Phil Rostron - Big Fry - Barry Fry - The Autobiography

On many occasions I have been offered big money by the media to criticise Matt Busby, but there is no way I would ever do that. Matt Busby is not the reason I failed. Barry Fry is the reason I failed. All Matt did was to give me good advice and the opportunity to join the biggest club in the world. Lots of players have got chips on their shoulders when they leave clubs, because they feel they have more ability than those they have left behind. Many are right to hold that view. But those who remain are invariably more dedicated, more focused. Such players are often bitter and twisted. Not me. I look in the mirror and see a man who let himself down, not one who was let down by others.

As George Martin spoke I reflected upon the two appearances I had made for United as a first team reserve – there were no substitutes then and you only got to play as a reserve if someone went down ill just before the match. The first of these was at Ipswich, where all sorts of things were running through my mind in the dressing room. One thought was that, as 12th man, if I had accidentally trodden on someone’s toes, breaking a couple in the process, I would get to make my debut through his misfortune. I thought better of it. Ipswich won the game 4–2, with Ray Crawford and Ted Phillips sharing their goals and Bobby Charlton scoring both for United.

The second match was at Sheffield United and this was most memorable for the police bursting into the Manchester United dressing room after the game. ‘You can’t come in here, mate,’ I shouted to one of them, but they brushed me aside and made straight for Dave Gaskell, who was our goalkeeper at the time. He had been taking some stick from the home fans during the game and responded by pulling his shorts down and showing them his arse.

You know, I would have kissed Gaskell’s arse for a first-team debut for Manchester United. But it was never to be.

CHAPTER FOUR

Bankruptcy and on the scrapheap

The massive shock to my system caused by my departure from Old Trafford was compounded when it became clear that I had upset Noel Cantwell and, for the first and only time in my life, I had a falling-out with my father. I telephoned my dad to give him the news that I had signed for Bolton Wanderers and to say that he was stunned is something of an understatement.

‘Who did you talk to about this?’ he asked, clearly upset.

I told him that it was my own decision and that I had consulted no one.

‘I thought you might have had the decency to discuss it with me.’

My protestations that I had received a £5000 signing-on fee seemed to irk him even more.

‘What good is money?’ he demanded. ‘Money has never meant anything to you. What are you doing? You should have come home to mull this over.’

And with that, he bashed the telephone down on me.

Noel, meanwhile, had been true to his word and gone to the trouble of contacting Ted Fenton, who had apparently been happy to discuss the situation. But my mind was swimming and I just didn’t bother to follow up Noel’s lead. He let it be known that he thought I should have acted more responsibly.

So it was against that very negative background that I embarked upon the next step in my career. I bought myself a brand new Datsun and everything went very well in a pre-season build-up in which I was a member of the Bolton senior squad, though I failed to make the team for the first couple of league games. They got off to an inauspicious start, with results going against them, and then they dropped Francis Lee for me. My debut was in a home match against Coventry City, who were managed by Jimmy Hill, and unfortunately I was unable to stop the bad run of results as we were beaten. My third consecutive game was at Cardiff, who had that marvellous team which included Ivor Allchurch, John Charles and Mel Charles. In our team were Freddie Hill, Wyn Davies, Gordon Taylor, Roy Hartle and Eddie Hopkinson in goal – a strong side and one in which I was to score my one and only league goal in a 3–1 victory. It was a headed goal in which I beat the mountainous John Charles to the ball. I ask you, men like him and Davies, as big as houses, and I score with a header!

We flew back to Manchester after the game and as I walked down the aeroplane steps I began to feel the after-effects of a crunching tackle I had received from Mel Charles. Suddenly, I could hardly walk. The pain was terrible. Forty-eight hours later we were due to play away at Middlesbrough. I still lived at Mrs Davenport’s and on the Sunday morning I walked round the corner to get some treatment from Jack Crompton, the United physio. He said there was no chance of my being fit enough to play. We were leaving Bolton at 11 o’clock the following day and by nine I was on the treatment table at Burnden Park. Then I tried to run round the track and it was hopeless. I couldn’t walk, never mind run. The physio told me to go and take a bath and as I soaked, feeling sorry for myself, the door opened and in walked the manager, Bill Ridding.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ he inquired sternly.

I told him that I had done my groin.

‘I used to use that excuse to get out of things when I was in the Army,’ he replied, and walked out.

Fuming, I jumped out of the bath and set off in the nude in pursuit of Ridding. Of course, the floor was slippery and I doubled or trebled the damage that had already been done to my groin, but there was no stopping me.

‘Oi, what did you say? What the f**k are you talking about? Excuse? I don’t need any excuse. I’ve only just got into the f***ing team. I don’t want to be left out of it. I’ve just scored on Saturday. What are you on about?’

It was the worst thing I could have done. He never picked me again. It had been, I suppose, an unseemly event. As I reached screaming pitch, people were emerging from every door in the building to see what was going on and the manager being bawled out by a new player without a stitch on was not what they might have expected.

Franny Lee was back in the team at Middlesbrough and Bolton lost 4–0. It remained, however, a great dressing room. Nat Lofthouse was in charge of the reserves, to whom I had now been consigned. He kept telling me that I was doing well and then they would have Franny being picked for England and Wyn being called up by Wales and I thought I must get my first-team place back. It never happened. Instead they would draft in big Eric Redrobe, then Brian Bromley, then somebody else and somebody else, but not me. In the end I got fed up with the situation, so I decided to knock on Bill Ridding’s door.

‘What’s going on?’ Nat keeps saying I’m playing well, there are people away on international duty, you are short of players and I’m not getting a look in.’

‘I’ve been told you’re crap,’ he responded.

With this, silly Basil goes to see Nat Lofthouse.

‘You’re a f***ing two-faced bastard, you are,’ I screamed at him.

In life you realise sooner or later that there are some people you say that to and some you don’t. Nat was in the latter category. At least he asked for an explanation.

‘You keep saying that I’m doing well in the reserves,’ I said, ‘and now Bill’s just told me that your reports on me say that I’m crap.’

Before I could flinch he had me in a vice-like grip around my throat, dragged me into the manager’s office, and threw me to the floor.

‘What’s this about my reports saying …’ He was stopped short by Ridding entering the room.

‘Barry,’ Ridding intervened, ‘leave us, will you. Leave us, please.’

I got up, dusted myself down and listened behind the closed door as a huge row sparked up. Nat had a right go.

‘Don’t use me as an excuse!’ he thundered. ‘You tell him you don’t like him. You tell him he isn’t good enough. You tell him anything, but don’t tell him that I have been giving him bad reports when I have not.’