Wandering star
MICHAEL HENRSON
1,4ever meet your hero, it is often said.
You will only be disappointed. Well, I met mine last week, and I couldn't have felt much better. Francis Lee was a footballer who played for Bolton Wanderers, Manchester City and Derby County, retiring in 1976 at the age of 32 when he had a few goals left in him. He is a wealthy businessman now, lives in a manner that pleases him, and looks as if he could still pull on his famous shooting boots and rattle a couple into the top corner.
Lee belonged to a different age — a different country, even. Footballers were not then the pampered celebrities they have since become, and, for all the nonsense written about football being a part of popular culture, it was never more truly popular than it was in the Fifties, when Lee was growing up in Lancashire, which was and which remains the heartland of the English game. He made his debut for Bolton in 1960, alongside the great Nat Lofthouse, scoring against Manchester City, the club he would join seven years later and with which he enjoyed the finest days of a glittering career.
They weren't a fancy bunch in those days. Bolton had a pair of full backs, Roy Hartle and Tommy Banks, whose names bring out players of a certain age in a cold sweat 40 years after they retired. You can push the ball past me,' Hartle once told the great Tom Finney, 'and you can run past me, but you're not going together.' Each time he conceded a free kick, Hartle would exclaim, 'But, referee, I played the ball!' Many were the wingers who ended up in the cinder track that ran around Burnden Park, Bolton's famous old ground.
I went to meet Lee because City were playing their last game at Maine Road, which has been their home since 1923. Next season they move across town, to the City of Manchester stadium which staged last year's Commonwealth Games, and which can hold 14,000 more spectators. They departed in an utterly predictable manner, losing 1-0 to Southampton, who had just conceded six goals at Arsenal. Dear old Maine Road, maddening to the end.
But the real drama last Sunday was enacted 20 miles away, where Bolton ensured their Premiership status by beating Middlesbrough while West Ham were drawing at Birmingham. It was a just outcome. Bolton have played some rollicking football this season, while West Ham have lived down to their reputation as a bunch of strolling players. Apparently their young stars (stars?) are coveted by the leading sides. But if they are so good, how come they failed to keep their team up? Before the match much was made of the supposed fact that neutrals wanted West Ham to stay up ahead of the Trotters. Not in the places I frequent, I can tell you. Bolton are admired for the way they have made the most of their resources, and knuckled down to the job. West Ham are seen as a group of wastrels, who take the field with straw hats and canes. Don't believe what the London papers may tell you, with their patronising talk of 'cloth caps'. What, no tripe or black pudding? In any event, the right team stayed up.
Football in this country is a northern game, so let's keep it that way. Arsenal have been exposed as sweetie-pies, and Chelsea are supported by hairdressers and David Mellor. London is wonderful for art galleries, concert halls, opera houses, restaurants and parks. But if you want to sup a decent pint, you have to drive at least 100 miles up the M1 and, apart from Costa's in Notting Hill, nobody can batter haddock properly. Three cheers for Bolton, and for my hero Franny!
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