SUPERMAC ON ENGLAND
As well as being a living legend on Tyneside
‘Supermac’ did quite well for the National team you
know. We caught up with him this month to ask him
his thoughts on the National team now and his
exploits in the Three Lions shirt!
MEMORIES OF ENGLAND CALL UP & DEBUT?
At the end of my first season at SJP all had gone fairly
successfully, I had scored a lot of goals, only outscored
by Franny Lee, of Man. City, who had 17 penalties
added into his season’s total.
I was fully expecting an International call-up
from Alf Ramsay, the England manager, but for the U23
England side. I was 22 at the time and had quite a front
running partnership going with Mick Channon over the
previous 18 months in the Intermediate level.
I queried why I had to travel to
Cardiff to report for duty as the U23’s
were going elsewhere in Europe. “This
isn’t the U23s you are joining, it is the
Full Squad”, I was informed.
“Blimey”, I said. I’m afraid to
say I said something a lot stronger
when on the Friday, the day before the
Home Internationals kicked off with
Scotland v Northern Ireland to the
north and England facing Wales at
Ninian Park, when Alf told me I would
be playing and partnering Rodney
Marsh, with Mick Summerbee on the
wing.
I had watched the skills and talents
of the mercurial Rodney Marsh from the
terraces of Craven Cottage as a teenager and was
now to partner him, amazing! We won 4-0 and I teed up
Rodney for his goal.
YOU SCORED 5 GOALS FOR ENGLAND V
CYPRUS IN 1975 A RECORD THAT STILL STANDS
TODAY? HOW PROUD ARE YOU OF THAT AND
DID YOU THINK IT WOULD LAST SO LONG AT
THE TIME?
The Cyprus game will always be a very special memory,
and I have the feeling the goal tally will stand as a
Wembley record for a long time to come, though I don’t
wish to tempt fate.
It was a very special night, but from a
footballing point of view the game I will hold just as
dear was the previous England game, played at
Wembley, and against the West Germany side playing
their first match since winning the 1974 World Cup
Final.
Franz Beckenbauer led his men out in their change strip
of green and got thoroughly outplayed by a superb
England performance. Colin Bell scored the first
midway through the first half and we took the game
over from there. I scored with 15 minutes to go to make
it 2-0, from a superb Alan Ball right wing cross to the
far post.
A few of our lads invited the Germans to join us
at a London night-spot where we all talked football until
the small hours. Sitting there with Bobby Moore and
Franz Beckenbauer, Sepp Maier and Alan Ball et al., all
chatting about the magical game of football is one night
I shall never forget.
DID YOU PLAY MANY GAMES
OVER IN THE OLD SOVIET
COUNTRIES AND IF SO WHAT
WAS THE LASTING MEMORIES
OF THESE PLACES?
19
My time with England seemed to be
nothing but summer trips behind the
Iron Curtain. In 4 summers I went to,
and played in, East Germany (twice),
Russia, Yugoslavia (3 times), Poland,
Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia (twice).
In the Seventies the other side of the
Iron Curtain was a time of austerity, fear,
poverty but some brilliant football and
footballers. Make no mistake; their skills are
worked from tiny tots up. “If you have a talent use
it to the full, it is your only passport out of hell”. That
was the work ethic described to me by one of the
Yugoslavian team, thus they work at it relentlessly. We
haven’t been doing that in this country for a long time
now.
YOUR VIEWS ON CURRENT ENGLAND SET UP?
I have felt for a few years now that England seems to
do their utmost to beat themselves. Roy Hodgson
isn’t exactly spoilt for choice from the English
contingent in the Premiership, and at that level you
cannot, nay, must not make a solitary mistake, and
because of that too many England players are nervous
on the pitch, rather than having that supreme belief in
themselves whereby a mistake is simply out of the
question.
Words: Malcolm MacDonald
Photo: Singe Vert Photography