There’s some sheep on the pitch...they think it’s all clover

An Interview with John Watkins , City’s Bristol - born Outside Left 1951 - 1959. One sunny autumn Saturday we took the train down to Shirehampton FC to meet up with John, who distinguished himself for the City alongside John Atyeo et al with 105 appearances and 21 goals , to talk about the Good Old Days.

BH: Hello John. Thanks for coming to meet us.

JW: Hello, thank you. I’ll let you know before you start asking questions I did have a mother and father! (This is a reference to John being jokingly called a b*st*rd over the years for missing a penalty v the Rovers in a big FA cup tie.)

BH: How did you get started in football, John?

JW: I left school at 15 and signed amateur forms for Wolves. Things didn’t work out and I thought, “No, I’m a Bristol lad.” I played a couple of years for Clifton St Vincent’s and then I went down the City ground and started playing for City United and then the Colts. In 1951 I had to go in the Forces and I signed part-time while I was there. And when I was de-mobbed in ’53 I signed full-time. I played for the reserves and in September 1953 I was due to play for them at Southampton. We had to meet at Ashton Gate and Pat Beasley (the manager) said to me, “Go home and get some rest!” I said, “What for?” He said, “You’re playing against Norwich tonight.” I was 18. I’d never driven a car, I had to go home on the bus. Mum and dad said, “What’s going on?!” I said, “I’m playing in the First Team!” We beat them 3-1 and then played Swindon the following Wednesday and got hammered 5-0! That was the last time I played for a good 18 months. When I got back in, touch wood, it went from there!

John’s debut was against unbeaten League-leaders Norwich City on 30/09/1953 in a match reported as, “fast, thrilling and entertaining”, by the Bristol Evening World, who went on, “the story of this match began seven hours before kick-off when Ron Tovey could not get away from his Army training in Colchester to play. Then leading scorer Arnold Rodgers failed to pass his fitness test. Mr Beasley decided to give youth a chance and called up 20 year-old John Watkins. Watkins did not let him down.” And from the Evening Post: “Young Watkins came out with flying colours. He did well and with good

knowledge of what a winger should do, sending over some perfect centres.” Then John had to bide his time in the Reserves as City won promotion to the Second Division in 1954/55 and finished mid-table in 1955/56. Season 1956/57 was his break-through year, cementing his place at Outside Left. The Pink Un newspaper predicting, “Watkins is going to give Right Backs plenty of trouble, not only will his accurate centring be just right for Atyeo and Curtis but his powerful shooting adds greatly to the fire-power of the City’s attack.”

BH: We believe you were the City penalty-taker, too?

JW: John Atyeo took them before me and I don’t know how or why we changed but we did. I scored 12 on the trot. Bit of power and placing them: hit them with the outside of the foot, always did. Used to run up straight. Then this one penalty against the Rovers (in the FA CUP Fifth Round, Feb 1958), I knew what was going to happen. I’d already scored on 5 minutes, I thought shall I change and put the penalty in the other side because [The Rovers full-back] went up to Ron Nicholls and I knew what he was saying: “He’ll put it to your right.” Mind, Ron was down there waiting for it, he could’ve sat down in an armchair! Even moving at his age nowadays he’d have saved it! Two things: I didn’t hit it like I ought and could have done; and in hindsight, if I’d blasted it straight down the middle that would have put us two up. It was a bit psychological. I went charging around like a bull for about thirty minutes after that. There was always rivalry and it added a bit of tension to the game. There was supposed to have been 40-odd thousand there against the Rovers in that Cup tie but I reckon another five thousand or so surged through a gap in the wrought corrugated iron, it was heaving – that would be against health & safety now especially in the old wooden stand with all that lot packed in there smoking!

This Bristol derby in February 1958 had a place in the Quarter- Finals of the FA Cup riding on it. City were struggling for form in the League and Pat Beasley, manager since 1950, had left his position only weeks before.

Record gate receipts were announced and the game was played in front of the Lord Mayor and 39, 160 spectators. BBC, ITV and 3 newsreel companies covered the game – Pathé News footage of the game can be found on youtube.

28

The Western Daily Press described it as, “the finest match ever played between City and Rovers”. John certainly had an eventful game. He scored the first goal – from the Evening Post: “Wally Hinshelwood’s ability to beat Watling at will gave a shock start to this memorable cup tie. Down he went to the dead-ball line, just as the text-book says, and over went a perfect centre*, John Watkins timing his run well, raced in from the wing and headed the ball past the groping Nicholls to give the City a fifth minute lead”, he also won the penalty which he unfortunately missed and was involved in City’s third scored by Glastonbury-dwelling Tommy Burden. (*typically the Post got that wrong – it was Atyeo who centred, as you can see on youtube). BH: We hear you had an explosive left foot and broke the net with one goal.

JW: There was probably a weakness up in the net! But it went in the correct side, that was the main thing. The balls were thick and wet and heavy and you put dubbin on them but if you asked the lads to play now it, would probably put another five years on their career. You could never bend them like they do now from 25 yards. It could get a bit hard on the head from headers but I didn’t do much of that in my career. You could tell an old centre half cos he had no neck! He headed the ball so much his neck got pushed down!

BH: In the 50s you didn’t play 4-4-2 did you? It was the W-M or the 2-3-5, so how were you coached to play?

JW: Two full-backs, three half-backs and five forwards. Nine times out of ten the full-backs went wide and invariably the goalkeeper thumped (the ball) down the field. Our pitch wasn’t the narrowest, it was quite wide: they’ve narrowed it over the years for the (flood)lights at the City. Full-back Mike Thresher used to play it to the inside forwards or use his discretion to play it wide to me. I’d try to cross it over from the bye-line or if I had a chance get a shot in, unless you could get it to John (Atyeo) – he could nod it down as you had five forwards, then, mind.

BH: And were you expected to do any defending and track back?

JW: Oh yeah. When we played Blackpool in the Cup, with Stan Matthews, it was drummed into me from the Monday, “You can go looking for attack, but get back and help Thresher cos (Stan) won’t be expecting you.” And I did, I came in behind and took it away from him; mind, if I wouldn’t have got him I expect Thresh would’ve got him! He started off at inside-forward and he was the quickest! Not many wingers got past him.

BH: How did you rate then?

JW: Once he got going he was hard to stop! His ball-play was good, yeah. Blackpool coming down to Bristol was a big thing but we could have won that game.

Even at the age of 43 Stanley Matthews, Prince of Wingers, coming to town was big news – front page news for the Evening Post that Saturday. A sell-out crowd of 42,594 witnessed a 1-1 draw, City playing in blue shirts borrowed from Cardiff City, having lost the toss over choice of strip colour. The Evening Post headline was, “Hinshelwood Outshone Matthews: City Deserved To Win” and their match report says, “this game was a battle of pre- arranged tactics. The City’s plans all came off. Watkins was detailed to help Thresher to blot out the Matthews menace. That was successful... The majority of clear-cut scoring opportunities went the way of the City. There is no question in my mind that the City should have won.” John had another memorable game, from the Evening Post: “in the first few

minutes John Watkins ran onto a perfect through-pass from Tindill but shot too near Farm who had narrowed the angle well... Watkins had two second-half shots that could easily have gone in. One power-packed drive was blocked near the goal- line, the other shot again was directed almost at Farm. ” After the game, England manager Walter Winterbottom said, “I believe Bristol City were the better side. Blackpool were thankful for the final whistle. ” Four days later City lost the replay 0-1, a match noted for being the first time they flew to a domestic away game.

BH: How about training, what did that consist of?

JW: Not just laps round the ground! We used to go running round Ashton Park and round by Duckmoor Road. Not like today up at Failand, the training pitches are like billiard tables. There’s no excuse! Arsene Wenger these days he’s got about four guys coaching under him – someone for keepers, someone for wingers... It wasn’t like that in our day. We had Pat Beasley and Wilf Copping the old Arsenal player – he was a trainer, Eddie Nash, Len Southway, Lemmo. If you had a broken leg he’d rub some things on it, if you had a bruise he’d rub the same stuff on it! Nowadays it’s all physiotherapists, they all know what they’re doing. 29

Les Bardsley came down as physio, he was a great character, tremendous bloke, Les. Very good on the injuries. Touch wood I was lucky with injuries – I had one very bad dead leg and it went on and on. He used to treat it with hot water then cold water, hot water then... He said, that’s not going anywhere. So I went up to see the City doctor at Pembroke Rd. He pinpointed the middle of the bruise and said, “You had a needle before?” I said, “Yeah, when I was in the Forces.” He pinched the skin and got a needle and...thwack! Right down the middle and drew out black congealed blood. He said, “You would never have got that out with hot and cold water.” It’s things like that that stick in your mind!

BH: How else do you feel football was different to today’s era?

JW: We used to play three games in four days, nowadays...cor! And they play with inflated ping-pong balls now. We used to play on Christmas Day, even at Welton Rovers we used to play Good Friday, Easter Saturday and Easter Monday. Normally for the City we’d play Plymouth or someone like that on Christmas Day at home and then Boxing Day away. We went by coach or by train to away games. I used to go down to home games on the bus! Cooky (Tony Cook, City keeper, ’52-’63, 350 apps before Mike Gibson took over; he was a penalty specialist saving one on his début and, in ’58-’59, saving six of nine he faced) and I used to walk along from Duckmoor Road, get down there around two. You used to have your own food before you went down, I’d have poached egg. They didn’t talk about what you should eat. Nowadays they have pasta, chicken... There were smokers in the team, too. I used to have the odd one or two and then I packed in. We used to have a pint after the game. Couple of us used to get someone to take us up College Green, not the salubrious pubs in Bedminster, where the supporters would be tanked up, especially if we lost! I bet players spend more on a round now than I got in three month wages. £20 in cash a week and £4 if you won, as a bonus.

BH: We heard there might have been an incentive to beat the Rovers from Mr Dolman?

JW: Incentive? I never had any! Good lord, I wish there had been! Maybe an extended contract if you beat them!

BH: What are your memories of Mr Dolman?

JW: One of the nicest blokes I met. Very fair, very honest. When you signed on he used to say, “If and when you leave the club, if there is anything I can do, don’t hesitate to ask.” When I packed it in I phoned up Brecknell, Dolman & Rogers and spoke to Marina – she was his secretary then, very clever she was, spoke about four different languages, including Bristolian. I said, “I’m not coming cap in hand, I’m just wondering if Mr Dolman knew of any jobs going.” The next day I had notification to come down to Brecknell’s and Harry Dolman said, “We have a job for you here in the office. When can you start?” I was there until the firm wound up (in 1973). And I’ve never ever forgotten that. And I’ll tell you another thing about Harry. When you got put on the list down the City you used to get told in your wage packet. John Atyeo said to me, when I told him I was on the list at £2000 he said, “You’re bloody joking.” Pete Doherty had got John McCann down from Barnsley to replace me, but he never settled. I went to Cardiff and we went up, but the City got relegated that year. John and Thresh and a few of them didn’t like Doherty at all. Bloody good player but as a manager complete and utter waste of time. Anyway I still used to go down and watch the City on floodlit night games and Harry saw me one evening near his car, HD11. He said, “John, if I knew then what I know now (about manager Doherty) I would never have let you leave this club.”

From “Atyeo: The Hero Next Door”, “when the retained list was announced at the end of 1958/59 there was a big shock: Johnny Watkins, Bristol-born, at the club since 1951 and a first-team regular for the past two and-a-half seasons, had

been released at the age of 26. The players always fretted about their last pay-packets of the season, wondering whether they would also contain a dreaded letter of dismissal but Watkins had not seen one coming. “On the day he received his letter, Johnny sat next to me in the dressing-room with tears in his eyes”, John Atyeo recalled. “He was a good friend of mine and I remember telling him that perhaps it could turn out for the best. Within four months he was tearing us apart playing for Cardiff City and went into the First Division with them.”

BH: What was it like playing for Cardiff against the City?

JW: Hard. Hard... Players always want to do well against their old club. I even travelled to Cardiff with the City team on the train, and went back with them on the train and had a drink with them afterwards! In fact, on the train, the compartment door opened and Doherty saw me, closed the door and went on down the corridor. Once, he brought a flock of sheep on to the pitch! You can ask all the lads; well, most of them are dead now, but... He thought it would do the pitch good when they gnawed it but that’s why the City pitch went to pot for three years! It was just a mass of mud and sand. Doherty used to get us marching about, Mike Thresher says to me, “I come here to play football, I don’t wanna march. I did that in the Forces! What in the hell are we doing here?!” 30

Peter Doherty, City manager 1958-60, was a big name appointment by Harry Dolman. One of the outstanding players of his generation, top scorer for Man City when winning their first league title in 1937, scorer for Derby Co. when winning the FA Cup Final in 1946, manager of Northern Ireland (1951-62) who he’d led to the Q-F of the 1958 World Cup before joining City. An unorthodox thinker for his time – swapping players’ traditional shirt numbers to confuse the opposition had brought him success at Doncaster Rovers; playing two centre forwards instead of one; unusual work with the ball in training (volleyball, basketball). Some of his methods, though, judging by John’s expression weren’t popular or successful with the players. He left at the end of 59/60 with City relegated after one of the most acrimonious seasons in their history, fraught with discontent and division in the dressing-room. And as for the sheep on the pitch...!

BH: You say you used to watch the City play under floodlights?

JW: Yeah. Of course it was Harry Dolman who got them built down there. I played in a couple of floodlit games too. It was strange, a lot of shadows. It was a novelty floodlit football in Bristol, with big crowds. Harry’s first ones were little ones that went down the side (of the stands) not like the big four pylons later. It was a chance to see clubs you might not see, friendlies against higher clubs. We played Radnički. I’ve kept the programme from that one. We went on tour to Nice twice and they came over here. Because floodlights were new these games were to promote the use of them. It was also a chance to play the youngsters who weren’t in the First Team to have a run out against better opposition.

The 50s was the decade when floodlit football first came in and Harry Dolman’s engineering firm ensured we were at the forefront of pioneering night games under these new lights. City played big name teams such as Wolves and Arsenal and a host of foreign clubs from countries such as France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey and Yugoslavia. Radnički, against whom John scored, are from the former Yugoslav city of Niš, in the 50s a fervently

anti-fascist city having witnessed the execution of thousands of civilians – including club players and officials - in a Nazi concentration camp in the city during WWII. It continues this political trend to this day, being the first Serbian city to elect officials opposed to Slobodan Milošević’s government in the 90s.

BH: You played in some big games and at some big grounds.

JW: I scored several at Anfield. I played (for Cardiff City) in Bill Shankly’s first game - we were at the top of the Second Division. We hammered them 4-0. We had a good season. At Anfield, Brian Walsh the right winger was going up and there was no-one with me. I wandered inside and said, “Square it, Brian!” He was almost on the edge of the box and he pulled it back. I was already going and I hit it – at the Kop End, mind - and it stuck right up in the stanchion! And there’s nothing more embarrassing than a goalkeeper having to pull the ball out of there. It was Tommy Younger, I think, in goal (correct). Shankly said after that game, “It would appear changes will have to be made at this club!” Look what happened after that, dear me! For the City we were leading them 2-0 on a snowy day...and they got it called off, crafty buggers! I think there was an odd (gestures) pulled there!

John scored home and away for the City against Liverpool and it was no different on the other side of the Severn. On debut, he scored for Cardiff in a 3-2 win – from the Liverpool Echo, “Watkins celebrated his first game for Cardiff with the winning goal and a display that left the club satisfied that his purchase from Bristol City will pay dividends.” The return game at Anfield was Bill Shankly’s first in charge of Liverpool, John again playing his part in a 4-0 victory – scoring the

third with what the splendidly named News Chronicle & Daily Dispatch described as “a glorious first-timer” before providing the centre for Cardiff’s fourth. Cardiff finished second and were promoted to the First Division, John playing all season at Outside Left. He returned to Bristol in 1961, Cardiff wanted Rovers’ Welsh international Dai Ward and John went the other way as part of the deal, playing for 1 season before retiring from full-time football.

BH: Do you have a classic match you remember playing for the City?

JW: Barnsley when we won 7-4. Never ever forgot it. We played Rotherham on the Saturday, opening day of the season, won 6-1. In the 7-4, my goal, Mike Thresher chipped the ball up to me. Out of the corner of me eye I saw this bloke coming; I flicked it over his head and I whacked it and it must have gone about 45 yards, a big dipper! It dropped in the far corner. I celebrated but not like today – if I slid for 25 yards like they do now I’d be knackered – when I celebrated that goal Big John said to me, ruffling me hair and that, “That’s the quickest I’ve seen you run in all your time at the club!” He reckoned I touched the four corner flags in twenty seconds! He had a tremendous sense of humour, John.

BH: The goal is described in our book here as, ‘Watkins took a pass from Thresher, lobbed the ball over Short’s head and then, to use the words of the Bristol Evening Post, “volleyed it home with the speed of a guided missile.” It was probably the most spectacular goal of Watkins’ career’. It sounds like you haven’t exaggerated, John! 31

JW: Oh no! It probably was the most spectacular. I’m glad he remembered it like that, the reporter!

In a night game at Barnsley in August 1958, City won a pulsating game 7-4 with a display that moved their new manager Doherty (just back from the 1958 World Cup) to say, “I did not see finer football in the recent World Cup series.” Raich Carter, also at the game, said, “Bristol City would have beaten any team in the league on this showing – a night to remember.” In the words of the Western Daily Press, “the way City’s forwards worked the ball through the Barnsley defence

just had to be seen to be believed. There was always someone to run into open space and each manoeuvre was carried out with lightning speed. No wonder the crowd gasped.” The Evening Post also added a quote from John himself, “I shall never score another goal like that if I live to be a hundred.” There’s still time, John!

BH: What are your memories of John Atyeo?

JW: Well, Big John was probably the best forward I played with: he could head, he could shoot, he could go past men, the lot. John was always a blaze of publicity but always very modest. Always. Very clever bloke, too: quantity surveyor, school teacher. I was only disappointed I was away and couldn’t make his funeral. Very disappointing. But I did write to his wife, Ruth. Out of the side now I think there’s only four of us breathing at the minute.(John then rattled off the names of the 50s City squad, indicating those passed away, with impressive clarity for a man of 79 years young). You played together so many times, you had a bond. I remember Big John’s goal at Aston Villa in the Cup and also after we’d equalised that game Ernie Peacock, centre-half, injured himself and we put him up front cos you never had subs - they started to come in (during) latter part of my career – I went down the left wing and pulled the ball across, (Ernie’s) legs were so bad he couldn’t get his foot back to put it in the open goal. We’d have gone in front with 63,000 there. They’re only beginning now to get the old players together. City and Rovers are always a bit backward in that. Cheese (Paul Cheesley) gets them together about once a year but as you get on you want to keep together. They were my friends without a shadow of a doubt. I’d like to see them playing now, I’d like to be playing now!

City played First Division Aston Villa away in the 5th Round of the FA Cup in February 1957 in front of 63,000 spectators, including over 10,000 City fans travelling from Bristol. John is mentioned several times in the Western Daily report : “Captain Cyril Williams sent Watkins away with a grand pass but the winger’s shot was off target”; “Watkins slammed in a left-footed volley which flashed just outside the post ”; “Etheridge sent Watkins, away the winger put in a perfect centre, Atyeo out-jumped the defence but screwed his downward header a couple of feet wide ” City lost 1-2, Atyeo scoring for us with what he considered to be his best ever goal. Villa went on to win the Cup defeating Man. Utd in the final.

BH: Big John was never booked in his entire career was he? Was that because referees were more lenient?

JW: He was a gentle player but he could put himself about too, mind. Referees were different then, generally they wouldn’t go around booking players, even though there were some cloggers in them days – and our (shin) pads were like four Beanos stuck together!! Gilbert Pullen, a Bristol referee, when I played for Cardiff, blew his whistle at me shouting, “Any more of that Watkins and you’re...” I said, “What, that wasn’t a foul!” He kept blowing his whistle making an exhibition of himself. Anyway, on the train on the way back, the compartment door opens and it’s Gilbert. I says, “Gilbert: p*** off!” No, I said, “You better come in for a chat! Not like (that) today.”

Gilbert Pullen is infamous for an incident in 1962 involving Denis Law, which Law felt had repercussions in years to come. In a match against West Brom on 15 December 1962, referee Pullen consistently goaded Law with taunts such as "Oh, you clever so and so, you can't play". After the match, Law and his manager Matt Busby reported the matter to the Football Association. A disciplinary committee decided that Pullen should be severely censured, but he did not accept

their verdict and quit the game. Law later claimed that "in the eyes of some referees, I was a marked man" and blamed the incident for the "staggeringly heavy punishments" that he received later in his career.

BH: And you used to play cricket, too, John.

JW: Cricket’s my favourite game. I played for Gloucester Seconds a few games. I was right-handed bat and bowl (despite being left-footed) – cacky-handed as they used to say! Or cacky-footed! Some of us used to work on the ground staff up the County Ground in the summer, to help out. I played at Stoke Bishop, got in the First Team at 15 and played 47 years for them. On the August Bank Holiday the City – and the Rovers – used to play Bedminster CC (at cricket), there were some good players, mind. Sid Morgan, Ernie Peacock, Big John, Wally Hinshelwood. of course was last to play both. Up the City. 32