Before big money completed its conquest of football, being able to kick a ball in a straight line wasn’t enough to ensure a life of luxury. It was an era when even the greatest of all footballers didn’t make enough money to just rest on their laurels after their career had ended.
Danny Blanchflower, captain of the great Tottenham Hotspur side that won the double in 1961, and a midfielder endowed with charisma, elegance and intelligence, was a man of that era. After his retirement, he had no choice but to find other employment. Such was his way with words that he worked not just as a manager, but also as a journalist. Read these 10 quotations by the greatest football romantic to come from the British Isles.
“Always play with a smile on your face”, he would say. “It’s a beautiful game.”
1) The great fallacy is that the game is first and last about winning. It is nothing of the kind. The game is about glory, it is about doing things in style and with a flourish, about going out and beating the other lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom.
2) Blanchflower, commenting on an early NASL game for US TV:
“These teams can’t play.”
Producer:
“Accentuate positive truths rather than negative truths.”
Blanchflower:
“These teams positively can’t play.”
3) Glenn Hoddle a luxury player? No, it’s the bad players who are a luxury.
4) I asked the manager for a ball to train with. He couldn’t have looked more horrified if I’d asked for a transfer. He told me they never used a ball at Barnsley. The theory was that we’d be hungry for it on Saturday if we didn’t see it for the rest of the week. I told him that come Saturday I probably wouldn’t recognise it.
5) Ah well, ma’am, you see we all know each other!
(To the Duchess of Kent, who asked why the Leicester City players had names on their tracksuits and the Spurs team didn’t.)
6) George Best makes a greater appeal to the senses than Tom Finney or Stanley Matthews did. His movements are quicker, lighter, more balletic. George offers grander surprises to the mind and the eye. He has ice in his veins, warmth in his heart, and timing and balance in his feet.
7) Ideas are very funny things. They never work unless you do.
8) We aim to equalise before the other team score. We should get our retaliation in first.
9) A young Nobby Stiles:
Blanchflower, you’re finished!
Blanchflower:
Excuse me son, I haven’t read the programme yet. What’s your name?
10) While Blanchflower was coaching Northern Ireland, Pat Rice walked in to his office one day, and started talking about another player – let’s call him X.
Pat Rice:
“Player X has been playing really well for his club side and is looking good in training, I think he deserves to start in the next match.”
Blanchflower:
“Thanks Pat – it’s been noted.”
The next day the team was announced and Blanchflower called Pat Rice to one side:
“Pat I’ve decided to take your advice, player X is starting…instead of you.”