The Former Lives of the Rich and Famous: 70s Football Stars At Home

We may have been in awe of top professional footballers in the 7os but their homes were oddly uninspiring

Ron Harris of Chelsea with his wife Lee and his baby son Paul along with assorted household goods.
Ron ‘Chopper’ Harris, family and some random domestic objects.

As has been referenced in previous posts in this blog, football magazines of the 60s and 70s such as Shoot! and Goal often took us into the lovely homes of footballers (See Shoot and Goal Magazine: When Football Was Football and Not Just A ‘Product’ below). At a time when players were much more accessible and the idea of ‘image rights’ hadn’t even been thought of, they introduced us to their trophy wives and families and gave us an insight into what it must be like to be on a £100 quid a week. We young readers didn’t just have to dream.

As well as showing us the upmarket styles and what passed for luxury then, it also made the players that little bit more human, rather than the demi-gods they appeared to be on Sportscene, Match of the Day or The Big Match (See The Big Match: Sunday In The Park With Brian below). It seemed footballers always had to be married, maybe to prove their virility, their status and even they had to follow the social conventions of the 60s and 70s. Georgie Best and his legions of ‘dolly-birds’ seemed an exception to the rule. At least, an exception in the fact he remained single until well into his 20s. Some married footballers, therefore, had to be a little more discreet at their local night spots in the days before the ever- prying eyes of tabloid newspapers. A cursory bit of research highlighted the fact that not all the subjects of the following picture profiles are still with the ladies they were with back then. And some of the players represented are not even with us anymore, sadly.

The pictures were taken by Ray Wright, photographer of Goal magazine, and offer us an insight into the luxurious and sometimes not so luxurious lives of top players. And they depict a time when footballers were not the untouchables many of the footballing superstars of today are now. For some reason Ray often asked the players and their lovely wives to pose outside their houses with a few random domestic objects, clearly to try and add a bit of extra detail and character to, what could be, deadly dull images. For many of these pictures Ray was kicking into the wind, sadly. But it also had the effect of making the players more human, reducing them to our level which 13 year olds like myself didn’t really want to see, necessarily.

1. Stewart Houston : Manchester United

Stewart Houston of Manchester United with his family.

I’ve started with this one as it seems quite different from the other cosy domestic scenes below. The Houston family look like they’ve just been evicted from their council house in a scene reminiscent of Ken Loach‘s gritty drama Cathy Come Home. Stewart Houston played for Manchester United, then, as now, one of the wealthiest clubs in the country. One would think he’d have been able to afford a detached rather than a semi-detached dwelling, but clearly not. I’ve mentioned in a previous post that when Tommy Docherty was given the job of Manchester United manager in 1973 he was on a three year contract at £30,000 a year. Now that equates to just under £400,000 today. A lot of money you might think but not when you consider today’s English Premier coaches and players are on £squillions per annum. So what was poor old Stewart being paid as this pic was taken around the same time as Docherty took over? It’s true it was much cheaper to get into football matches in those days and TV revenue was a drop in the ocean compared to now, but someone at Man U was making a killing and, going by this pic, it wasn’t the players or manager.

2. Geoff Hurst: West Ham United

Geoff Hurst outside his house with wife Judith and daughters Jo-Anne (7) and Blair (4).

Now this is more like it. Not only in living colour but Geoff and his lovely wife Judith are standing in front of their mock-Tudor mansion, as befitting a top 70s player. Now one would expect a 70s footballer, let alone a West Ham footballer, to live in a mock Tudor house and Geoff is only too happy to oblige.

The car just impinging into the shot looks to me like a Vauxhall Viva, a car synonymous with the 70s. If it isn’t it’s something very similar. Surely Geoff, who would have been one of the better paid English footballers, must have been able to afford a fashionable Sunbeam or even a Capri? Maybe he just wasn’t a petrolhead but footballers were always about obvious consumption were they not? Possibly the mock-Tudor house took up too much of his income. And, of course, there were few lucrative boot or equipment deals in those days.

The lovely Judith, who, like some of the other footballers’ wives, doesn’t seem overjoyed at having to pose on her doorstop for the Goal photographer but for a hundred quid, I suppose, it’s probably worth the effort. Geoff’s marriage to Judith has certainly gone the distance and, according to the good people at Wikipedia, is still going strong. Good on you Geoff, a fine effort in an industry not renowned for fidelity.

3. Mick Mills: Ipswich Town

Mick Mills of Ipswich Town with his wife Sue in the family car.

Mick Mills was a long-serving team captain of Ipswich Town and highly capped England player when this domestic scene was captured. Not long before this photograph was taken of Mick and his lovely wife Sue in 1973, he was the subject of Shoot! magazine’s equivalent of this Goal feature, ‘At Home With…. I remember at the young age of 12 feeling a bit sorry for Mick. The Shoot! photo spread featured only Mick and his Boxer dog. Mick was pictured mowing his lawn and playing with his dog as opposed to the other subjects who were pictured with their families and children in a variety of mundane activities. Now, of course, I realise Mick was what all young(ish) relatively well paid footballers should have been. Glamorously single. But by the time the Goal photographer comes calling he’s not only got himself a bird, but also a wife! Mick may have marauded up and down that Portman Road right flank but there were no flies on him when it came to pulling the ladies in seemingly double-quick time. At first I wasn’t entirely convinced by the scene of domestic bliss above. His lovely ‘wife’ Sue is tucked away in a car that is certainly much more in keeping with a footballer’s lifestyle than Geoff Hurst‘s Vauxhall Viva, but she’s very much in the shade. I can’t help thinking she could have been from Footballers’ Wives Central Casting just for the day. And would she really allow him to wear flip-flops with trousers? But a bit of internet research reveals they are still very much together and living in Suffolk. My cynicism about the lives of 70s footballers is seemingly misplaced…..

4. David ‘Waggy’ Wagstaffe: Wolves

…but hang on a cotton-picking moment because here’s Wolves‘ flying winger Dave ‘Waggy’ Wagstaffe and his severely coiffured wife, Barbara. Now this is much more like a 70s footballer’s lifestyle. They’re leaning against the E-Type Jag in a 60s up- market housing estate in the West Midlands. I mean they’ve even got a balcony! Today, tabloids never refer to a footballer’s home as a ‘house’, it’s always a ‘mansion.’ But here, as is the case in most of these pics, it’s definitely a ‘house’, as stratospheric wages for top players were a long, long way off. And this picture, I believe, demonstrates the difference between playing for a London club where you’re paid more, probably, but your money doesn’t go as far and playing for a northern club where you earn less but everything’s that bit cheaper. Hence the Jag and Barratt home as opposed to the Vauxhall Viva. Waggy isn’t exactly beaming about his enviable life-style in the pic and research showed his partner for the final twenty years of his life was a woman named Val. Sadly, Waggy is no longer with us and the lovely Barbara had slipped out of the picture during the 15 years after this picture was taken.

5. Tommy Taylor: West Ham United

Tommy Taylor of West Ham United enjoys a drink at home with his wife Pat.

I bet he drinks Carling Black Label!

Ask anyone during the 70s what they would want in a money-no-object, built- to-their- specifications fuck-off house, most would say ‘a bar’ followed by ‘a colour TV’. It was the apotheosis of glamour, sophistication and luxury. And here we see West Ham stopper Tommy and his lovely wife, Pat, enjoying a vodka and Kia Ora. Mind you, Pat doesn’t look old enough to be drinking alcohol and they don’t look the most obvious of couples. It’s unknown whether Tommy and Pat are still together although Tommy is still very much with us and still involved in football, coaching a team in Finland. Bet he doesn’t drink Carling Black Label anymore, though.

6. Harry Redknapp: West Ham United

West Ham's Harry Redknapp with wife Sandra and his son Mark.

And who do we have here in their lovely Chigwell bungalow. None other than a young ‘Arry Redknapp and his lovely wife Sandra! There’s a great deal of those 70s favoured building materials, wood and natural stone, in evidence and we had a carpet and fireplace just like that. The fireplace does not appear to be in use as central heating had just become de rigeur for those that could afford it. Such as top footballers.

A few years ago Sky Sport ran a football nostalgia series called ‘Bobby Charlton’s Football Scrapbook‘ in which Bob discussed matches from his illustrious career with the estimable Dickie Davies. Excellent footage of sixties and seventies English First Division games was shown followed by a shockingly dull analysis by the lugubrious Bobby. Poor old Dickie was flogging a dead horse most of the time as he tried to jazz up proceedings with a few gags which fell on Charlton stony ground. One bit of footage featured Harry Redknapp himself in an early 70s West Ham game. Harry was a popular winger, not to mention an unlikely sex symbol, for the Hammers playing 149 games between 1965 and 1972 scoring a rather disappointing, to say the least, 7 goals. During this featured match two teenage girls, rare in 70s football, festooned in West Ham scarves and bell-bottomed Brutus jeans, ran on to the pitch and started kissing an embarrassed ‘Arry. After the action was shown we were returned to the studio where an increasingly desperate Dickie giggled about the incident only to be immediately slapped down by Bobby who morosely exclaimed ‘..yes, but no one should ever run on to the field play.’ Boring old twat.

‘Arry and the lovely Sandra are still very much together and, interestingly, ‘Arry’s former West Ham team mate, Frank Lampard married Sandra’s twin sister Patricia. How odd.

Despite him being dragged through the courts on a number of occasions to face increasingly serious financial charges, nothing has been pinned on him, of course, which suggests his life has been as spotless as the fireplace in the picture above.

7. Gordon Bolland: Millwall

Gordon Bolland of Millwall decorates a room in his house with his wife and children.

Few people other than Millwall fans of a certain age will remember Gordon Bolland. Other than those, that is, who watched Match of the Day during the 70s. For it was Gordon Bolland who won Match of the Day’sGoal of the Month‘ for September 1971 with a screamer against Bristol City. And that was about as good as it got for Gordon although he played for Millwall successfully for 7 years and was inducted into their Hall of Fame.

When the Goal photographer came to call on the Bolland family they just happened, fortunately, to be doing a bit of home decoration at the time, so he sent the unnamed Mrs Bolland up the ladder in mini-skirt and high heels. This went down like a fart in a spacesuit with Mrs Bolland, it seems, as not only is her underskirt showing but her expression would curdle milk. I wouldn’t want to be around when the Goal photographer packed up his gear and drove off. He may have a BBC trophy for one of the best goals of 1971 but that’s not going save him from a right kicking.

8. Denis Law: Manchester United

Denis Law at home with his wife Diana and their children.

The great Denis Law was not only a prolific goalscorer but was prolific in other departments too. It’s little wonder the lovely Sandra Law is sitting down after having so many children in such a short space of time. Luckily for her they decided to call full-time on any more procreation and she could, at least concentrate on bringing up a houseful of toddlers. Poor Sandra. There should be a Law against it.

Denis and Sandra met in their teens at an Aberdeenshire dancehall in the 50s and are happily still together. Their emotional symmetry is very much at odds with the decor in their lovely 70s living room. Never have so many styles clashed so menacingly in such a small space. A bit like The Lawman’s effect on opposing defences. Sandra’s blouse and the tartan of the kids’ kilts just add to the psychedelic melange. It’s a bit like one of those popular 70s posters where you had to try and spot figures somewhere in the busy detail. And check out the new central heating in the corner. Denis’s status at Manchester United has clearly allowed him to splash out on such luxuries. It reminds me a bit of when the also legendary Jocky Wilson won the World Darts Championship and was asked by a reporter what he was going to do with the all the money. ‘We’re gonnae get the hoose rewired,’ replied Jocky.

9. Alun Evans: Aston Villa

Alun Evans of Aston Villa at home with his family.

Alun Evans was one of those 70s players who are virtually forgotten despite playing over 250 top level games in the top English leagues. He is best remembered as a Liverpool player between 1968 and 1972. He never really made it at that top level and some believe it was because while a Liverpool player he was attacked and glassed in Wolverhampton night-club and was never really the same again. A reminder of just how violent football could be in the 70s.

We see him here with his lovely, again unnamed, rather young looking wife surrounded by some chintzy ornamentation. In those days, maybe it still happens, players were accommodated in ‘club houses’ so they needn’t have to worry about furnishing it. The local 70s equivalent of IKEA would come round and furnish it, which looks like what has happened here. Evans eventually ended up in Australia where he got married again and had more children. So this is one marriage that clearly didn’t last.

10. Peter ‘The Cat’ Bonetti: Chelsea

Chelsea’s Peter Bonetti with wife Francis and children Kim, Suzanne, Nicholas and Lisa.

So here we have recently sadly deceased Chelsea and England goalie Peter ‘The Cat’ Bonetti and family. As this was the early to mid-seventies Bonetti was already an established first team player at Chelsea and an England international. It’s fair to say, however, that Bonetti’s international career never really recovered from England’s defeat to West Germany in the 1970 World Cup as many England fans blamed him for some of the goals, although I don’t really believe the overrated Gordon Banks would have been able to do much about them either. Luckily that aberration didn’t affect his footballer’s lifestyle and here we see the Bonettis outside their ‘mansion’ in the leafy suburbs somewhere near London. His dinky little open top car (despite having four kids) is very chic and certainly what we’d expect a 70s footballer to be driving. I wonder if he has a Hurstian Vauxhall Viva in the garage also? He’ll need something roomy for all his offspring to clamber into. And have you spotted the bonus ball in the corner? A fancy caravan, impossibly exotic then and very handy when you have a large family when a week in Marbella might stretch the purse strings, even for a top footballer.

11. Billy ‘Bonzo’ Bonds: West Ham United

West Ham United's Billy Bonds with his wife Marilyn, daughter and dog.

Sharp-eyed readers may have noticed that the bulk of the above subjects all played for London clubs. And of these London players, most played for The Hammers. There are a few obvious reasons for this I suspect. Firstly, the photographer, Ray Wright, will have been London-based and it was easier just driving round to local players’ mansions than taking a three-day camel ride to Newcastle or Liverpool. Secondly, the glamour players (Bestie excepted) were all based in London and although rarely league contenders, the perception from readers outside the Home Counties (as they were and still are patronisingly referred to by the media), West Ham were pretty glamorous compared to Crystal Palace, Fulham and even Chelsea.

Here we have Billy ‘Bonzo’ Bonds at home with his family in his fairly featureless mansion. Apart from a regulation highly patterned carpet and non-matching armchair, there’s not really much here for analysis in this rather bland domestic scene. Although Marilyn has kept her baffies on and is that a can of beer at the side of the chair? Whether it is or not, you’d have thought they’d have tidied up before the shoot. And what about that dog? It looks like a cross between a greyhound, a Great Dane and some nuclear fission. My guess is photographer Ray just wanted to get the photo taken and away before Cujo ripped his throat out. You can see the mutt is just mulling over the possibility as the pic is taken.

It’s fair to say it was a different world then. As the man said, the past is a foreign country. As I have said in previous football posts, players then were more accessible and their lifestyles weren’t hugely different from our own in many ways. Players in the 70s were really just better-than-averagely paid artisans, even though lots of schoolboys worshipped them. How many top players nowadays would invite a photographer into their ‘mansions’ today? Unless, of course, it was for Hello magazine with their unlimited budget.

Today’s footballers may be obscenely reimbursed for their efforts, but few really know what to spend their cash on other than another Rolex, Aston Martin or …or…I’m struggling to think of anything else.

In 2003 when top footballers’ wages were beginning to be paid in wheelbarrows, ex-footballer Jamie Redknapp published a magazine called Icon. It was aimed at those in the social stratosphere way above ordinary punters. Available in exclusive First Class airport lounges and sent free to anyone who had a few million quid to spare, it advertised the sort of tasteless things a tiny percentage of the population could afford. By calling the puffed-up publication Icon, it implied its readership was those people us proles were expected to look up to and revere, almost in a religious fashion. Well, speak for yourself, Jamie but we’ll decide who we feel deserve revering, thanks. It was a product of a time when some people were becoming so rich they occupied another dizzying plane within society. Some things never change.

The mag went bust in 2010 amidst a blizzard of debt. I mention this just to highlight the differences between the honest pros above and the image-obsessed, untouchable, high-flying businessmen who turn out for the top clubs nowadays.

And you thought Tommy Taylor‘s bar was flash?

Shoot and Goal Magazine: When Football Was Football and Not Just A ‘Product’

Where did it all go sadly, and boringly, right for our footballers?

During the 60s and 70s football was a much more working class sport.  For a start a minority of relatively well-off people actually sat down at a game. The stand was where decent, usually older men (and it was mostly men) could be shielded from the adolescent noisy ne’er-do-wells who populated the vast, gaping terraces. The only women who ever ventured to a football match were what would be later described as WAGs. The (current) girlfriends and the (current) wives. Until, of course their beaus were caught being indiscreet in a local night-spot with a girl called Sharon. Or Tracey. Footballers from this bygone era must look at the automatons and athletes playing for top clubs now and wonder if they are the same species. Apart from earning more money in a week than 60s or 70s players would earn in a career, modern players’ bodies are temples and not the temples of doom belonging to yesteryear stars. Today’s top players are rarely even photographed leaving nightclubs in a sheepish manner, their minders, advisers, gurus and agents warning them off such behaviour. Most, I would guess, aren’t even bothered about attending such emporiums of temptation. One couldn’t really imagine Kevin De Bruyne or Christian Erikson leaving Romeo and Juliet’s night spot in Bury or Hornchurch holding hands with Kylie, who had been out on a travel agents’ beano, who earlier had been knocking back Mojitos like they were going out of fashion. Now the same couldn’t be said for Stan Bowles or Frank Worthington or even, for that matter, Charlie Nicholas. It’s also well documented that footballers left training at lunchtime and headed straight for the boozer. Ten pints and 40 fags later they would drive home in their Ford Sunbeam and doze in front of Quizball until it was time for training again the next morning. Where did it all go sadly, and boringly, right for today’s footballers? 

An insight into how 60s and 70s and players were from a very different planet completely can be found in the football publications of those, seemingly, far off days. Many publications came and went and some came across as just too boring to even recall (Charles Buchan’s Football Monthly?) but the two stalwarts of the genre were ‘Goal’ (1968) and ‘Shoot’(1969).

Goal’ was aimed at a slightly older target audience, 16+ while ‘Shoot’ was targeted at younger readers, around 10-15.

Shoot magazine was colourful, crammed with pictures and posters of current football stars and teams to be pinned up on a bedroom wall, whether you supported those teams or not. Shoot also did something that was, many years later, to be used very successfully by a plethora of ‘celebrity’ magazines. It not only shared intimate details of top footballers with its readers (nightclub liaisons notwithstanding) but also suggested that these lofty sporting individuals were our friends. 

Shoot introduced a range of long-running features which not only attempted to get under the skins of these demi-gods, but took us into their gorgeous luxury homes (or ‘mansions’ as they liked to refer to them,) and shone light into the magic that was their impossibly glamorous lives (or so we were led to believe). 

Shoot’s longest-running and USP feature was ‘Focus on…’ where a different footballer each week was given a series of questions about their likes, dislikes and petty peccadillos. It took a little time to realise just how limited and narrow footballers’ lives and attitudes actually were. 

Well..he was only a bairn..

The responses rarely fluctuated.  What Person in the World Would You Most Like To Meet? Invariably Cassius Clay or latterly Muhammed AliBiggest Drag in Soccer (Who ever called it ‘soccer’?): Losing or returning from away matches having lost, Favourite Food: Steak (ALWAYS steak although some gastronomes threw in a few chips), Favourite Drink: The occasional lager, Favourite TV Shows: Sports programmes. If you Weren’t A Footballer What Would You Be?: No idea (Few even had the wit to say ‘Unemployed’). These answers were regular and often. Why young kids idolised these guys is anybody’s guess but it was a more innocent time. Perversely though, it was my favourite part of the magazine.

Responses to Favourite Singers and Favourite Actors were similarly goal-line narrow in scope. Players chose from a limited group and were always strictly MOR. They rarely strayed from the calm, unchallenging waters of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Shirley Bassey, Sammy Davis Junior, Andy Williams and Dionne Warwick.  The idea of Ralph Coates suggesting The Velvet Underground or Ian Ure professing his love for The Electric Prunes was just unthinkable.

Favourite Actors were similarly constricted. John Wayne and Steve McQueen, naturally, Paul Newman, Barbra Streisand and, inevitably, Raquel Welsh (who once in the 70s attended a Chelsea match with Jimmy Hill. I have it on good authority, though, they were not romantically linked).

Of course, there were occasional exceptions to the rule. Malcolm Allison, for example, in 1972 stated the The Person In The World He Would Most Like To Meet was Enoch Powell M.P. and his Best Country Visited was South Africa. Well fancy that! Curiously, his Miscellaneous Dislike was ‘Narrow-minded people.’ And he also took the opportunity when asked what his Personal Ambition was to shamelessly promote his new game ‘Spot-On-Soccer’. He hoped it would become a ‘classic game.’ Can’t win them all Malcolm. In fact, you didn’t win that many as a manager either. Even odder was the job he’d have done if not a footballer manager: a psychiatrist. Some years ago I was changing trains at York Station and as I was leaving the train Malcolm Allison was getting on. In his hand was a glass which contained an extremely large measure of whisky. Once a 70s footballer manager….

Other exceptions to the hard and fast rules of ‘Focus on…’ were Franz Beckenbauer who, enigmatically for Der Kaiser, wanted to meet Mao Tse Tung, Chris Cattlin of Coventry City’s favourite singer was Harry Secombe (what?!), Brian Hall of Liverpool’s favourite food was liver, kidneys and carrots (revolting), while Leicester midfielder Alan Birchenall was on the horns of a dilemma and couldn’t decide whether he’d prefer to meet Adolf Hitler or Neil Diamond. I feel your pain, Alan.

These were also the days of ‘free gifts’ with comics and magazines, little incentives to kids to buy a particular publication and Shoot shamelessly, and thrillingly for the sporty adolescent boy (i.e. me), issued a range of football-based statistical tools throughout the calendar year. Its most celebrated enticement, issued every August for many years, was the full-colour league ladder! Printed on cardboard on which all four English and both Scottish leagues were included. Little tabs representing every English and Scottish club could be detached and slotted into the league ladder every week to account for changes in each team’s position. In truth, few readers could be bothered messing about with them after about half a dozen games of a new season but they were initially exciting. They represented the start of a spanking new football season after the longeurs of the summer months, particularly when there was no World Cup that year. It also allowed you to mess about with league positions and see what it would look like if your team was implausibly at the top and the teams you hated were at the bottom. In short, the ladders allowed us to dream. For a few weeks at least. Then in January Shoot would release their full-colour English FA and Scottish cup wall charts, where teams’ progress could be plotted from round three to the final in May.  Again by the Fourth Round filling in the little boxes with a felt pen began to get a slightly tedious but what the hell, it looked good on the wall of your bedroom. In the days of instant statistics at the push of a few buttons, such fripperies seem rather quaint and maybe even slightly opportunistic on the part of the magazines, but they were different and I wish I still had them today.

Shoot magazine also tried to draw in its young readers by featuring three very well known columnists throughout the 70s. To describe the three players involved as ‘columnists’ was maybe going a bit far as they almost certainly only had a short telephone conversation with a ghost writer each week, but their ‘columns’ were masterpieces of pointless creativity, tedium and repetition. 

A Shoot fixture throughout the late 60s and 70s was Bobby Moore, World Cup winning England captain (as they never stopped reminding you) and all-round decent chap. His weekly thoughts circumnavigated the English game from A to B and there was no dull and dusty corner of Upton Park which wasn’t explored, analysed and left out to dry. Every single week. Occasionally he (or his increasingly desperate ghost writer) tried to spice things up by chucking in a bit of non-football minutiae. His column of 21st July 1973, for example,  began, ‘Here I am lazing away the hours with my wife Tina, and children Roberta and Dean in Marbella, Spain.’ Well, where else would a 70s footballer and his lovely ex-model wife be during the close season? So far so predictable. Writing a weekly column at that time of year must have been far from easy. 

Or was it? Step forward columnist number 2, Mr. Alan Ball, or ‘Soccer As I See It by Alan Ball’ to give the column its official title. This, invariably, was just a rehash of what Bobby Moore was talking about essentially but, in Ball’s case, about Arsenal. If anything Alan Ball included a bit more about his glamorous private life. The films he’d been to see, restaurants he’d eaten at and at this time of the close season, where he was on holiday, and yes, you’ve guessed it, it’s Majorca! With, obviously, his lovely ex-model wife Lesley and daughter Keely. 

Third on the bill was the one and only George Best whose wayward life eventually led to him being replaced with the more child-friendly and dependable, but just as lugubrious, Kevin Keegan.  The alliteratively titled ‘Keep Up With Kevin Keegan’ continued to carry the torch of tedium after Georgie’s heavily bowdlerised column was given a free transfer. 

It was a clever ploy by Shoot to feature these players at a time when football still had an air of mystery and excitement to it. The occasional tantalising glimpses on Saturday night football highlights programmes, Sam Leitch’s Football Preview or ‘Sportsnight with Coleman’ was about all anyone saw of these, and other, stars. Regular live football on TV was a long, long way off and it was the novelty of only occasionally seeing them play that elevated them to such heights of wonderment.  And we continued to put up with the humdrum nature of their lives which, at the time, seemed impossibly glamorous. Shoot was shining light into magic. They were our friends, they were talking to us.  An idea celebrity magazines tapped into many years later. 

TV Football 1968-92 on Twitter: "Back in the 1970s & 80s we had BBCs  Sportsnight with David Coleman & Harry Carpenter, and ITVs Midweek Sport  Special with Brian Moore & Elton Wellesby.

But Shoot was not alone in welcoming us into the lovely homes of our footballing idols.  ‘Goal’ also did its bit but for slightly more mature readers. Goal was less colourful and more wordy, even including regular league tables and a pools guide for the older fan without a bird. 

In the early 70s Goal included a short-lived celeb footballer column and featured ‘Bobby Charlton’s Diary.’ Short-lived? Not short enough as it was a column of such mind-numbing dullness that the classified ads at the back of the magazine gave the reader a comparative frisson of excitement. The opening sentence to his September 1968 column was ‘The World Cup is still nearly two years away so there is a lot that can happen between now and then.’ You losing your column for a start, Bob.  And it went downhill from there. Goal, therefore, eschewed the need for football celebrity columns and, it’s true, colour posters were sparse but what they did have every week was ‘The Girl Behind The Man’! A feature of such breathtaking 70s crassness  it could take its place with Dick Emery, The Wheeltappers and Shunters’ Social Club and Old-English Spangles as an iconic 70s product.

The feature spoke for itself.  After a long hard day of training, drinking and fagging it, where does this Third Division footballing demi-god go when it’s closing time at the Coach and Horses (pubs did shut at 10.00pm don’t forget)? Back to the little lady, of course.  And those ‘’Girls Behind The Man’ were only too happy to open up their gorgeous suburban semis to the Goal photographer.  A regular ingredient of the photo-shoot was the bikini shot. One could imagine the slightly sleazy, unctuously Brylcreemed photographer suggesting, ‘Do you have a bikini, love?’ Usually the girl behind the man was only too happy to recline on her vast suburban lawn as a February wind blew icily around her.  Let’s face it, we were told they were all ex-models anyway. Take the lovely Beryl Harris (28 September 1968), lovely ex-model wife of Cardiff City striker, Brian Harris, for example. Beryl’s hobbies are sunbathing and gardening, and here’s a gorgeous shot of Beryl doing some gardening in her bikini to kill two birds with one wide-angled stone. 

Not all wives were quite so willing though. Here’s Peter Cormack’s wife Marion who particularly enjoys swimming, dancing, driving and playing records and she is usefully photographed spinning some discs on her state-of-the -art radiogram.  As Marion appeared in the January 30th 1971 edition of Goal, a bikini shot must have been out of the question, even for an ex-model.

Shoot and Goal magazines eventually merged in 1974 as a number of other less worthy but more colourful football magazines became available but this flag of convenience wasn’t to last. Shoot continued until 2008, latterly as a monthly edition but football, and technology, had changed. Top class football was more clinical, scientific, distant and less characterful.  Young people were less interested in the individuals and more focussed on the team, or more accurately, the brand.  Would any modern player be interested in a weekly, or even monthly ghost-written column nowadays? It’s not as if they need the money and despite Bally and Moore-O’s efforts at trying to make their lives seem endlessly glamorous, they can’t really compete with today’s stars’ lives.  And would they want to? Details of how they tweaked their nutritional regime, bought a new Aston Martin/ private plane/ Rolex watch or signed a new image rights’ contract, despite their lives being truly glittering, just doesn’t quite cut the mustard. Today’s top players are bland, untouchable and so removed in every way from the fans, that Shoot and Goal just seem like quaint anachronisms, evoking a time when fans still felt part of the game. Now they they are expected to feel privileged to be allowed to watch it, at a price obviously. 

With billions of pounds swilling around in the game, players coming from all over the world for short but expensive stints with certain teams before , expensively, moving on, every football league in the world available, at a price, to be watched 24/7 and rolling TV news and statistics at a touch of a button, the world of teenage football magazines seems like a different age. But I think I preferred it when my football idols went on holiday to Marbella, and were only too happy to share this rather mundane information with us. 

Now, what did I do with those league ladders?