the makeshift changing room that they shared. Their trainers joined in the banter but I noticed Neil looking very nervous. Having displayed the utmost courage during a fight that took him to the edge in terms of pain and endurance he was, it transpired, ‘shitting it’ as he so eloquently put it at the thought of having to have a couple of stitches on his cut eyebrow. “I bloody hate needles” he opined miserably and then visibly shook as the doctor stitched him up with minimal foreplay.
Just before leaving I heard an incredibly poignant story told in typically self effacing fashion by the man who was at the centre of it. The late Arthur Keegan was an extremely talented rugby League player who went on to represent Great Britain. In his early retirement he did some commentary work for local radio. He rarely mentioned the fact that he was a former international even though he was held in universally high regarded within the game. When talking to him after a game at Headingley, where we had shared commentary, Arthur mentioned in passing that he had made his debut for Hull against Leeds there in 1958.
I asked Arthur how the debut had gone and he said that he had only been selected at the last minute, and dashing to the ground could not find the players entrance, didn’t want to make a fuss, so PAID to get in. At nineteen he was already a player of immense skill and bravery in the toughest of games, yet so shy and lacking in ego that he thought nothing of paying through the turnstiles before eventually being directed to the changing rooms, from which he emerged later to play a blinder.
The end in radio came rather more suddenly than I had planned and Mr Boycott was, unwittingly part it. I had erroneously wiped part of another interview with the great man and his ‘bon mots’ were lost forever. While quite rightly being berated for said error I resigned on the spot. This was a pathetically futile gesture and one which went completely unnoticed. It was not my last contact with the station as, the tiff conveniently forgotten, I was asked to do a piece for them a couple of years later when I was Birmingham based. The result of this was their generous sending of two tickets for the last game of the season at St Andrews where, if Leeds United were to beat Birmingham and four other teams lost, Leeds could have been promoted back into the then first division.
I took my seven year old son to his first big game. The opening act of the massive Leeds following was to burn down a chip van which was positioned on top of one of the terraces at the decrepit stadium. After kick off results filtered through from other grounds and it became obvious, as Birmingham took a quick lead, that promotion was out of the question for Leeds. As a result their fans rioted at half time. It was a serious and brutal encounter which lasted forty five minutes. Police horses were deployed onto the pitch and the hand to hand fighting spilled into the grandstand where we were. I was concerned first of all with regard to our safety, not a little scared myself and secondly really worried about the potential trauma my son would suffer as one injured Birmingham fan passed within inches of us with blood gushing from a deep head wound.
Eventually the police restored an uneasy order and the teams came back onto the pitch. Seeking to reassure my son and affecting a forced tone of calmness I said, “That was terrible. ..don’t get too upset…what do you think?” I thought that if he externalised his angst it would help in the healing process. Without missing a beat he replied “I think Leeds could equalise in the second half”. All things considered it was the most interesting dialogue I’ve had at a sports ground.
During this stint in radio I had never quite left teaching and had been working at an inner city high school. Radio assignments took up a couple of evenings a week and usually two days at the weekend. With generous blind eyes being turned by my
Just before leaving I heard an incredibly poignant story told in typically self effacing fashion by the man who was at the centre of it. The late Arthur Keegan was an extremely talented rugby League player who went on to represent Great Britain. In his early retirement he did some commentary work for local radio. He rarely mentioned the fact that he was a former international even though he was held in universally high regarded within the game. When talking to him after a game at Headingley, where we had shared commentary, Arthur mentioned in passing that he had made his debut for Hull against Leeds there in 1958.
I asked Arthur how the debut had gone and he said that he had only been selected at the last minute, and dashing to the ground could not find the players entrance, didn’t want to make a fuss, so PAID to get in. At nineteen he was already a player of immense skill and bravery in the toughest of games, yet so shy and lacking in ego that he thought nothing of paying through the turnstiles before eventually being directed to the changing rooms, from which he emerged later to play a blinder.
The end in radio came rather more suddenly than I had planned and Mr Boycott was, unwittingly part it. I had erroneously wiped part of another interview with the great man and his ‘bon mots’ were lost forever. While quite rightly being berated for said error I resigned on the spot. This was a pathetically futile gesture and one which went completely unnoticed. It was not my last contact with the station as, the tiff conveniently forgotten, I was asked to do a piece for them a couple of years later when I was Birmingham based. The result of this was their generous sending of two tickets for the last game of the season at St Andrews where, if Leeds United were to beat Birmingham and four other teams lost, Leeds could have been promoted back into the then first division.
I took my seven year old son to his first big game. The opening act of the massive Leeds following was to burn down a chip van which was positioned on top of one of the terraces at the decrepit stadium. After kick off results filtered through from other grounds and it became obvious, as Birmingham took a quick lead, that promotion was out of the question for Leeds. As a result their fans rioted at half time. It was a serious and brutal encounter which lasted forty five minutes. Police horses were deployed onto the pitch and the hand to hand fighting spilled into the grandstand where we were. I was concerned first of all with regard to our safety, not a little scared myself and secondly really worried about the potential trauma my son would suffer as one injured Birmingham fan passed within inches of us with blood gushing from a deep head wound.
Eventually the police restored an uneasy order and the teams came back onto the pitch. Seeking to reassure my son and affecting a forced tone of calmness I said, “That was terrible. ..don’t get too upset…what do you think?” I thought that if he externalised his angst it would help in the healing process. Without missing a beat he replied “I think Leeds could equalise in the second half”. All things considered it was the most interesting dialogue I’ve had at a sports ground.
During this stint in radio I had never quite left teaching and had been working at an inner city high school. Radio assignments took up a couple of evenings a week and usually two days at the weekend. With generous blind eyes being turned by my
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