Well in for a penny, in for a pound, I thought, let’s ask about full backs and then go on to a full team. Trouble is, I thought, he’s probably been asked this so many times already. Plus which, I’ve always thought up until now what a sad exercise it is, picking ‘best’ elevens. It’s as sad as grown men collecting bus tickets, or train spotting or making Airfix model aeroplanes.
Anyway at full back Jimmy settled on John Angus and Alex Elder but into the squad would come Harold Mather. Mather was the classic fifties full back, solid, reliable, and dependable, not much got passed him and a few wingers finished up in row Z. He was not very quick but that was OK because football in the fifties was never about pace anyway. There was usually one winger on one side who was quicker than the other, and the ‘other’ would be the ball playing, tricky sorcerer, who, like Burnley’s Brian Pilkington, would jink and shimmy and tie a full back up in knots.
Harold Mather was also the player who kept a greyhound under the cricket field stand. It never won a race but all the players loved it to bits, and it was probably because they all spoiled it and fed it so much that it never won anything.
Alex Elder however was a different kind of full back. Mather belonged to an age when defenders rarely if ever crossed half way line. But Elder was different. Those of us old enough will remember his rampaging runs down the wing, crosses and thunderbolt shots. He was the first of the new breed of attacking full backs. And John Angus, what can you say? Classy, elegant, hard as nails but cultured, thighs the size of an oak tree, forming a wonderful partnership with any outside right he played with. As a youth when he came down, he was homesick and went straight back home. But manager Alan Brown, ex policeman, went up to Amble, collared him, and brought him back. Angus became a magnificent full back although Bobby Charlton remembers one time when he was up against George Best when Best was so unplayable that the game should have been stopped by the Royal Society For The Prevention of Cruelty to John Angus.
Jimmy Mac’s full backs would therefore be Angus (in spite of the blip against Best) and Elder; Mather too would be in the squad.
In Jimmy Mac’s day, there was just one centre half. The first to come to mind, although he never played with him, was the iron-man Alan Brown. Jimmy never saw him play either, but trained with him when Brown was manager in the fifties, nurturing the players who would form the bedrock of the Potts championship team. “But I’m told he was ruthless, hard and fearless. When I trained with him, he could shake you even then in a tackle.”
At this point I mentioned the apocalyptic story of the day Brown ‘sorted’ the legendary Stan Mortenson. Jimmy laughed. “Do you know I’ve heard that story of the tackle by Alan Brown on Mortenson so many times there must have been 30,000 at the game. I believe Mortenson was airborne for a considerable time,” added Jimmy with that characteristic understated wry humour.
But it was Tommy Cummings that Jimmy selected for his First Eleven. “Tommy was so quick and skilful and this was in an age of tall, lumbering centre halves, very strong in the air. I remember the day I was playing in a reserve game and the news came through that Tommy had scored, early in the fifties, and we were amazed. Centre halves never came across the half way line in those days let alone score.”
“At right half (midfield to you twentieth century folk) it would be Jimmy Adamson.” But Jimmy had to think for a while and the first name to be mentioned was in fact Reg Atwell. By coincidence I’d been speaking to someone the week before who had mentioned him as being a lovely passer of the ball and Jimmy agreed with that. “But it would be Jimmy who would shade it.”
It was only at the end of the chat that Jimmy suddenly also remembered Brian O Neil, although having remembered him, it was his trilby hat that intrigued Jimmy most, the one he now wears every time he returns to Turf Moor. “But Brian had everything and he would be in my squad.”
“And on the left side, it would be Brian Miller, the gentle giant.” Jimmy laughed. “Do you know so many opponents always referred to him as ‘that big dirty bugger Miller’ but it was so unfounded. He was never a dirty player. I never ever saw him ever make a vicious tackle. If he’d have tried to hurt someone he’d more likely have hurt himself and he so loved going forward.”
And the forward line? First up was Ray Pointer. “He was so slight but so strong, tireless and fast. He was ahead of his time, the first of a new breed of small mobile centre forwards. I saw Alan Shearer at his peak at Blackburn and I wouldn’t know which one of them to choose as my all time best.”
“And alongside him I’d have Jimmy Robson, so underrated. People don’t realise what ability he had. Danny Blanchflower rated him as well and maintained that without Jimmy Greaves on the scene he would have played for England. I was so disappointed not to see his name on the Plaque of Legends. But in my squad there would be Peter McKay, the most natural scorer I have ever seen, a genius inside the box, so good at anticipating things and just being there. You can’t teach that sort of thing Billy Dougal always said. And in the squad there’d be Andy Lochhead and Willie Irvine. Jack Charlton always said he came off the field black and blue after a game against Andy. (Charlie George in his new book also lists Lochhead as one of the hard men of his time). Lochhead and Irvine would be in the squad but as a pair I’d go for Pointer and Robson.”
Alongside Pointer and Robson it would be Martin Dobson. (Of course in anyone else’s team it would be no doubt Jimmy Mac himself but with characteristic modesty Jimmy did not choose himself). On the left wing there would be Leighton James who at his best was certainly up there with George Best. And then there’s Brian Pilkington and Gordon Harris. The first time Danny Blanchflower saw Gordon Harris he said he was so deceptive saying ‘you’ve got a player there.’ He had this ability to accelerate by an opponent.
”
“And on the right wing it would be John Connelly, good with both feet, twenty goals a season. This, I suppose, is where I pick the players I have played with. There’s also Dave Thomas and Glen Little. Glen Little of all the modern players is the one who is nearest to the old fashioned players who could get to the by-line and get a cross over. And there was that game against Tottenham wasn’t there? (Too true who will ever forget that game when he came on as sub and with Burnley 1 – 0 down in a Carling Cup game, he tore them apart, was virtually unplayable, and Burnley won 2 – 1) Little is the only modern Burnley winger I have enjoyed watching.
“Oh, but, there’s Billy Elliot as well,” he added. At this point Jimmy smiled as he remembered the hard man though the unusual thing was Elliot was a winger in an age when wingers weren’t supposed to be hard, that was the full backs job. “There’s the Billy Elliot story about the time he was playing for Burnley and he sent over a bullet cross, so hard, so strong it would have decapitated anyone who even tried to head it. There was me, Bill Holden and Les Shannon in the box and this cross whizzed over and we all missed it, and probably would have thought twice about heading it anyway. Elliot glowered at us for the rest of the game, furious, fuming and looking at us and saying ‘who f*****g ducked’. He wasn’t at Burnley very long.”
So the final team:
