Chapter 15. Captains in Name - and in Fact

If you are an average football fan, taking an average amount of interest in the play and the players of the first-class clubs, I should like to ask you how many regular captains of first-class football clubs you can name off-hand. To amuse myself, I have already tried this question on several average football fans. As a result of the experiment I am prepared to enter into a little private wager. I'll bet that your quick list of captains of first-class clubs doesn't contain more than half a dozen names.

To the average mind the captain of a football team doesn't matter very much anyway, he is of little more importance -if any - than other members of the team. Of course, he leads the other ten players out on to the field, and says heads or tails, as the whim takes him, before the kick-off. There the captaincy begins and ends, such is the widely accepted view. What is more, the average man on the terraces is quite right in thinking that even in many first-class clubs the captain doesn't really matter. He is just a figurehead, one of the team. Not long ago the decision was made by the officials of a Second Division side that the 'honour' should go round; that the captaincy should change hands in every one of the first eleven games.

Here and now I want to scotch this idea that captaincy doesn't matter. If he is the right player in the right place the captain can make a lot of difference to the success of the side. For the life of me I can't understand managers who appoint this or that player to be skipper of the side and then say to him, in effect: 'You mustn't do anything on the field in the captaincy line, except to carry out my instructions'. While the captain of a first-class team should be more than just one of the bunch of players, it is even more important that the skipper of teams lower down the scale should regard their position as an honour and an important job.

Naturally, the captain will be popular with the other members of the team. They will respect him, respond to anything he asks of them. One of the things the captain can do, by his own play, is to set his stamp on the whole of the side. If the skipper snaps his fingers at the laws of the game it is natural and reasonable that the other players will copy his example. Thus the team gets a bad reputation.

By example, by advice, by encouragement, the captain can wield a big influence on the play. This brings in its train the question of the place in the team which the captain should occupy, provided he has the other necessary qualifications. In our time there have been few more popular players than Frank Swift, goalkeeper of England and Manchester City. It was doubtless this popularity which inspired his appointment as captain of his club side. Frank tried it for a little while and then gave it up, coming to the conclusion that as a goalkeeper he was too far removed from the scene of most of the operations for him to have the necessary influence on the play, or to be able to pass on ideas on tactics to the players far removed from him - the forwards, for example.

A facetious reply is sometimes given to the question of why, in actual practice, the centre-half is so often made the captain of a football team. People say that his playing job is easy and he does so little running about that he has some spare breath with which to issue instructions. But, of course, that isn't the real reason why, other things being equal, the centre-half is made skipper of many first-class sides. He is at the centre of operations, in close enough touch with front and rear to carry out captaincy duties.

Much the same, and possibly something more, can be said for giving the captaincy to one of the wing half-backs. Here, partly for the edification of those who think that the captain matters very little, attention may be drawn to an interesting fact. The last three players who carried the F.A. Cup off the field at Wembley were Billy Wright, Joe Mercer and Joe Harvey - each a wing half. Further, no matter which of the four clubs playing in the Finals of 1950, 1951 and 1952 had won, the Cup would still have been carried off by a wing-half. The skippers of Liverpool and Blackpool - among beaten finalists - played in those positions. Tottenham Hotspur, performing the exceptional feat of winning two championships in succession, was under the control of their left half-back. Maybe those facts will be brushed aside by some people as a mere series of coincidences. Being fully convinced that the captaincy appointment is important, I refuse to accept that explanation.

There is evidence that some teams fail to do themselves justice because there are too many captains on the field, too many players giving instructions to other players. I make no plea for silent football, but I put much more faith in silent signals than in advice bellowed from all and sundry.

The big grounds where the really important matches are played echo with the parrot cry: 'Hold it!' That cry goes up from half a dozen throats time after time in the course of one game. The player to whose chest or even head the ball is going is told to 'hold it' when he hasn't the slightest chance of doing so. To many players the best advice a real captain would give is: 'Shut up!' In any case, apart from the possible advice of the captain, there is no point in several players giving instructions to the player in possession of the ball - different instructions, quite often - which are invariably impossible to carry out. It must be assumed that the player receiving the ball has made up his own mind, instinctively, as the ball is coming to him, what he will do with it. The unsolicited advice from his team-mates merely confuses him.

It should be the captain's prerogative to manage the team once they are on the field, even to the extent of switching players from one position to another when the need for this occurs to him. The captain must take important decisions when the make-up of the side is affected by one player or another becoming a casualty. That is why - again, other things being equal - I like the captain to be a versatile player, and the wing-half is usually that type of footballer. In a. recent International match between Wales and England the English centre-half, Malcolm Barrass, was so badly hurt that he had to leave the field. Billy Wright, the England captain, brought one of the forwards back to play at wing-half, while he himself took over the centre-half position. And there, rising to the heights, he played well and remained an inspiration to the rest of the side.

From time to time Wright has been criticized as a captain, but whatever may be said against him, there is this in his favour, he responds to every call made to him by circumstances. The fact that he is captain does not prevent him from playing his ordinary game in other respects. That test must be applied to the skipper of any side. Many fine players, given the responsibility of captaincy, have taken it so seriously to heart, that their own contribution to the play has been seriously affected.

In effect, the enforced absence of Billy Wright from an England team served to demonstrate very clearly, for those with eyes to see, the effect of appointing a different type of leader. The honour of leading the England side was given to Alf Ramsey, the Tottenham Hotspur full-back. It so happened that, in one match in which Ramsey was skipper, things began to go wrong with the side, the play running badly against them. Panic took possession of some of the England players. They dashed wildly, throwing law and order to the four winds. But not so Ramsey. For a few minutes he played more calmly, and with even more deliberation than usual. The example set by the skipper had its effect. The players who had inclined to panic pulled themselves together and duly pulled the game round. No loud-voiced instructions, no frantic waving of the arms. Just setting the example, which is better than precept.

In cricket, good sides have been known to 'carry' a captain who, so far as his place in the side was concerned, was not quite good enough to be there. A football team is different. The football captain must be a top-notch player first.

In actual practice the real captain of the big teams, largely composed of professional players, has many responsibilities. He is the spokesman of the side, the liaison officer, if you like, between the heads of the club and the players. He is also spokesman-in-chief at the conferences. He is - or should be -the man who knows each player, his strong points and his weak ones. To a lesser extent, perhaps, the captain of the minor teams should take on his shoulders the same sort of role.

Appoint the captain, give him his head. If he is the right player the side will be all the better. If experience doesn't prove the choice to be right-well, give him 'the sack'. No good purpose is served by fostering the idea that the skipper's job consists of calling heads or tails. Any fool can do that. The best captains are not fools - or tools. They know the game, they study it. They play it, and make others play it.