Chapter 19. Getting on the Ladder - and Falling Off

Somebody once said that any fool could get on to the ladder which leads to fame in football, but that it is only the wise lads who climb to the top.

One of the reasons why it is easy to get started is because such a small proportion of those who do get started manage to keep going. The demand for players is such that there is always somebody ready to take on the young player who shows promise above the ordinary. For the promising lads the gayest of pictures is painted, and the promising lad, eager to get on in the game, is dazzled by the bright colours.

In these days, however, there is no need for the player of promise to be in such a hurry to get his feet on the ladder, to accept the first offer of promotion which comes along. Think it over. The club to which the young player goes matters a lot so far as many of these promising lads are concerned. Whether, as a growing lad, I was wise to book up with York City doesn't matter now. The point is that only York City offered me the chance; and I took it with both hands, without stopping to think for any length of time.

Anyway, the chance of promotion is sure to come, in these days of scarcity of players of the right type. And in this connection there is one piece of advice which can be handed out to any ambitious lad. Give of your best in every match for your local team, no matter how obscure that team, because (if for no other reason) you never know whose eyes may be upon you.

If we traced from the beginning the career of several men who are at the top of the football ladder to-day we should find that luck played a part in the early days. Many stories could be told of football scouts making special journeys to watch a particular player who scarcely saw the man they had set out to watch because their attention was diverted towards someone else of whom they'd never heard. The big clubs sign on the players of promise, and hope for the best. They do rather more than hope, of course. They make the most elaborate arrangements to bring on the lads. What no manager can safely promise any lad is that he will be sure to rise to the top. So much depends on the player himself.

The manager, the trainer, the coach may do everything possible to help the player to climb the ladder of fame, but they can't lead the player to the top of the ladder. The last few steps depend on the player himself. Nobody can tell which one of any given number of players of promise will rise above the rank and file.

How well I remember the day the opportunity came to leave Blackburn Rovers and join the Arsenal. When it was all fixed up, Mr. Herbert Chapman said to me: 'I'll do all I possibly can for you, but I can't do everything. A lot is up to you. Look after yourself. If you do that you can be a first-class player for ten years'.

There is no necessity for me to preach a sermon on that text. Everybody who has spent years behind the scenes of football knows that many young players whose feet could and should have been firmly fixed on the ladder have fallen off because they did not look after themselves. Unfortunately there are so many good-natured people who hinder the player, rather than help him to look after himself. The young footballer who makes good quickly gathers around him a host of friends. He is a popular hero. The willpower of the young player is soon put to the test. Sure enough one of the most frequent causes of failure crops up - the player develops a swollen head. A little story may be recalled which made a big impression on me when I was still young. A player of Blackburn Rovers had made a big jump up the ladder. He had risen from obscurity to fame in next to no time. One day, after we had done our mid-week practice and most of us were back in the dressing-room having a rub down, this particular player was missing. 'What's happened to Jimmy Brown?' somebody asked.

'Oh', came the reply, 'didn't you know? He's met with an accident out there'.

'How did it happen?'

'Well', replied the wag of the party, 'he was trying to head the ball into the net, when his head got stuck between the goalposts'.

It's easy to do! One of the nicest compliments which can be paid to any footballer who has risen to the top of the tree is 'He takes the same-sized hat as when he got into the game'. What is more, as often as not, it is only the player whose head remains the same size who has a chance of getting to the top and staying at the top. There's always something to be learnt about this game, and the player who, having arrived, comes to the conclusion that he knows it all is on the way down. And for such a character the steps of the ladder are apt to be greased.

I had been on the Arsenal pay-roll for some time - a regular member of the first team - when the lesson was taught to me in the most direct way. As you know, for the average professional player who has had a game on the Saturday, Monday is a holiday. It was my habit, in company with other Arsenal players, to use the holiday on the golf course - which, by the way, is not a bad place for change and useful exercise. Our foursome was duly arranged for the Monday morning. At nine o'clock I was on the first tee, ready to hit the ball out of sight. In the middle of my first swing a messenger came dashing from the club house. 'Hi', he said, 'you're wanted on the phone - quick!'

'Tell them I'm busy', I said, 'and can't be bothered just now'.

The messenger went away, but he was back in no time.

'It's Mr. Chapman', he said, 'and he must speak to you now'.

Off I went to the phone, saying things under my breath. But the things I said about him were nothing to the things he said to me when I picked up the receiver. The conversation went something like this: 'What are you doing?'

I replied 'Playing golf'.

'What were you doing on Saturday?'

'Playing football'.

'You may think you were', said the boss, 'but you weren't. You must know you had a bad day, and if you had any sense you'd have been at the ground by now instead of on the golf course. Report here immediately. There's no day off for you this week'. Bang went the phone at the other end, and off went Joe Hulme to the Arsenal headquarters to be put through his paces. The manager was right, too. After a bad game - and no player needs anybody to tell him when he has had a bad game - I ought to have been back at the ground, learning again, trying to remedy the faults which had been so obvious during the match played two days previously.

There is no way known to me of testing whether the young player has the right temperament; and I am very doubtful whether temperament can be cultivated. The nearest thing to a test is to see whether the footballer is capable of playing his own game no matter how important the match happens to be. That great half-back Peter Me William was honoured by being chosen to play for Scotland just after he had celebrated his twenty-first birthday. Two hours before the game was due to start, when the other players were ready to leave the hotel for the ground on which the match was to be played, Me William was missing from the party. Eventually he was discovered in a quiet back room of the hotel, fast asleep! That's the sort of temperament which helps to make the better player. I can lay no sort of claim to having had that sort in my early days.

Lucky is the lad who gets the right sort of help from his comrades when the chance comes to step up. I was one of the lucky ones. For some time after I moved from York City I was a long way from the first team of Blackburn Rovers. Indeed, I was just doing my best in the third team. Hence I got the surprise of my life when, one Wednesday morning, 'Aussie' Campbell, a great first-team half-back, said to me: 'Joe, you're in the first team on Saturday'. Thinking this was no more than a leg-pull, I laughed off the joke, and wasn't persuaded until Campbell dragged me to see the team-sheet. There was my name right enough. A big step up the ladder. Believe me, from that moment until the day of my start in First Division football I could scarcely eat or sleep. If I did manage to drop off to sleep, from sheer fatigue, I was kicking up huge divots in my dreams instead of banging the ball into the net.

The time for the kick-off duly arrived, and out we went on to the field. My inside-right partner, Johnny Mclntyre, kept close to me during the preliminaries, whispering at the last moment, before the kick-off: 'Be ready, Joe'. The first pass Mclntyre made in that game was right to my toe. 'Off you go', he shouted. And off I went, up the field, to put the ball across to our centre-forward in such a way that he was able to get in a fine shot which sent the ball against the goalpost.

On the way up it isn't wise to fight shy of experience in better company. The player who is a little bit too good for the class of football in which he is playing should have sufficient faith in himself to go a step higher. Those rather better players will teach him the things he doesn't know, and if he has the right approach he will proceed to improve his own game; he'll rise to the desired standard in his new sphere.

Just how quickly the upward steps can be taken depends on the individual. No hard and fast rule can be laid down. Partly because of the scarcity of good players the tendency in recent times has been to put mere lads into first-class sides. That's all right if the player has what it takes, especially in the physical sense. My own opinion, however, is that there is less risk in holding a player back than in pushing him along at too early an age. In recent times we have had boys of sixteen - or even younger - being given a run in first-class sides. And it is in the records that footballers have even played for their country some time before they were grown men. But the lad who is pushed forward too soon may be disappointed when he fails to succeed and is relegated to the reserve team. That is where temperament comes in again.

In connection with promotion, there is one direction in which managers often err. When the emergency arises they will shuffle the team about this way and that instead of giving the vacant place to the player who has been playing in that position with the reserve side. There isn't much inspiration in being a permanent reserve. The second team players will be the more inclined to give of their best in the reserves, to train and practice to improve, if they know that they will be duly called up when the opportunity arises. If you had seen, as I have, how sick some reserve players have been when they were passed over when a vacancy arose, you would appreciate the adverse effect of such tactics. I want every ambitious player to be on his toes all the time. The way to keep him on his toes is to let him know that when the occasion arises he will be trusted with his chance.

I know it isn't easy for the managers of the big clubs to attain the ideal of having a player in reserve for each position, ready and able to step up. For one thing, the player in the reserves who feels that he is ready for the upward step isn't happy to stay in the background. If he is worth his salt he has a natural desire for the limelight. Such a player will be happier in the second team if he knows that waiting for promotion is no more than waiting for the opportunity to arise.

It may well happen that the young player will be given some choice as to which big club he joins. Shall he accept the offer of his 'home town' club, or shall he go farther field? Regrets are often expressed that the big clubs do not use a greater proportion of 'local' players. And when a player makes good with the team of a town far away from his home, the supporters of the home town side ask pointedly how it was that the local club missed him.

All told, however, I have a feeling that in the interests of the player himself it is often better that he should try to climb the ladder placed for him by some club away from home rather than make good with the local club. More than one reason can be given for this. For instance, there is the point I have hinted at earlier; that it won't be so easy for him to 'keep his head' in the place where he has grown up, and where he is so well known. Another reason is found in the trite saying: 'A prophet hath no honour in his own country'. In other words, the spectators are inclined to be more critical of the local player than they are of the one who comes from farther afield. And, as we are reminded almost every day of the week, criticism can play its part in pushing the player off the ladder.

No useful purpose would be served by delivering a lecture to club supporters on the harm they do when they make a 'dead set' at this or that player. Some spectators, paying their money to see football, consider that they have also paid for the privilege of saying what they think about the game and the players. They'll do it, too, despite the obvious comment that they do so much damage. There are players who can 'take it'; who can live down mere destructive criticism and fight back to receive cheers in place of jeers in due course. To play as if you had 'cotton wool in the ears' is, however, the best plan. But it is beyond the capacity of many footballers.

While I have said that the chances are that a player who has football in him is more likely to climb the ladder with a club some distance removed from his native town, I am not unmindful that home-sickness has held up the progress of many young players. Recently, Wolverhampton Wanderers had on their books a nineteen-year-old boy who had joined the club from Ireland. The boy was keen enough; possessing enough natural ability to make rapid strides upward. He just could not get over a bad attack of home-sickness, however. This affected him so much that he lost heart as well as weight.

Here again, of course, the human element comes in. There are young boy footballers who wouldn't worry unduly about their home-life, who soon get over the change. There are others of the more sensitive type to whom home is, roughly, the beginning and the end of life. The wise managers, or trainers, or coaches, don't worry themselves, first and foremost, about the football of the promising lad. They see to it that he is made as happy as possible. That is why I recommend to any lad getting the opportunity to go ahead in football, to talk the matter over with somebody who knows. If there are alternative senior clubs giving him the opportunity to sign up, he should choose the one which habitually concerns itself with the general welfare of its players.

Mischief waits for idle hands, and in the early stages of his career the footballer has much idle time. How he spends it matters to his football. It should be somebody's business to look after him so that his spare time is profitably, or at least entertainingly, spent. Thank goodness that the footballers who fall by the way, those who for one reason or another fail to make the grade, are no longer the 'dead-end kids'. Even if they don't actually have other jobs - and I have said that there are snags attached to mid-week work for footballers - they can use the spare time to fit themselves for a job later in life. One of the saddest things connected with the game is the sight of stars of other days hanging around the big grounds, doing little save scrounging. They are among the ones who forgot that the footballer's life is only a short one at best. They were only concerned with making it a merry one. We have grown wise as we have grown older, however. The cast-offs, the have-beens, are becoming more and more scarce to-day.

In other ways, too, the young players of to-day are helped, not only to get on to the ladder, but to stay there. For the time being, at any rate, it would almost seem that some ways of bringing on the lads are better in theory than in practice. Never were there so many opportunities for the young players to learn the arts and crafts of the game as there are to-day. Our Football Association has fathered an extensive coaching scheme. There are schools at which even the best players can be taught ways and means of bringing on the youngsters. Yet the fact remains, that, in bulk, too small a proportion of the promising players make the grade. This may mean - surely does mean - that there is something wrong with the coaching, or with the methods of some of the coaches. The tendency is for too much rule-of-thumb teaching. Of course, there are many things, the coach, a footballer of experience, can teach the young players; ball control, heading, tricks, and so on. Moreover, the young player can be helped by paying attention to the coaching lessons. But it is true of coaching that, unless care is taken, the football will be coached out of the lad rather than put into him.

The boy should be encouraged to develop on natural lines. If he has ability in any particular direction, that ability should be stimulated. Instinctive ideas which the lad may possess should be allowed full scope. This best-of-all team games is no rule of thumb affair. The players aren't turned out from one mould; all alike and all doing the same sort of thing in the same sort of way. There's still plenty of room for originality in play and in ideas.

The wise coach sees to it that the player with original ideas is given his head. And the wise young player, for his part, won't turn his back on the advice of the expert coach. He will listen to the advice; sift it, and use it, while at the same time refusing to be other than himself.

There is a limit to what any young player can be taught. One of the brightest of young footballers to hit the headlines in recent times has been Arthur Milton, outside right of Arsenal. Among the most knowing of managers is Tom Whittaker. And of Milton the Arsenal manager says: 'He's a natural. He's got something you can't teach them. You've either got it or you haven't'.

If the older people associated with the game think back and recall the stars they have known, won't they sum up by saying that in the main the best of the footballers of the past have been the instinctive ones? Some of them, at any rate, never stopped to think how they did this or that. If you had asked them, they couldn't have told you. But give them the ball and they would do it.

To illustrate the point here's a story of two cricketer friends of mine. During his days at the top of the tree Patsy Hendren was an expert at the hook stroke. He could wield the bat to hook the high bouncers round to the boundary 'off his eyebrows'. To Patsy it was almost as easy as shelling peas. Jack Durston was a Middlesex: contemporary of Hendren's, but Jack's place in the batting order was usually next to the roller. As a batsman he was in the rabbit class. One day an interviewer was anxious to get from Hendren details of exactly how he played that hook shot. Patsy tied himself into verbal knots trying to explain how he did it. Finally he gave up the attempt. 'For goodness sake take me out on to the pitch, bowl me a bumper, and I'll hit it for you'.

It so happened that Jack Durston was on the spot. He readily came to the rescue with a detailed, exact, and perfectly accurate verbal description of how Patsy played that particular stroke - how he wielded the bat; how he changed the position of his feet. Durston could do it perfectly in theory. Out in the middle he never had executed the stroke successfully.

Part of the present-day trouble; one of the reasons why footballers are not being developed in the required numbers, is that the young players are being confused by too many instructions. The player who can do the right thing without thinking will keep on doing it. By paying too much attention to how he does it he may not do it so well.

Among my readers may be boys who have the football instinct. For them the ladder isn't difficult to climb. All they need remember is that it is a wobbly sort of ladder. It is like most other metaphorical ladders - there are crowds on the lower rungs, but there's plenty of room at the top. And on the way up there are places, some of which I have mentioned, where it is easy enough to stumble.