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be handed in as lost property.
    The shop that did so well for us as a family, however, alsobrought tragedy upon us. One day in the early fifties Dad had left my brother Jack in charge. Having closed up the shop, Jack was heading home with the day’s takings when he was set upon by two robbers. In spite of his disability they beat him up badly and made off with the money. As a result of his injuries Jack spent weeks in hospital, his health deteriorated and, tragically, he died. He was a great guy, a loving brother and we were all devastated at his passing. Nothing – home, family, business – was ever the same again. For the first time in my life I experienced the loss of a loved one. I grieved for months, mourned his loss for years and miss him to this day.
    That our Jack’s assailants were eventually caught by the police and given lengthy jail sentences was no consolation to me for losing a dear brother and a great friend.
    My childhood football heroes were always goalkeepers. On my infrequent visits to Hillsborough or Bramall Lane it was always the goalkeepers who captured my imagination. Keepers such as Wednesday’s Dave McIntosh, a Girvan-born Scot whose centre parting was old-fashioned even in the early fifties, and United’s Ted Burgin, a Sheffield lad like me and my inspiration that one day I too would be good enough to play for one of my local clubs. McIntosh and Burgin apart, there was Manchester City’s Bert Trautmann, unique in that he had been a German prisoner of war who had stayed on in Britain to make a career for himself in football. A worthy successor to the great Frank Swift, Bert had been signed from non-league St Helens Town and developed into one of the best goalkeepers of his day. I used to marvel at his anticipation, courage and agility, attributes also of another boyhood hero of mine, Bert Williams of Wolves and England, who proved to me that you didn’t necessarily have to be tall to be a good goalkeeper. Another favourite was Blackpool’s George Farm. In the fifties, Blackpool, boasting the great Stanley Matthews, Stan Mortensen and Jackie Mudie, were the equivalent of Manchester United today. Their appearance alwaysensured a full house. Understandably, most turned up to see Matthews weave his magic, but the attraction for me was George Farm with his unorthodox style, catching the ball with one hand over and the other underneath it. But what interested me was the way he’d shout instructions to the defenders in front of him. Farm took it upon himself to organize his defence, which was very unusual for a goalkeeper at that time.
    At the age of fourteen, my appearances in goal for my school side earned me a call-up for Sheffield Schoolboys. I was thrilled and honoured to have been chosen to represent my city, but my memories of playing for Sheffield boys are tainted by the fact that I was suddenly dropped without explanation after about seven games. The teacher in charge of the team never told me why or offered any words of consolation. In fact he never spoke to me again. It wasn’t in me to complain, so I simply accepted my lot and concentrated on playing for my school until the day came when I took that big step out into the adult world.
    I wasn’t a great scholar and on leaving school in December 1952 I got a job as a bagger with a local coal merchant. It was dirty, hard, physical graft conducted in all weathers. My job involved shovelling coal into large coarse sacks, swinging them on my back from where I would heave them on to the back of a lorry. Though I didn’t appreciate it at the time, the work served to make my upper body and arms muscular, which is a great advantage for a goalkeeper.
    I was fifteen, still developing physically, and the eight-hour day bagging coal left me tired out by the weekend. I was still in love with football, but by Saturday I felt too exhausted to do more than watch the many amateur teams that played in our area. (I was earning less than three pounds a