I’d be eleven at time, although only just and, as was our wont, every other Saturday, I was at Fellows Park with my dad, watching Walsall play. It was 11^th November 1967, and the Saddlers were entertaining a Bury side that had been relegated from Division Two the previous season and on their way to rebound straight back at the first time of asking.

As a callow youth at the time, I knew little of the players from Gigg Lane, but my Dad did, well, one of them in particular, anyway. He was a short, stocky midfielder, who Dad said had been a really good player a few years previously. I didn’t take much notice at the time, as the name meant little to me. As the game went on though, it quickly became clear that the player Dad had pointed out was very much running the game. Well, perhaps running is the wrong word, as he often broke into a trot, but rarely a run, with legs that had seen many a battering over the years. He held the game in the palm of his hand though. Continue reading →