True Storey

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I was slagged off unmercifully because of my abrasive playing style, labelled the bastards’ bastard, an assassin and a thug. Some of the abuse was vicious, but it never caused me to lose a moment’s sleep.

It was a super career at the top as far as I was concerned; 16 years with Arsenal, where I made over 500 first-team appearances, a little niche in history as a member of the side which did the Double in 1970-71, and 19 international caps for England.

Yet so much rubbish has been written about me, so many lies and half-truths peddled as ‘fact’ relating to the crime which blighted my life, and I’d already had it at the back of my mind for some time to set the record straight when Hollywood actress Mercedes McNab, the daughter of my old Arsenal colleague Bob McNab, introduced me to a couple of British guys she knew in Los Angeles. They were very keen to turn my life story into a film, and we reached the stage of discussing scripts before the deal went cold when they failed to get financial backing.

First, I was living comfortably in the south of France when it was announced, mistakenly, that I was so hard-up I’d had to sell my medals on eBay for £28,000. That niggled away at me; it seemed whenever I read anything about myself, it was inaccurate.

Second, I was in a bookshop looking for a decent autobiography, spotted an effort by an England international still in his 20s and despaired. I wasn’t going to learn anything from that either about the game or the player which I didn’t already know, and said as much to my wife, Danièle, who challenged me: ‘But your life has been so crazy, Peter, why don’t you tell everybody what really happened?’

Third, I was approached by a journalist, Will Price, who convinced me I had a cracking tale to tell, and he knew as well as I did that while my professional career with Arsenal and England had been played out for very public consumption in front of thousands of spectators, I had never before spoken about the seedy side of my life after football.

Not necessarily the most famous of our collection, however, considering the diversity of his crimes, possibly the most notorious. Having admitted boozing and womanising during his playing days, the madness took over when he hung up his boots in 1977. Perhaps his biggest crime was that football just wasn’t enough for him.

I wanted to write this book primarily to explain the ‘madness’ fully for the first time, and particularly how so much of it was interlinked, and while I consider myself to have been a career sportsman, I most certainly was not a career criminal.

I’m going to reveal how I was sentenced to three years in jail for conspiracy to counterfeit gold half-sovereigns, and got banged up again for smuggling pornographic videos into England from Rotterdam in the spare tyre of my Suzuki Jeep, quite apart from receiving a suspended sentence and £700 fine for running a brothel, the Calypso Massage Parlour, in Leyton High Street, east London.

There was also my conviction for negotiating with a crook to buy two cars, a Mercedes and a BMW, which I had on hire-purchase at my Starline minicab firm, the almost inevitable bankruptcy, plus ludicrous accusations of headbutting one traffic warden and driving my car recklessly at another.

As tough as I’d been on the pitch, I was weak and foolish in as much as I confess I was attracted to the brash, flash lifestyle enjoyed by smartly dressed thieves who frequented my pub, the Jolly Farmers in Islington, the way they always seemed to have a pretty girl on one arm, a pocketful of ready cash and plenty of time to indulge themselves.

I hope I don’t come over too much as a bitter old pro, although I fear I haven’t been totally successful in conveying just how much enjoyment simply playing football gave me for a vast proportion of my club career. Put it down to frustration; Arsenal should have won much more in terms of trophies in the 1970s.

Thanks are also due to several former teammates who have had some kind words to say on my behalf, notably Bob Wilson, Frank McLintock, Bob McNab and Eddie Kelly; literary agent David Luxton for his invaluable support and taking care of contractual matters; Bill and Sharon Campbell, Fiona Atherton, Graeme Blaikie, Helen Bleck, Alex Hepworth and Kate McLelland at Mainstream for their enthusiasm and skill; Dominic Sutton and Peter Mason, a couple of devoted Arsenal fans who helped jog my memory by providing some vital statistics; Mark Baber of the Association of Football Statisticians; and particularly the Daily Mirror picture desk (mirrorfootball.co.uk) for sourcing some splendid nostalgic action shots of me in my prime.

But I could never thank Danièle enough. Quite apart from being a wonderful, gentle, tolerant woman, she is an extremely gifted landscape artist. Given a fraction of her talent, I would have played 100 times for England.

Three days before the end of the Second World War and the conception of a lot of unplanned kids on VE Day, I was born on Friday, 7 September 1945, in Farnham Hospital to Edwin, a carpenter who later became a self-employed builder, and Nellie, who worked part-time in a small clothes shop. I was destined to be an only child.

Mum and Dad had met during the War when he moved south to join the Royal Artillery, training the searchlights on enemy aircraft. Nellie had an authentic military background. Hailing from Aldershot, it was no surprise to learn that the men on her side of the family were professional soldiers. Her father was a Grenadier Guardsman and spent part of the First World War imprisoned in France.

I was tickled to discover that I share my birthday with a couple of other decent defenders: Queen Elizabeth I of England, who had an impressive record tackling the Spanish; and the classy Marcel Desailly, a man I admire enormously, who played over 100 international matches for France, the country I have made my home and where I live quietly, reading, cooking and spending time with my wife.

As far as I’m aware, mine was a normal birth – although given the reputation I have acquired over the intervening years as Arsenal’s notorious hatchet man, my four marriages, assorted courtroom appearances and time spent at Her Majesty’s pleasure, I suppose you could be forgiven for thinking the midwife and nurses made the sign of the cross and blessed themselves when I appeared for the first time, before checking my body for the figures 666, the mark of the Beast, to the accompaniment of thunder and lightning in north Hampshire.

Mum and Dad couldn’t afford a home to call their own when I was born and my first three years were spent lodging with them at my nan’s in Wyke Avenue, Ash, in a house without electricity. It was gas-powered and I distinctly remember being led up the stairs by candlelight during a winter’s night to bunk in with my teenage Uncle John, a fireman on the steam locomotives based at Guildford. It was common practice for family members in poor circles to share a bed in those days. Nan didn’t have a bathroom and after tea on a Friday an ancient tin bath was filled with hot water and I’d receive my weekly scrub in front of the open kitchen fire.

I was later at home alone with Mum and Dad at ‘Donibee’ in Ashdene Road, but I knew no loneliness as a typically grubby urchin in short trousers with scarred legs and bruised knees, the legacy of endless games of football and cricket in the roads of the estate and on the local rec – not to mention the occasional punch-up.

Those fights could get a bit tasty, and I both dished out and suffered my fair share of bloody noses. I was well-built but just average height, I wasn’t a bully and I never backed down in the face of a bigger boy. If trouble came looking for me, it wasn’t in my nature to run.

Out of school, a rolling mob of us played in the fresh air until it got too dark to see the ball properly. The score might be ridiculous, something like 12-all, someone would suggest: ‘Next goal wins’, and then we’d all have a big ruck when the ball brushed a jumper, acting as a makeshift goalpost, arguing the toss over whether it counted as a legitimate in-off-the-post winner or whether the ball would have bounced out off a proper wooden upright. I would be fairly vocal, even then, because winning mattered to me, not that any of us would remember the result in the morning, of course. Whether or not the issue was resolved to general satisfaction, it was then a case of straight home, tea, bath and bed.

We lived in a plain, two-bedroomed upstairs flat with a combined sitting room-cum-kitchen and a bathroom. Rationing was still evident and Mum frequently entrusted me with the ration book to run down to the butcher’s for a nice piece of liver or a bunch of sausages. I didn’t have any favourite meals because there wasn’t the variety to pick and choose. You simply ate what was put in front of you and were grateful for it, no nonsense.

I already attended Yeoman’s Bridge Secondary School before Mum and Dad could afford to take a week off work and we enjoyed a family holiday for the first time in a caravan at Hayling Island, near Portsmouth. Before that, the highlight of summer was our communal trip from the estate by charabanc to the seaside on the south coast at Littlehampton, Bognor Regis or Southsea. Assorted families gathered early in the morning on the Longacre, chattering excitedly and clutching their rugs, Thermos flasks and sandwiches in brown paper bags. There must have been some Saturdays and Sundays when the weather was less than perfect and the parents glanced nervously skywards to grey clouds, but my only recollection is sunshine, lots and lots of lovely sunshine.

On arrival at our chosen destination, there would be a mad scramble among the kids to be first on the sand, staking territorial rights to a bit of beach for the day with a towel before wriggling into a pair of bathing trunks and hurtling into the sea.

After tea, tired but happy, despite the inevitable sunburn, our journey home would be broken by a stop at a roadside pub with an appropriate garden to shake the sand from our shoes. The thirsty men would disappear inside for a pint or two of Gale’s Best Bitter, the mums would have a well-earned port and lemon, while the kids stayed outside – the fortunate among us with a bottle of pop and a bag of crisps. Everyone was in an even better mood after that and the singing on the coach commenced . . . ‘Roll Out the Barrel’ was a favourite as we rolled home.

My formal education was a bit of a disaster and I was disorientated from the start. Due to some quirk in the system, having a 7 September birthday meant I didn’t go to Heathcote Memorial Junior School until I was nearly six years old, along with a cousin who was eight months younger than me. I’m convinced that wouldn’t have represented too much of an obstacle, given time, but then I was locked into this crazy pattern which continued at Yeoman’s Bridge, where I seemed to spend two years in a higher class or two years at the same level. Nobody seemed to have a clue where I should be. As I wasn’t academically inclined, it left me either floundering hopelessly out of my depth trying to play catch-up or bored stiff, praying for the bell to ring and signal morning break or lunchtime when I could leave everyone in no doubt about where my talents lay, with the ball at my feet on the unforgiving playground concrete following another successful thumping challenge.

At least I had the satisfaction of knowing I was in the same boat as two other boys. Little Graham Hanford’s birthday was 6 September while Jimmy Smith, a great big chap, was born on 8 September. Inevitably, the three of us – unwise monkeys – sat hunched together and muddled through as best we could.

Dad worked hard and always seemed to be busy; he was often out of the house by 7 a.m. and I never saw him again until six o’clock in the evening. Sometimes during the football season he would take me on the bus to go and watch Aldershot in the Fourth Division, against the likes of Bradford Park Avenue, Crystal Palace and Millwall, standing on the terraces underneath the iron roof behind the goal at the Recreation Ground.

My fledgling football career was soon up and running, and Mum and Dad proudly maintained a scrapbook of my progress from the representative schoolboy stuff through to my formative years as a professional. The cuttings have yellowed with age but they jog a few happy memories whenever I choose to revisit those muddy winters of dubbined boots, cork studs and heavy leather footballs of the late 1950s.

The competition came thick and fast from the day I made my debut as a wet-behind-the-ears Under-11 for the Aldershot and Farnborough Schools FA, where I had the great good fortune to be trained by the highly enthusiastic Charlie Mortimore, the former England Amateur international centre-forward who also played for Aldershot and Woking before becoming a games master at the local Cove Secondary School. Charlie became a local legend in 1950 when he scored five goals for the Shots in a 7–2 away win at Orient. His brother, John Mortimore, wore Chelsea’s colours before going on to manage Portsmouth and later enjoyed tremendous success out in Portugal as the Benfica coach.

I soon established myself at right-back as a powerful tackler with a ‘they-shall-not-pass’ mentality when it came to opposing wingers. I became quite adept at penalty-taking much later in my career but chanced upon my first recorded miss in my parents’ big blue book when we beat St Pancras 2–1 after extra-time to reach the third round of the London Schools Sun Shield.

I can’t remember how impressionable we were back then in those simple days, but it’s a good thing we weren’t particularly sensitive because while he could be wonderfully biased in our favour, the mysterious ‘Phoenix’ didn’t pull many punches when we failed to impress him. He had a love–hate relationship with our prolific centre-forward Ron Wilks, who scored over a hundred goals one season, and reported after another victory:

Wilks, in the middle, although he scored both goals, was not up to his usual form, and he often shot weakly. He hit the framework of the goal on a couple of occasions too with shots that could have beaten the goalkeeper. The whole Aldershot and Farnborough side played well, and team manager Charles Mortimore had every reason to be proud of them. But he was still critical at the end. ‘Disappointing’ was his comment. He meant they should have scored more goals.

Fair-haired Ron’s proudest moment came complete with the headline ‘Young Ron Gets The Lot As Spurs Totter’ after we beat Tottenham Schoolboys 5–1 to reach the semi-finals of the London Under-14s Charity Cup. My part in the proceedings merited this snippet: ‘A second star of the match was centre-half Peter Storey. He played an exceptionally strong game and will fit like a glove into next year’s Under-15 centre-half berth.’

Bashing Tottenham was just the sort of result I would come to relish, and we went on to beat East Ham in the final. That was a fantastic achievement because east London has always been a fertile breeding ground for hungry young footballers, right up with Merseyside, the north-east and Manchester. Mind you, my appetite for success was substantial.

The Mortimores, with their Chelsea connections, did their level best to steer me towards Stamford Bridge. John took some of us a couple of times to see First Division matches at Chelsea, where manager Ted Drake had won the First Division championship in 1955 with his team dubbed ‘Drake’s Ducklings’.

Now Jimmy Greaves, Terry Venables, Peter Bonetti, Bobby Tambling and Peter Brabrook were beginning to emerge as their new bright young things but Chelsea’s best efforts to turn me into a Blue were in vain, because all I wanted to do was play for Arsenal from the moment I first set foot on the North Bank.

The morning of one of our visits had been spent in north London playing for Aldershot and Farnborough, and our treat after lunch was to visit Highbury to see the Gunners entertain a Wolves side featuring the legendary Billy Wright, later to be my boss, and Eddie Clamp. From the famous terraces, I could almost reach out and touch my boyhood hero, Jack Kelsey, the Arsenal and Wales goalkeeper.

The match on Saturday, 23 March 1957 was no classic, a 0-0 stalemate, but Wolves were still a big draw and I stood in a crowd of 51,021 as an impressionable 11 year old to see Arsenal take on the side which had won the First Division championship three years earlier. I was captivated from that day and fell in love with the club. Fortunately, it wasn’t long before they took a shine to me too.

I was playing at centre-half for Aldershot schoolboys when Arsenal scout Alf Faulkner got to hear about me. He watched me several times, then came to see Mum and Dad one night. I was virtually ‘on a promise’ to the club from that evening, although it would be some time before I was asked to become an apprentice professional.

It’s been a busy week for Peter Storey, centre-half of the Aldershot and Farnborough Schools Under-15 team, who comes from Yeoman’s Bridge School at Ash. He’s fitted two big trials into one week.

On Tuesday he went down to Portsmouth for one of the Hampshire Schools final trials, and yesterday he was off to Tottenham for the final trial before the London Schools FA side is picked.

Peter was centre-half for the Hampshire trials and left-back for the London trial. If he is picked for London, it will be a terrific honour for the district, because the London boys are chosen from a district ranging from Aldershot, Colchester and Brighton, as well as the City itself.

If he gets his place, he will be the first boy from the Association to play for London since Salesian College boy Rankine about ten years ago. London’s first match will be against Manchester under floodlights at the Spurs’ ground next month.

The London trial went well and I didn’t feel the slightest inferiority complex coming in from ‘the sticks’ to compete for my place against boys who appeared to me to be slightly flash and certainly more streetwise. Of course, I had the confidence of knowing Arsenal already fancied me.

Even before I could shave, I was carving out a reputation as a solid, dependable player with a touch of versatility. I think the scouts liked the idea I could perform in either of the full-back shirts and also at centre-half.

The London schoolboys selectors had strange ideas about bringing the best out of us. They threw us straight in at the deep end with practice matches against Tottenham and Arsenal Juniors, where we were outclassed to the tune of 9–0 and 8–1.

Despite that hammering at Highbury, I obviously did enough to merit further attention. A letter duly arrived informing me I had been picked to play at left-back for London against Manchester in the autumn of 1960. It was an annual inter-city fixture for the Alf Clarke Cup, but I didn’t get the opportunity then to shine under those promised floodlights at White Hart Lane.

The occasion was very special, as Mum and Dad joined a coachload of local supporters who travelled up to the match specifically to cheer me on. It was staged on a Saturday afternoon in the end, 22 October, rather than a midweek evening, because Spurs called off their First Division fixture against Cardiff City when it coincided with a Wales–Scotland full international.

Storey gave a stable display at left-back throughout and although London beat Manchester 6–1 and had the best of the play, Peter played capably and in typically unruffled manner. League secretary, Mr Walter Payne, who watched the game, said: ‘Peter’s heading and clearances were all constructive and he played well in this class of football.’

My schoolwork at Yeoman’s Bridge might have been distinctly average, but I was gaining glowing reports by the week for the work I put in on the pitch. A pleasant careers officer asked me what I hoped to do when I left school. She was taken aback when I replied simply: ‘I’m going to be a professional footballer with Arsenal’, and went away to ask the teachers if they were aware of my grandiose plans.

I had a good engine and my sporting prowess extended to cross-country and middle-distance running, setting a record at the Guildford Schools’ Athletic Association championships with a time of 58.2 seconds to win the boys’ 440 yards for 13 to 15 year olds. After that, it didn’t seem like two minutes before I was caught up in the process of trying to win a place in the England Schoolboys team, where I came into contact with several other likely lads who were to progress to the professional ranks with varying degrees of success.

Ilford was the scene of my first international trial on 11 February 1961, and now scouts from professional clubs other than Arsenal were beginning to take a serious interest. My local club, Aldershot, were too honest and above board for their own good, however.

Tapping up young players may be frowned upon, but it has always gone on, and always will. Here I was, right on their doorstep, and there were ample opportunities for the Shots to ‘have a little word’ with my dad, but nothing ever materialised. When Aldershot and Farnborough Under-15s beat Southampton 1–0, my citation in the report ran: ‘Storey was the better of two commanding centre-halves. Cool, resourceful and with a shrewd footballing brain, he initiated attacks and moved forward to thrust them home at times.’

The reporter may briefly have sensed he was on to a scoop, but he was to be disappointed, informing readers: ‘Watching the game was Mr Dave Smith, Aldershot Town manager, and Mr J Sirrell, the pros’ trainer. Asked if he had any particular player in mind, Mr Smith said: “No, I’m just watching another football match.”’ If I had caught his eye, Smith was giving nothing away. His right-hand man became much better known as a manager in his own right – Jimmy Sirrell of Notts County.

Soon afterwards, the local paper revealed: ‘Peter’s prospects look bright because Arsenal have already approached him with the suggestion that he should join them when he leaves school,’ before adding, rather pointedly, ‘but he has not yet heard from Aldershot FC.’

Our article last week about Peter Storey’s prospects as a professional footballer following his selection for an England international football trial has caused a bit of a rumpus. Mistaking genuine interest by Arsenal FC, Peter’s family informed us that he had been ‘approached’ by the club, and our report asked why no similar approach had been made by Aldershot FC.

Aldershot manager, Dave Smith, has been quick to point out that while Peter is at school no official approach can be made to him under FA rules by any club. He contacted Arsenal, who suggest that Peter’s family may have been confused by the interest shown in the boy when he played in a London schoolboys’ team in a private trial against the Arsenal Juniors at Highbury. It looks as if the story was a bit premature, but at least Peter can expect a call from the local club as soon as he leaves school.

I recall in the mid-’70s at Highbury when I was injured or suspended and training on my own, the chief scout Ernie Collett appeared with this tiny young chap and his father after giving them the grand tour of the ground. ‘This,’ Ernie told me proudly, ‘is Kenny Sansom. He plays full-back and when he leaves school he will be joining us at Arsenal next season.’ I greeted the kid, told him he could not be joining a better club and indulged in some light-hearted banter about kicking him all the way back to his home in Camberwell if he ever tried to nick my place in the team. A few days later I watched Kenny playing for England Schoolboys at Wembley, confident in the knowledge that Arsenal had recruited a right good ‘un when, lo and behold, he turned up signing for Malcolm Allison at Crystal Palace. There was some money flying about at Palace and they boasted about becoming the team of the ’80s, but it never materialised. Kenny did end up at Arsenal, but not until 1980, and by then he was worth £1 million.

Back on the England Schoolboys beat in 1961, I played for the South versus the North at the Bourneville Cadbury’s ground in Birmingham in a trial match on 4 March and, finally, for England against The Rest at the Baseball Ground, Derby a fortnight later.

I was, frankly, left open-mouthed when I compared what I had to offer with the skills flaunted by John Sissons. The world-famous England and West Ham United golden boy was, of course, Bobby Moore but I would happily have wagered my pocket money on Sissons becoming the ultimate hero at Upton Park. Here was a little left-winger with a great shot, incredible pace, the whole package. John, with his lovely blond hair, was born in the same month as me, not a million miles away in Hayes, and certainly looked the business for Middlesex whenever I came up against him at county level.

The London football scene in the early 1960s was buzzing with stories about ‘The Boy’ and how there was nothing he couldn’t do. Consequently, there was fierce competition for his signature and the West Ham manager Ron Greenwood nearly got into serious trouble when the club pounced to get his name on a contract the moment John was old enough.

The Hammers’ famous chief scout Wally St Pier had been tracking Sissons for ages, as had a good many other clubs, but this sort of ‘homework’ was strictly against Football Association rules, and when a newspaper tale of the coup leaked out, Ron had to pull off some nifty footwork to escape the hot water at Lancaster Gate.

It was no surprise when Sissons took his First Division bow in 1963 before making a little bit of football history the following year as the youngest scorer in an FA Cup final when West Ham beat Preston North End 3–2 at Wembley. Coincidentally, that afternoon Preston included Howard Kendall, the youngest player to appear in the final and a future opponent who tested me to the limit.

Mind you, the authorities wouldn’t have been very impressed had they discovered what Sissons did with his allocation of 20 Cup final tickets. He once confided they found their way onto the black market via the notorious ticket tout Stan Flashman for something like £600, and John bought himself a Morris 1100 with the readies. He always worried Greenwood would rumble where the money for that car came from.

Fame didn’t last, however, and Sissons simply seemed to fade away in a succession of moves to Sheffield Wednesday, Norwich and Chelsea, where he called it a day in 1975, aged just 30. The last I heard of him, he was living in South Africa. I once heard John explain, rather sadly I felt, that he didn’t think he really fulfilled his enormous potential because he’d had too much, too young. By the time he was 18, he’d won the FA Youth Cup, the FA Cup and the European Cup Winners’ Cup at Wembley with a 2–0 victory over TSV Munich 1860 in successive seasons. Lucky beggar. Wembley was a graveyard for my ambitions before my luck turned. Success may have come too early for him, but that was never going to be a problem for me.

I had covered myself with mud and sweat getting into the England reckoning but not much glory, and that’s always been a tiny regret. There was nobody to blame but myself, though. Everything had progressed smoothly until the crunch came. In the South side, I partnered David Sadler, a nice lad from Maidstone on his way to Manchester United. Playing at centre-half, I got the better of the North’s centre-forward Glyn Pardoe, who was destined to become a quality defender at Manchester City. In the final trial match at Derby, however, I had a poor match for England against The Rest, simple as that, and consequently wasn’t selected to play in the opening international on 24 March 1961 against Wales at Vetch Field, where England won 7–3 for the Victory Shield.

Howard Kendall was my room-mate in Swansea and we talked long into the night about what the future might hold in store. It was common knowledge among the team that we were virtually all spoken for, we knew which clubs we were going to. Howard might not have slept so soundly then had he known how I would be obliged to try and snuff him out by fair means or foul after he left Preston North End and developed into a player I admired enormously at Everton.

Still, I punched the air with delight – and more than a little relief – the morning an embossed envelope dropped through our letterbox in Ash containing the news that I had been picked to represent England Schoolboys in their next match against the Republic of Ireland at Coventry on 8 April.

My abiding recollection of that afternoon at Highfield Road is being literally sick with nerves before the kick-off. I shouldn’t have been feeling apprehensive at coming in to replace Barking’s John Sainty because the Irish lads weren’t very good and we beat them 8–0. It was still frightening stuff for a kid, pulling on that famous white shirt for the first time to represent your country, but I was to grow to love the feeling with a passion a decade later when Sir Alf Ramsey brought me in to play with the ‘big boys’.

I was hugely excited in the days that followed as I looked forward to accompanying England on what was an extremely rare event in those days. In fact, I believe the plane trip for an away fixture in Germany was the maiden flight by an England Schoolboys team.

We were all naïve young lads flying out from London Airport (better known now as Heathrow), and there was fun and games in our dormitory on the first night in Düsseldorf, where we encountered duvets for the first time. To boys used to sleeping at home under traditional sheets and blankets, this newfangled continental bedding was head-scratching stuff. Just how were we supposed to deal with it? Eventually, the general consensus was that the duvets were simply Europe’s answer to the sleeping bags several of us were familiar with as boy scouts, so we found a way of opening them up at one end and sleeping inside them.

I was changed and ready if needed to tackle the Germans 30 miles away from Düsseldorf in Hagen. But the call never came to remove my tracksuit. I hated that; I always wanted to play. But I couldn’t complain because England pulled off an excellent 3–1 win.

Next up was a trip to Roker Park, Sunderland for a match with Scotland on 22 April, and more frustration as I was again held in reserve as England slipped up for once and lost 3–2, but then I sampled the delights of Wembley Stadium for the first time against Wales in a comfortable 8–1 win the following Saturday as a replacement for the England right-half, who was injured with a quarter of an hour to go. I would experience action beneath those Twin Towers on many occasions in the future, with more grief than glory.

Peter quickly blended with the side and gave a good display. When the final whistle sounded, he was making some shrewd forward passes and every one of the 350 boys from Aldershot and District schools who were in the vast Wembley crowd wished fervently that he had been playing for the whole match.

I left school, aged 15, at the start of the Easter holidays and went up to London with Mum and Dad by train the following day to sign. It wasn’t the sort of thing the manager George Swindin concerned himself with, and after the official business was concluded in a matter of minutes, Mr Male took us to a nearby pub for lunch, nothing fancy. Just steak and chips all round, and a glass of Tizer in my case.

There need be no more speculation about the future of Peter Storey, the 15-year-old footballer from Ash, who last year captained Hampshire Schools and played for the England Schools side against Ireland at Coventry. He has signed professional forms for Arsenal. Among the other clubs keen to sign Peter were Tottenham, Chelsea, Southampton and Luton, but his father, Mr E Storey, a local builder, said: ‘Arsenal had always been Peter’s favourite team and I think he is doing the right thing. He has always wanted to be a professional footballer.’

The routine was simple: my alarm clock sounded at 6.30 a.m., breakfast consisted of tea and toast, then Dad drove me to the railway station in his old banger of an Austin Jowett in time for me to catch the train from Aldershot. Once at Waterloo, it was three stops on the Northern Line tube to Leicester Square followed by seven on the Piccadilly Line to the Arsenal Underground station and at 9 a.m. the bus left Highbury for London Colney to clock on for training at 10 a.m. Commuting would have been a costly business, but the club bought me a British Rail season ticket.

Cricket was all the rage in the summer of 1961 when I started work for Arsenal, running my nuts off on 10-mile pre-season training stints around the Hertfordshire countryside while Fred Trueman was running through the Australians during a gripping Ashes series. Despite his wicket-taking heroics, our national treasure couldn’t prevent a 2–1 home defeat, while I couldn’t avoid the odd blister or two. My discomfort was temporary, but Fiery Fred must have been severely pained at dismissing 11 Aussies in England’s solitary victory on his familiar stomping ground at Leeds, only to be dropped for the final Test.

I was one of half-a-dozen new boys pushed straight into the deep end under Arsenal’s two coaches, Ernie Collett and Alf Fields. The News reported: ‘When the season starts Peter will only train in the morning. His afternoons will be spent learning the electrical trade – one of the terms of his contract.’ Someone had sold the reporter a dummy because when the season started nothing was further from the truth and nothing was further from my mind than becoming an electrician. To be fair, the notion in the game at the time was that professional clubs should offer their apprentices the chance to learn a trade or continue their education at college.

That prospect, certainly at Arsenal, was laughable. Deep down, I’m sure we all possessed a total belief that we were going to make it as professionals. The club weren’t remotely interested in furthering our education; the coaches only wanted to see us developing our skills on the pitch. If any of us had gone to college in the afternoons or started to learn to become electricians, plumbers or bricklayers, it would have been taken as a huge sign of weakness, an indication that the individual did not have enough confidence in his ability to make it as a footballer.

Tales of apprentices cleaning the professionals’ muddy boots, sweeping the dressing room, painting and decorating, and performing other menial tasks did not apply at Arsenal Football Club. I was pleasantly surprised to discover the club employed a kit manager whose job entailed laying out the day’s requirements for each and every player at London Colney, from the superstar of his day, England international inside-forward George Eastham, to the lowest of the low – me.

The training was very hard at first. I was a fresh-faced kid straight from school and what struck me immediately was not the big-name first-team stars, but the youth-team lads who had already been at the club a couple of years: just how much better they were than me. I was a boy in stature, but they had already bulked up, filled out into men, and some of them looked very good players.

I was swiftly branded ‘Snouty’, a nickname which stuck with me throughout my career. It had nothing whatsoever to do with tobacco or cigarettes, but everything to do with David Court, a talented, confident inside-forward who was a year older than me. Court was chatting to a couple of the other apprentices when I bowled up, enquiring: ‘What’s up, lads?’ only to be told light-heartedly by Court to ‘keep my snout out’. That was it, I turned up for work the next day to be greeted by Court loudly proclaiming: ‘Here he is, old Snouty!’ and that was me marked for life.

George Swindin never interfered with the training routine and I seem to think we never saw a football until pre-season had been underway for a few weeks. Instead, those 10-mile runs seemed to be the preferred option of Ernie and Alf. About noon, after a warmdown, we’d shower before pouring into the canteen for meat and two veg, followed by what I’d describe as a ‘proper pudding’. Forty years later, Arsène Wenger established a strict dietary regime at the club with mineral water, pasta, grilled chicken, steamed fish and lashings of salad, fruit and veg the preferred order of the day.

My favourite meal at London Colney comprised lamb chops, chips and peas with fruit crumble and custard, washed down with a big mug of strong tea. After lunch there was always time to let your meal digest, which was probably just as well in my case, and relax over a game of snooker, darts or table tennis. A few of the lads studied the racing pages but there weren’t any card schools. That potential for a gambling vice didn’t arrive on the scene until a few decades later, and was to impact very badly on several careers.

The afternoon training session at 2 p.m. consisted of the short stuff – sprinting and exercises – before Ernie and Alf called it a day at 3.30 p.m. The first team drove home to the suburbs in their smart cars, while the rest of us hauled our weary limbs onto the bus going back to Highbury.

Terry Neill had got into the first team at a very young age and was holding down a place, while perhaps the biggest name of all was Eastham. Exceptional on the ball, yet very frail, his nickname was ‘Corky’ and he was aloof, rarely mixing with the younger players. Leeds United were about to impose their rough-house tactics on the First Division, the game was changing and Eastham’s days at Arsenal were numbered.

Meanwhile, back on the train home to Aldershot, I closely followed the fortunes of Fred Trueman and England, picking up a discarded copy of the London Evening News or Standard to catch up on the latest sports news. I loved the way he knocked over batsmen like a force of nature, a destructive genius. I know a bit about stopping opponents and dumping them on their backsides but, hand on heart, I don’t recall anyone ever sticking the label ‘genius’ on me.

I always wished I had Fiery Fred’s flair, but even at 15 I sensed that if I were to make my living as a professional sportsman, I would have to make the most of other less eye-catching virtues I could bring to the party, such as reliability, versatility and being a first-class team player.

At close of play that summer, Trueman was probably relaxing with a smoke over a pint or two of bitter. I got home, had my tea and maybe watched a bit of Dixon of Dock Green on the telly, Honor Blackman in The Avengers – she was lovely – or a comedy series featuring Tony Hancock and Sid James, before collapsing into bed in a state of complete and utter exhaustion. I slept like a baby because I knew I’d done an honest day’s work, put in a proper shift and I’d rather die than let myself down on the training pitch the following morning.

Saturday afternoons were to become the most important day in my life, but for now I was too tired to do much more than lounge on the sofa watching a bit of cricket and tennis. There was no question of me gadding out and about on the estate until all hours, flaunting myself as the ‘Big I Am’. I wasn’t one to use my status to impress the local girls.

Yes, I was an apprentice at Arsenal – the best club in the football world as far as I was concerned – but I’d only just started out in the game and, in any case, that sort of boasting and bragging wasn’t in my nature.

The urgent talk among Arsenal’s senior professionals as the start of the 1961–62 season drew closer revolved around how they had to try and close the gap on neighbours and traditional rivals Tottenham Hotspur. The ‘enemy’ were being feted all around town, and throughout England for that matter, as the first club in the twentieth century to pull off the Football League and FA Cup Double.

Our traditional eve-of-season official team photograph must have consisted of 50-odd faces, the club’s entire playing staff for the campaign. These days the biggest Premier League clubs seem to me to have a first-team squad alone pushing 50, and that’s ridiculous. How on earth do the clubs justify such excess? How can the players all earn their money?

	Introduction
CHAPTER ONE	Bloody noses, dirty knees
CHAPTER TWO	North Bank boy
CHAPTER THREE	A proper shift
CHAPTER FOUR	Real pukka job
CHAPTER FIVE	Elland Road nutter
CHAPTER SIX	Wright and wrong
CHAPTER SEVEN	All about Mee
CHAPTER EIGHT	You know what to do, Peter
CHAPTER NINE	Wembley woe, Fairs Cup fun
CHAPTER TEN	When love breaks down
CHAPTER ELEVEN	Double delight, double despair
CHAPTER TWELVE	I’ll always have Sheffield
CHAPTER THIRTEEN	Alf’s kind of animal
CHAPTER FOURTEEN	Three Lions on my shirt
CHAPTER FIFTEEN	Howe sad
CHAPTER SIXTEEN	Falling at the final fence
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN	Losing the plot
CHAPTER EIHTEEN	From the top to the bottle
CHAPTER NINETEEN	Mr Nice and the Fulham trip
CHAPTER TWENTY	Going down
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE	Behind bars
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO	Video nasty
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE	French renaissance