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fair share of funny moments – after all although we take the game deadly seriously, it’s still only a game. One particular funny incident I can recall was when I was sixteen and playing in the reserves on the right wing. Yes, that’s correct, right wing. I was being groomed on the right as Dave Wagstaffe was the first choice left winger. Of course I could cut inside if I wanted to but that day we had a right full-back, whose name escapes me, who had come down on trial from
Scotland
. Anyway we’d been playing for 20 minutes or so when he passed me the ball near the players’ tunnel and he started his run from close beside me. I thought he was going to start an overlap but instead he ran straight past me and turned right up the players’ tunnel. He was gone for a couple of minutes and then he returned to the field. He must have been on the Irn Bru beforehand – he’d only been off for a wee, hadn’t he! These days he wouldn’t be allowed back on the pitch – then again, the guy was never heard of again.
    In any case I was now a promising winger, promising enough to be selected for the Youth World Cup being held in
Bermuda
. Unfotunately , and not for the first time, my fledgling international career was cut short because City said they needed me to help stave off relegation and although we stayed up, it was a big chance missed!
    You will have gathered that by this time I had made the break into the big time. I was in the reserve team when it happened. Ray Sambrook got injured and I slipped in with just under a quarter of the season to go and played so well that I kept my place until the end of the season.
    I made my debut at
Villa Park
on
November 25th 1961
. We lost 2-1 but I’ve still got the cuttings in a scrapbook here and the reporter says I was the best player on the pitch!
    Before the game I was extremely nervous. The rest of the team were brilliant with me, to be fair. Bert, who’d given me a pair of his boots to wear said: “Look after those boots, make sure you play well in them.” I had a few pats on the back and then it was down the tunnel we went and onto
Villa Park
, a huge arena and one of the best grounds in the country. Instead of playing in front of a few hundred in the reserves I was now playing in front of tens of thousands of people.
    It felt bizarre being on the field at the start because I was aware of how my brother would be there and all of a sudden, the pitch which I used to master no problem, seemed smaller than ever. I had to find space. I had to do little things to build my confidence. So I made sure I got a few early touches, even going deep to pick up the ball from Bert and then releasing it. A few passes later and after about fifteen or twenty minutes I was into my stride. The difference here was that now when I had the ball I had to release it much more quickly. When you are in the reserves you can have a look around before passing it. When you are in the first team though you have to know where you are going to pass it before you have received it. As it turned out I was voted ‘Man of the Match’ in that first game.
    Little at that stage would anyone think that I would still be playing in the first team eleven years later – still wearing that sky blue shirt with pride. I played 365 league games, scored 107 goals and made about 200 more.
    My brother Chris came down for that first game and even though we lost I felt immensely proud that I was part of the first team and that he’d seen me play.
    I was prouder still to score my first City goal a month later in a 3-0 victory over
Ipswich
Town
at
Maine Road
. I don’t remember much about that first goal – it was probably scored with my left peg though!
    By the time I was seventeen I was a regular in City’s first team on the right wing. Great – no more cleaning boots! I had the bit between my teeth and I just wanted to play every week. I’d just signed as a professional and received £25 signing on fee and