Sir Walter Winterbottom: The Father of Modern English Football

366 Pages·2013·7.84 MB·English

by  Graham Morse

For Ann, Janet and Brenda
and in memory of Alan
CONTENTS
Title Page
Dedication
Foreword by Sir Trevor Brooking
Preface
Prologue
One: RESISTANCE
Two: IN THE BEGINNING
Three: THE EARLY YEARS
Four: THE TEACHER
Five: MANCHESTER UNITED
Six: LOVE AND WAR
Seven: THE MENTOR
Eight: A RUDE AWAKENING
Nine: COACHING THE COACHES
Ten: A MOUNTAIN TO CLIMB
Eleven: A DAY OF RECKONING
Twelve: EPIPHANY
Thirteen: SHATTERED DREAMS
Fourteen: HOME AND AWAY
Fifteen: WALTER’S BOYS
Sixteen: REJECTION
Seventeen: THE FINAL CURTAIN
Eighteen: A MILLION REGRETS
Nineteen: WINTERBOTTOM’S NEW WORLD
Twenty: SPORT FOR ALL
Twenty-one: THE FINAL YEARS
Twenty-two: EULOGY
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Appendix 1: GAMES PLAYED FOR
MANCHESTER UNITED
Appendix 2: GAMES AS ENGLAND
TEAM MANAGER
Appendix 3: HONOURS
Index
Plates
Copyright
FOREWORD
First of all, may I please urge you to read this book about the life of Sir Walter
Winterbottom and not stop here as you browse through this introduction. I
guarantee you will find it a fascinating insight into how both football and sport
in general has consistently struggled to overcome those ‘internal politics’ which
often stifle the decision-making process.
There are some wonderful personal testimonies by numerous eminent
individuals, and none more so than the address given by Sir Bobby Robson CBE
at Walter’s thanksgiving service. In fact, Walter probably had no idea quite how
many people were inspired and influenced into following specific career paths
by listening to his carefully chosen words of guidance.
He had two hugely important roles during his own career; firstly as Director
of Coaching and England Senior Coach at the Football Association. Equally
crucial was his next position as chief executive of the Sports Council. Both
periods provided a constant flow of challenges and disagreements which would
have defeated many, but his skilful persuasion impacted massively for the good
of sport as we know it now.
I was part of the next generation that benefited from Walter’s achievements,
but only met him later on in his life when his gentlemanly manner and affable
personality were still very evident. One person who greatly impacted on my own
player development was Ron Greenwood, the West Ham manager, as I
progressed through their acclaimed youth system. Ron was a wonderfully gifted
coach, who unquestionably benefited all these players who came under his
tuition. At different stages he would often refer back to his own learning curve
and acknowledge Walter as his key mentor, who prompted him to start his
coaching qualifications.
My own playing career ended in 1984 and looking back over my career since
then it is fascinating to actually see a certain similarity of interest that I
unknowingly shared with Walter. In 1985 while starting my broadcasting links to
the BBC, I was also approached to become Chairman of the Eastern Region of
the Sports Council. I readily agreed and that role later led me towards becoming
a member of the National Sports Council structure before being appointed Vice-
Chairman and then Chairman. I could definitely appreciate the problems Walter
faced: getting decisions made, dealing with politicians, securing funding and the
frustration of dealing with government departments. All these issues were still
prominent when I left in 2001.
I then joined the Football Association at the start of 2004, and so again many
of the frustrations he faced are still prominent today, with decision-making,
committees and coaching resources forever debated.
One fact which is drastically different is, of course, the money and resource
available in the game itself. Walter would be staggered at the sums now involved
but would no doubt query whether all those huge amounts are being spent in the
right areas. I believe the opening of our National Football Centre, St. George’s
Park in Burton, in autumn 2012 would definitely have brought a smile of
satisfaction from Walter. Improving the technical quality of our English coaches
and players is an absolute priority from now onwards and hopefully someone in
the next generation can look back and trace the success of St. George’s Park on
the early, innovative thoughts of Sir Walter Winterbottom, which finally can be
set in stone.

Sir Trevor Brooking
Director of Football Development
The Football Association
PREFACE
Walter Winterbottom never wanted to write his own biography. I asked him
many times, but he always politely refused. After he resigned from his job
at the FA as Director of Coaching and England team manager he had many
requests from publishers, but always turned them down.
I think that the reasons were two-fold. He had an unswerving loyalty to his
employer, the Football Association, and he felt that publishers would only be
interested in his story if he was ‘digging the dirt’. He most certainly would not
have done that, and in 50 years I have never known him speak ill of anyone. The
second reason, I believe, is that he was essentially a modest person, despite his
exceptional achievements. It was always his belief that credit should go to
others. He never claimed any for himself.
I felt that this was a story that should be told, that his place in English
sporting history should be documented. He was a pioneer. Not just the first, the
youngest, and the longest serving England football team manager, but the person
who created the FA national coaching scheme and the first Director of the Sports
Council, a ground breaking organization that changed the face of British sport.
He had a profound influence on English football and it is no exaggeration to
say that he was, of his generation, the leading technical thinker and exponent of
football coaching in the world. Despite his high media profile as the manager of
the England team, he believed that his most important work was as Director of
Coaching, and tellingly, in his passport he listed his profession as ‘FA Director of
Coaching’. When he began there was strong resistance to the very idea of
coaching from the amateur bastions within the FA, from the older players who
believed ‘you were born with it’, and from club managers and directors. He
developed strategies to overcome this resistance and built around him a group of
young coaches who became his disciples: men like Ron Greenwood, Bill
Nicholson and Jimmy Hill. By the time he left the FA after sixteen years, the
national coaching scheme had become firmly established and internationally
admired, and the foundations had been laid for the World Cup success that
followed in 1966.
He had a much lower public profile in his role as the first Director of the
Sports Council. The creation of this new organisation revolutionised sport:
providing funding for the development of sports facilities and coaching, and
working with sport’s governing bodies and government at national and local
level to provide facilities such as swimming pools and sports centres throughout
the country.
Walter Winterbottom was one of a new meritocracy who had a profound
effect on Britain in the second half of the twentieth century. He came from a
working class home in Oldham, and paid for his education through scholarships
and by playing professional football for Manchester United. In a sporting world
still dominated by the Victorian creed of amateurism, he emerged as a new kind
of public figure, a man who had seen sport from all sides: as a professional
player, a teacher, a coach, a manager and a sports administrator.
As a person he touched the lives of many people. He was always full of
praise and encouragement for those he worked with, whether it was players,
coaches or chairman of sporting governing bodies. He was welcomed wherever
he went by people who always wanted to know his views, especially if it was
about a football match. His opinions, whether they were about football, sports
administration or international affairs, were always totally his own and
uninfluenced by the popular view. He was a man who could ‘…walk with kings,
nor lose the common touch,’ a person equally at home talking to players,
managers, FA councillors, or leaders in business and government.
Although he had a very high public profile and great success in his life, those
that knew him well would say that he was a man who was best known not for
what he did, but how he made you feel.
PROLOGUE
GOTHENBURG, SWEDEN: 1958
Macdonald, the England goalkeeper made his only mistake of the game,
throwing out a loose ball that was picked up by the Russian winger, Ilyin.
His snap shot hit the post and agonisingly deflected into the goal to give Russia a
1-0 win and a place in the quarter finals. England had twice hit the post with
shots that had the Russian goalkeeper beaten. But for the frown of fortune
England might have won that match and could even have reasonably expected a
place in the sharp sun of the final. Instead, at the end of a gruelling play off for a
quarter final place, England were out of the 1958 World Cup and on their way
home.
On the flight back many of the players were quiet, alone with their
disappointment. Others passed the time with the banter and joking that is the
trademark of professional footballers. Walter Winterbottom, the team manager,
was left to silently reflect on the hand that fate deals and the barrage of criticism
that would be waiting for him when they arrived at Heathrow airport.
Just six months earlier he felt that he had a team that stood on the verge of
greatness. His commitment to youth had produced an outstanding team. In two
years they had lost only once in 17 games. Then, only three months before they
left for Sweden, the Manchester United team was left devastated by the Munich
air disaster, in which eight Manchester United players were amongst 20 killed in
a plane crash in the German city. Duncan Edwards, Roger Byrne and Tommy
Taylor were dead: the spine of the England team was gone. Manchester and the
whole nation grieved. There had been no time to rebuild and inexperienced
players were brought in. Walter’s young England team had fought well, drawing
0-0 with the eventual winners, Brazil, but were then dismissed by Russia in one
break of the ball: one solitary goal. The media was less understanding and in no
mood for forgiveness.
There had been criticism of the England manager’s decision to base the team
at the Park Royal, a luxury hotel in Stockholm. There was also criticism of his
decision to arrive in Sweden after many other teams. But most of all there had