game. The crowd loved it – Malcolm got into a fight, it was complete chaos but we survived!
There was no doctor on duty at the stadium so they rushed me in a taxi to the nearest hospital with an ice pack wrapped round my leg. It took us about fifteen minutes to get there and by that time my leg was completely numb – I couldn’t feel a thing.
The doctor took one look at it in this cubicle and said: “I’ll need $40 dollars from you!” Well I didn’t carry any change in my football kit and Johnny was still in his tracksuit. So he had to rush back to the ground for some money so that I could receive treatment! I was stuck in this poxy cubicle with a sodden bloody towel round my leg waiting for what seemed like an eternity.
In the cubicle next to me a drunken Irishman was swearing like mad – it seemed that somebody had stabbed him in the back during a pub brawl and he was shouting: “Stitch me up, stitch me up so I can go and get the bastard!”
In the meantime, Johnny returned to hospital with the $40. The
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