Jimmy Mac The Prince Chapter-3-No Suitcase

      “Oh blazes,” he said. “Blazes” is the nearest thing to swearing I have heard from him whereas the dreadful ‘F’ word seems to be the first word the modern footballer learns as a toddler. “Where did you get these things from?” He looked at one old action picture of himself in the green Irish shirt. It was one of those lovely old pictures you found in 1950s annuals where they took a black and white photograph and then hand coloured it. Some of them are works of art but accuracy and facial features can get lost in translation.

     “Oh blazes,” he said again with the tiniest smile on his face. I couldn’t blame him, even in the Irish green he looked more like John Wayne than Jimmy McIlroy. I passed him an old September 1966 Soccer Star. On the front cover was the Oldham Athletic team. Jimmy is on the back row. He looks cold and fed up, mind you so do half of them. There’s just the hint of a smile on the rest. Maybe it’s to do with how I remember him in earlier years, but he looks ill at ease and out of place. Another of the magazines featured him on the front cover in the red stripes of Stoke City. He had seen it once before on the wall of the Border Bookshop in Todmorden.

     Victor from the shop told me Jimmy had been there a couple of times and had seen the picture on the wall. He’d said how he never liked it and that it was a shirt in which no-one ever looked good. He looked at it again when I showed it to him. “I never looked good in it, never felt smart in it. I always thought it looked an untidy shirt. Not even Stanley Matthews looked good in it.”

     The Stoke v Real Madrid programme I bought on eBay for less than a fiver. I thought it would set me back far more and if I’d spent four times that, it would have been worth it. Jimmy looked through the pages and the team lists. The game was played not long after he moved from Burnley.

     “Did I tell you about Puskas?” he asked. I settled back. Puskas had been in the Real Madrid team that night.

     “One of the best moments of the night was when I beat Puskas and got past him. I feinted and he fell for the dummy. I remember there was a look of acknowledgement on his face and appreciation of what I had done. He was still one of the greatest players in the world and he showed me with the look on his face and in his eyes that he recognised that bit of skill.”

     What I wanted to talk about that morning was his time at Craigavad and then Glentoran. But first, another little story came out and again it was all to do with the recurring question, “Why me, how was I picked out to do well, how did the luck come my way?

     “I had been picked to play for the Irish youth team against Scotland at Ayr. But I had no suitcase. We were to sail across from Larne to Stranraer in Scotland, play the game, and then come back the next night. But all I could think was I have no suitcase for my clothes and without a suitcase how I could go; in fact I didn’t want to go. How could I go with my things packed in just a bag or a parcel? I would have looked like an evacuee. I would just be so embarrassed. Well, word must have got round the village and there was just one person with a suitcase. ‘Can I borrow it?’ I asked. I still remember it was nothing special because it wasn’t leather; it was a sort of thick cardboard. But it was a suitcase and it saved me because I would have been too embarrassed to go without one. And I still think even today what I would have done? I was just lucky that one person had a suitcase.”

     Jimmy’s first serious team was near Bangor. “It was Artie Taylor who persuaded me to join him playing for Craigavad which was way past Belfast on the way to Bangor. It was a walk into Lambeg for the bus, the bus to Belfast and then change to another bus for Craigavad. I’d be at work in the morning, rush home, grab something to eat, rush to Lambeg, then to Craigavad. It seemed to take hours to get there, but we thought nothing of it. It’s what you did then.” In fact, as well as Craigavad, Jimmy turned out for any team short of a player.

   Scouts from the big clubs were always watching their games and Fred Steadman had followed his progress since Technical School. One night with a lad called Artie he was stopped by Steadman who asked the pair of them would they like to sign for Glentoran? He didn’t need to ask them twice. They signed the forms there and then and received their first signing on fee – a fish and chip supper. He was put in the Co-operative Team and also in this team at the time was Danny Blanchflower’s brother Jackie and Billy Bingham. The Co-operative team was in fact the Glentoran Third team by another name.

     My foot was at last on the ladder at Glentoran and without doubt I couldn’t have joined a better club to begin my career. Glentoran at that time were making the first serious attempt to develop young players. They weren’t allowed to enter teams in any amateur league but they got round that by taking over the Cooperative Club and used that club to give young Oval players competitive football. It was Glentoran Juniors in all but name. In that side I first met Billy Bingham who like me moved on to the first team and was then transferred across to England where we both won international honours.

     John Geary, an old Irish international was in charge of the Cooperative team and deserves a huge tribute. He insisted at all times that we should play cultured football. His maxim was: ‘Pure football counts above all else’. These words have stayed with me ever since and guided me. Enthusiasm, speed, hard work, all these have their place in football, but, I am certain that only skill provides the real test and is the essential basic need. It is all-important.

   I remember one particularly rough match with the Glentoran Co-operative youngsters on the receiving end of some vicious first-half tackling. At half time John Geary warned us: ‘There must be no retaliation from any of you kids. Any display of bad temper will be severely frowned on. Keep playing football’. We did, but it was difficult against grown men every week.

     Many lessons are there to be learned between the ages of 15 and 20. I learned how to live with disappointment. After one game for the international youth eleven, I was dropped. Later, I won back my position and realised that faced with setbacks like this you have to take them in your stride.

   It was during a youth international fixture in England at Hull that I was first approached about joining an English club. Ireland lost 2 – 4 but I must have had a good game. As I left the ground I was approached by a stranger who asked me would I like to sign for Bolton Wanderers. I was immediately over the moon and replied immediately that I would love to. The stranger promised me that someone would be over to Belfast to see me. But no-one ever did. They must have decided I wasn’t good enough to justify the journey. By that time, anyway, I had signed professional forms for Glentoran.

     Towards the end of the 1948/49 season I was promoted from the Co-op to the Glentoran first team, it was the very last match of the season. A week later Glentoran went to Dublin for a friendly game against Bohemians at Dalymount Park, and kept my place. Allegedly, two directors from Burnley were at that game with most of their attention fixed on myself and Billy Bingham. I’m told they reported back that we were no better than the young players already at Turf Moor. I could have been signed for £10 that day and so could Billy Bingham. I later cost them £8,000 and Billy Bingham went on to become another great player.

     At the start of the next season I reported to the Oval expecting to be in the reserves again. Instead, with Billy, I was straight into the first team for the first game against rivals Linfield. This was always a ‘needle’ match and there was a huge crowd for this opening game. They were probably attracted more by Linfield stars like Alf McMicheal and George Hannah, rather than the young Jimmy McIlroy.

     I kept my place for the next half a dozen matches but felt something was missing, I felt something was wrong with my performances. I was still bricklaying and trying to be a footballer at the same time. There was no way this was possible and it bothered me that I wasn’t physically or mentally strong enough to make the progress I wanted to make. We worked on a bonus system in the building trade so there was no chance to take things easy. If I’d done that and slowed down I would have cost my workmates hard cash. Working so hard laying bricks all day I seemed to have little energy left for the football and the training. It was just too much. I had a hard decision to make and chose to give up the job and become a full-time footballer on £5 a week, less than what I earned as a bricklayer with the bonuses.

     Most of the other players were part-timers and there were days when there was no-one there to train with so I made another decision. I would spend two days every week hiking round the hills overlooking the Lagan Valley. With the family mongrel, ‘Darkie’, I covered at least ten miles a day, building up stamina and fitness. Going full-time was the best decision I made, the new fitness and readiness for Saturday showing in my game.

        Jimmy played just the one league game for Glentoran in 1948/49. Danny Blanchflower was still there but left for Barnsley at the end of the season and another great player, Bertie Peacock, left to go to Glasgow Celtic. Billy Bingham was another new, rising star in the team. He would be sold to Sunderland. McIlroy played just the one game plus a friendly but in the following season 1949/50, he came into the team to play 25 games and score nine goals. He was quick, incredibly sharp and was clearly a major talent.

     Glentoran were a club with a great history, part and parcel of the life and fabric of Belfast since 1882, one of the most successful clubs in the province; their roll call of players sent to England impressive, Bingham, McIlroy, both Blanchflowers, Casey, Peacock being just a few. Their most romantic achievement was perhaps winning the Vienna Cup in Europe in 1914. They won the league title, the Irish Cup, the Gold Cup, the Antrim Shield and other trophies on countless occasions.

     They had in fact returned to the Belfast Oval in season 1949/50. In the wartime bombing raids on the city, the ground had been reduced to rubble along with the shipyards. Somehow the club had raised £20,000 to restore the Oval, a huge amount for those days. Most of it was the result of the supporters’ clubs and scores of events organised in conjunction with the ‘Back to the Oval’ appeal. Excitement mounted in Belfast as August 20^th approached and it was seen as the dawn of a new era. 25,000 fans turned up. It didn’t matter that they lost 2 – 3 to Linfield. They were back at home where they belonged.

     By the end of 1949, Glentoran with Jimmy Mac stood second in the table having played eight Irish League games. There had been just one defeat. Billy Bingham was the man playing out of his skin. Record crowds followed their progress. For the first game of the fifties Linfield were again the opposition. Another 25,000 fans crowded in but Glentoran lost 2 – 3. At the end of February Glentoran and Linfield were level on 23 points.

     Meanwhile scouts were turning up to watch the newest star – Jimmy McIlroy - in a 2 – 0 win over Derry. They came from Bolton, Tottenham, Sheffield Wednesday, and the club that would sign him a week later, Burnley. In 1949, Burnley had missed out on signing goalkeeper Bert Trautmann from St Helens Town by a matter of hours. This time they were not going to be beaten. McIlroy played 25 games during the season scoring 9 goals, scoring twice against Cliftonville in December ’49 and then twice against Crusaders in the following February. His first ever goal came in October against Coleraine, just before his 18^th birthday. He had arrived. His last goal for them was in March against Distillery in a 4 – 1 win.

     Glentoran eventually finished runners-up in the League that season, losing to Linfield yet again, in a play-off. Later in May there was a friendly against Doncaster Rovers then managed by Jimmy’s great hero Peter Doherty. Jimmy missed him of course, but they would meet again in international fixtures.

   My game came on in leaps and bounds; I scored goals, was quick and sharp, could make a telling pass and covered all the pitch. After one very successful game in February 1950, the manager Frank Grice introduced me to the Burnley chairman Mr Kay. I’d had a good game but Frank was a wily character and suggested to Mr Kay that it had not been one of my better games. He wanted a decent transfer fee.

   I became a ‘marked man’, and after a game a week later as I came out of the Oval I could see a stranger pointing to me and telling a companion. “That’s him, that’s the one we want.” I assumed the pair were from Burnley. Things started to move the next week because having played my best against Distillery at Grosvenor Park, I was told: ‘Frank Hill the Burnley manager was here to watch you today’. That was wonderful news. I knew that I’d had a good game and if it needed something special to attract Burnley, I felt sure I had produced it that day.

     Sauntering home at about 11 o clock at night having spent the evening in Belfast, I was met by my sister Doreen, breaking all speed limits on her bike. She jumped off and gasping told me there were two Englishmen waiting to see me at the house. She told me to hurry so I grabbed the bike, left her to walk home, and got there as fast as I could. The two men were Frank Hill and a Burnley director, Wilf Hopkinson. Frank Grice was with them who told me that terms had been agreed between the two clubs and all they needed was my agreement. Football-minded boys in Northern Ireland have only one real ambition in life. They live for the day they can join an English club. I needed no persuading.

     I was however a novice in the transfer business. There were no agents in those days. You only had your own wits. I could have made, or attempted to make, a considerable amount of money out of the move. All I collected however was the £750 signing on fee. I thought I was a millionaire overnight. But then when I heard of other players who had made far more out of their moves; I heard that one player pocketed a third of his £12,000 fee, and others gained amounts from £1,500 to £2,000, I felt rather disillusioned. They had the sense to play ‘hard to get’ when they were asked to sign. I, on the other hand, was too flattered to think I was wanted and was too eager. I made no attempt to push my good luck further by seeking anything extra.

     But, those thoughts came later. For now I was delighted and excited. I had got a move. I was going to England.

(Adapted from Chapter One, Right Inside Soccer: Jimmy McIlroy 1960)

     It was the Burnley chairman, Mr Kay who sanctioned the deal. He was playing snooker in the Mechanics Institute recreation room when he received an urgent phone call from the club representatives in Ireland. He interrupted his game, took the call and the deal was clinched. That decision must surely be the best he ever made for the club.

   “You remember the strangest things,” said Jimmy. “The night I was signed by Burnley it was the manager Frank Hill who came, and one of the directors, I think it was Mr Hopkinson. They were in the house waiting for me. I’d played at Glentoran against Distillery in the afternoon and not come home until about 11 o clock. My sister met me on my way home on her bike. I grabbed the bike off her and left her to walk back. But, what I realise now, years later, is that they must have been waiting for me there for some time. And I think now, what if one of them had wanted to go to the toilet. All we had then was an earth closet in the outside yard, dark, with no lights, how embarrassed I would have been. And now what I wonder is, if one of them had needed to use that closet, would they still have wanted to sign me?

     “Funnily enough, Frank Grice the Glentoran manager was a cockney and I could never understand a word he said. But then I don’t suppose he could understand us either. He had once been at Tottenham and Frank told me that Arthur Rowe at Tottenham had given him an absolute rollicking for selling me to Burnley and asked him why he had never told him about ‘this promising young player’.”

   Of course Jimmy has happy memories of his short stay at Glentoran. His talent was obvious but it was clear his future lay elsewhere. He returned to the Oval in early August, 2008, when Burnley and Glentoran played a pre-season fixture and was presented to the crowd and the players. Between February, 1951 and August, 2008 he could never have imagined that so much would happen.