How refreshing!
That is from someone who has been out of the game longer than Jose Mourinho has been in it, and look how far he has come and gone backwards through changing strategies to both the “Simple” and “Beautiful Game” which is what arguably the worlds greatest player called it.
In his piece Peter Thomas wrote: To many a certain vintage, Channon remains one of sports admirable characters. Having reached various pinnacles of club and international football he turned his had to a second career in racing and scaled vertiginous heights in that as well. What’s more, he did it all with a smile on his face and an audible obscenity never far from his lips, in the buccaneering style of an old fashioned striker from an era untouched by the clammy hand of political correctness.
On a page where he shares a photograph with another old chum Alan Ball (we help beat the Germans together in March ’75), it shows the enjoyment that is now lost in our game. At a time at Southampton with the likes of Ball and another team-mate of mine, the elegant and charismatic Peter Osgood, another player who smiled that smile in the heat of the toughest of matches, mainly against the iron-clad Leeds United and Don Revie – remember that wonderful goal at Old Trafford in the first ever FA Cup replay?
Anyhow, that particular photograph brought back the song sang by Jack Jones about a picture telling more than any coaching annual, meaning a thousand words that don’t mean much.
The “Key” as Channon makes his main point whether with a ball or a horse is “fun” and after Euro 2016 those who were supposed to be coming home proud didn’t muster a smile, and more important was that neither did those supporters who have waited so patiently for so long.
Channon has a wonderful attitude and the only time I visited his yard, after many years of not seeing him, was more concerned/interested about that car that put me in a very similar situation although my coma was far more serious than any I have heard about, almost as if we were in the treatment room of The Dell or Stamford Bridge, and were dying to get out and show those fans those vastly different talents we had.
Vastly different, but both the same when it came to both joy and satisfaction that goes hand in glove when playing any sport, ask the late great Cassius Clay – if I may call him the Louisville Lip?
And then there was the only man ever to carry off the Jules Rimet Trophy, the man known as God in our circles, although Channon would say Lester Piggott, mainly because of his sheer love for the thoroughbred and man aboard.
I was fortunate to be friends with the great Bobby Moore and to have sat next to Mr Piggott at a function for three hours and study his love for life and people although not moving his lips.
He gave me an odd look and a huge smile when being asked for his autograph on a five pound note thinking that I was “trying to be funny” because of his spell in a different kind of Intensive Trauma Unit.
As I laughed with the likes of Jimmy Greaves, Tommy Baldwin, John Dempsey and Marvin Hinton, all broken down Chelsea players, Mr Piggott looked on with that poker face and wry smile, which I can only think brought back many glorious memories of his times in his own dressing room surrounded by Scobie Breasley and later my favourite Pat Eddery.
I was going to call it the Weighing Room, but todays players would not get past the “weighing in” process for the weight of their huge pay packets, something that they should have got quite a hefty fine just recently. Mr Piggott earned his, whether those in power agree or not, after all like those at the FA what the hell have they given to our sports?
Mick rides into the sunset, in pretty good form at the moment, and as I say to any patient since my hospitalisation, if you ever lose your sense of humour you’ll not get through, and looking at that photograph Mick still has his intact.
Many thanks Mick and I hope that smile is seen more often in the Winners Enclosure of which you are no stranger whether in a Top Hat and Tails or a Red and White striped shirt, with the great regret that you can no longer wear the national white one (something we have lost also) with such pride and passion and of course ‘that stunning smile’, something that no coaching manual can put on any face.
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