‘You have tuberculosis. We will have to remove one lung’
– doctor at the London Hospital giving Malcolm Allison
the news that ended his playing career
For all the talk of revolution, West Ham’s performances during the Malcolm Allison–Ted Fenton era were more indicative of a slow-burning evolution. For several years after Fenton’s promotion to manager in 1950, mid-table finishes in the Second Division and early exits in the FA Cup were what Hammers fans came to expect.
The biggest problem was money. While Fenton could identify and doggedly pursue a bargain, he was rarely given the opportunity to be lavish in the transfer market. The purchase of Allison had been financed by the sale a year earlier of winger Eric Parsons to Chelsea for £22,500. Before the opening game of the 1953–54 season, club chairman Reg Pratt noted, ‘The buying of high-priced stars is a privilege confined to a few of the present day clubs. Frankly we are not a rich club and our future commitments mean we must budget accordingly.’
Pratt was forced to go into print again in 1956 to explain that the transfer of another popular winger, Harry Hooper, to Wolves for £25,000, had allowed the club to meet a £17,000 bill for building work on a new entrance at Upton Park. ‘The directors of this club have for a long time had to face some very hard and disagreeable facts,’ he commented. ‘We have never been well off. In fact, we have had an uphill struggle all the way.’
Hooper recalled, ‘I explained to Ted Fenton that I didn’t want to go, but he said there was nothing he could do – the club needed the money because the school in Castle Street wanted back their land, which was then serving as the main entrance to the ground on Green Street.’
Allison’s debut for West Ham had been in March 1951 in a victory over Chesterfield. The first of his 10 goals for the club came in a 3–2 home win over Nottingham Forest in October 1952 – a game he finished with concussion and about which he could remember very little. His contribution as a player, although solid, could not compare to his impact around the training ground. Recognising his limitations, Allison strove to improve himself through sheer bloody hard work. Goalkeeper Ernie Gregory says, ‘I remember a time when he knocked himself out in training in the week, pushed himself so hard that when we played in the mud at Southampton he collapsed with exhaustion. There were times when I looked at Malcolm and he’d done so much hard work in the week that he was white in the face.’
Frank O’Farrell adds, ‘Malcolm enjoyed a good social life but it never affected his football. He always trained very hard. Probably, because he did not have a very high degree of skill, he worked at his game.’ And John Bond recalls, ‘He could have a night out and come in and train as if he had been in bed all night. There were no excuses.’
On the occasions when a bus would pick up the players to transport them to Chadwell Heath for the starting point of their cross-country run, Allison and a couple of willing companions would get the bus driver to drop them off a mile short of their destination. ‘Those buggers would still catch us up,’ says Eddie Lewis.
John Cartwright, then a youth-team player, recalls Allison’s work ethic setting an example to the club’s junior players. ‘I was in the first team dressing-room towards the end of the season; the groundsman had said we could train on the pitch. We worked out there all morning, went back in and showered and all of a sudden Malcolm walked into the dressing-room. In those days the kit was a bit baggy and ragged, but Malcolm opened the door wearing a skin-tight T-shirt, very short and tight athletics shorts, a pair of white ankle socks and his football boots. Underneath his arm he had what was, at the time, one of the new white footballs. He walked through the door and he didn’t really look at us. He just said, “I am going out on the pitch and I am going to practise because I want to be a great player.” He turned round and walked out the door. We all looked at each other and even though we had all just got out the shower, we put our dirty kit back on and went out and joined him for the rest of the afternoon. That was the sort of guy he was – very inspirational.’
Terry McDonald adds, ‘Our job on the ground staff was to clean the terraces and the stands. While we were doing that in the afternoons, Malcolm would be back with three or four players and they would practise for two hours. He was so intense about the game. Some people might think that his social life overtook him, but his dedication to football was total.’
One of Allison’s favoured drills was to hang up a football and practise headers. Jimmy Andrews recalled that he would ‘start foaming from the mouth from the effort he gave out’, adding, ‘He’d overdo it – you could see it in his face. He lived in another world. He meant to be a great player but he could never be that. But one of the major things in football is that if you think you can do something, you can get further than you would otherwise. He had incredible determination and when he made his mind up about something he’d keep working at it.’
Lack of pace was Allison’s biggest handicap, as O’Farrell explains. ‘He was tall, a good tackler and was always good in the air. But he was not quick on the recovery.’ Dave Sexton, meanwhile, describes him as ‘a very impressive figure’ and says, ‘He wasn’t the sort of centre-half you saw in those days. He was more athletic and took over things with his strong personality.’ And Bond ventures, ‘Malcolm was a useful player, but thought he was better than he was. He was big, with strong legs and a good body, and was as fit as a butcher’s dog.’
Allison acknowledged the weakness that prevented him reaching greater heights as a player. ‘If I had been quicker I’d have probably got a cap,’ he suggested. ‘I was a good positional player and I was strong, but I was always more interested in coaching.’
Eddie Lewis agrees with Allison’s assessment. ‘He had good ability and good vision. If he’d had pace I think he would have played for England. He had a big chip on his shoulder about Derek Ufton at Charlton.’ Ufton had been capped by England but Lewis argues that ‘Malcolm was a better player’.
Allison was known to take out his frustration on teammates. The late George Fenn said, ‘I remember Malcolm doing Harry Hooper in a training match – he envied Harry’s talent. So when Andy Malcolm, who was Harry’s best mate at the club, saw what happened, he came running over, got hold of Allison and warned him never to go near Harry again.’
The 1955–56 season began with the Hammers fancied by many to challenge for promotion. But they saved their best performances for the FA Cup, knocking out First Division teams Preston, Cardiff and Blackburn to set up Allison’s biggest game in a West Ham shirt, a quarter-final tie against Tottenham. It was an occasion that illustrated the insecurities that Allison, for all his growing confidence in his knowledge of the game, still felt as a player.
Entering the field and looking around at the packed White Hart Lane stands, Allison’s composure and feeling of keen anticipation gave way to panic. For a moment he was the scared kid at Charlton fretting about having to face Cliff Bastin. ‘I felt the strength drain away from me,’ he said. ‘It took great effort to put one foot in front of the other. My legs felt rubbery. I wondered if I was going to faint.’ It took the referee summoning him, as captain, to go to the centre-circle to restore control. The simple procedure of the coin toss appeared to refocus a relieved Allison.
Leading 3–2 at half-time, Allison took command of the half-time dressing-room, instructing full-back John Bond to stick close to Spurs winger George Robb instead of joining the attack. Noel Cantwell explained, ‘Bondy had gone up, got offside and went missing. They came down and got one back and Malcolm slaughtered him.’
Allison barked at Bond, ‘Make it simple, keep tight on Robb and just play early balls up to the front players.’ Yet when Bond tried to carry the ball forward, Robb was free to break down the wing. With the defence stretched, Allison attempted to cover for the full-back and when Cantwell collided with Spurs striker Bobby Smith it left Len Duquemin as a spare man to score the equaliser. ‘He knows I’ll never forgive him,’ Allison wrote of Bond’s faux pas two decades later. A 2–1 defeat in the replay cost West Ham a place in the semi-finals and the promise of a four-day jolly to Brighton.
By 1957–58, West Ham were at last poised to claim their place in the First Division. Malcolm Musgrove explained, ‘With Allison’s coaching, the players we had, and what we had learned in Cassettari’s, you felt we were ready.’
A penalty by Allison rescued a disappointing opening-day point at home to Lincoln, setting the tone for a slow start to the season in which 12 points were gained in the first 12 games. It was the signing of goalscorer Vic Keeble for £10,000 from Newcastle that sparked a run up the table and set the Hammers on course for the Second Division title. They clinched the championship with a 3–1 win at Middlesbrough, after which thousands of fans waited to greet them at King’s Cross station, carrying Cantwell around on their shoulders. It should have been Allison’s moment, yet by that time his career lay in tatters.
Bond explains, ‘There had been little signs that something was wrong. We went on a cross-country run and Malcolm finished second, but he was foaming at the mouth and could hardly breathe.’ A week later, in mid-September, Allison struggled during a 2–1 defeat at Sheffield United. He simply couldn’t keep up with the pace of the game. Opponents were beating him and leaving him in their wake. He put both incidents down to a recent bout of Asian flu and tiptoed his way through the game.
Allison sat in the Bramall Lane dressing-room, his body racked by coughing, and found himself walking around Sheffield ‘in a daze’ later that evening. Having settled down for the night in his hotel room, his constant coughing kept roommate Cantwell awake, prompting the Irishman to report Allison’s deteriorating condition to Fenton the next morning. ‘I had long suspected that all was not well with him without being aware how serious it was,’ Fenton said. ‘For one thing, he showed signs of tiring, a weakness unknown when I first bought him.’
Allison endured a trying return journey on the train, spluttering and bringing up phlegm. On arrival in London, he was sent – despite his protestations – to the London Hospital for chest X-rays. The following day, he was summoned to Fenton’s office to hear the specialist announce results that were way beyond the worst he could have feared. ‘Mr Allison, I think you have to forget about playing football,’ he was told. ‘You have tuberculosis. We will have to remove one lung.’ Allison’s reaction was disbelief. ‘I simply didn’t accept what he was saying.’
Teammates saw Allison emerge from his meeting in tears. A young Bobby Moore, visiting the ground to pick up his ground-staff wages, spotted Allison crying alone at the back of the stand until his great friend, Cantwell, placed a consoling arm around him. Malcolm Musgrove said, ‘It was the first time I saw a grown man cry, really cry.’
The extent of Allison’s problem was not immediately made public. More than a week later, the Ilford Recorder, having conjectured that his absence from the club meant an impending transfer, was now noting that Allison was at the London Hospital ‘under observation’ after a recent bout of flu. The fact that one-sixth of the Ilford school population was at home suffering from Asian flu helped to disguise the real truth.
Allison was, in fact, at the aforementioned hospital for surgery. Eddie Lewis was among the post-operation visitors. ‘I almost fainted when I saw him; he had so many tubes coming out of him. I heard that he’d chosen to have an operation where there was a higher percentage chance of him being able to play again, but also a higher chance of dying. I admired him greatly for his courage.’
His lung taken away, Allison began a nine-month rehabilitation at the King Edward VII Sanatorium in Midhurst, West Sussex. Teammates, in particular Cantwell and Bond, made regular trips to see their friend and Bond recalls ‘having a laugh in his room’. But the high spirits with which Malcolm greeted his colleagues were merely a disguise for his deep depression.
Built in 1907 specifically to house tuberculosis sufferers, Allison’s temporary home retained a gloomily early-century feel, despite its palatial architecture and wooded hillside location. The tall chimney from the incinerator block and the midday hooter that sounded lunch added an air of the workhouse and Malcolm struggled to share the enjoyment his fellow patients derived from their daily walks and light gardening chores. Instead, he felt himself becoming increasingly remote from his West Ham colleagues and their achievements. He endured ‘long and very lonely nights’ and was even driven to visit the facility’s chapel – an indication of despair rather than of religious devotion. He asked God what he had done to deserve such a fate, an act he admitted was without regard to the positives in his life. No one, he felt, could understand what it meant for a professional athlete to have lost a lung. Inevitably, there came a time when Allison sought escape, sneaking out to the local pub, where he sipped his drink anxiously with one eye on the door for fear of being caught breaking sanatorium rules.
The moment that hauled Allison back from the precipice of desperation was the simple act of being given the job of distributing the daily newspapers. Forced into regular contact with fellow patients for the first time, his eyes were opened to the problems of others. Their willingness to share their troubles helped him put his own issues into perspective. He was jolted further out of his own misery by the death of a patient only days after he had spent time chatting with him.
As his crisis passed, Allison looked at himself, this time with more objectivity and less self-pity. ‘I saw a lot of impatience, arrogance, and perhaps a touch of ruthlessness. I felt some regret for the impatience and anger I had shown to older men.’ Allison was not about to shed those personality traits, but he did resolve to quit feeling sorry for himself and prepare for a return to football as a player. As Cantwell drove him away from Midhurst, Allison travelled with a new determination, even though it was tempered by the fear of what lay ahead if he failed in his mission.
He derived additional motivation from what he felt was West Ham’s insensitivity towards him in their moment of Second Division triumph. ‘When I should have been collecting my first medal in football, I was inhabiting a vast, grey void,’ he said. He attended the club’s celebration banquet at the Café Royal, but walked out in disgust when he learned that he was not to receive a medal – even though he had played as many games as some of those being rewarded. No one had done more than Allison over the previous few years to propel the club towards their success, yet no recognition was forthcoming. That cut him as deeply as the fears over his footballing future.
It was impossible for Allison to avoid the feeling that he was being punished by the club’s management for the confrontations he had instigated over the years. He had fought annual battles over his wages and had even come within minutes of leading the team out on strike before a game against Nottingham Forest. That incident had stemmed from his mistrust of Fenton, who, he once said, ‘would cheat you out of anything’. After a game against an England amateur team, which attracted a crowd of 22,000 to Upton Park, the Hammers players were given £5 each – which the club said comprised a basic £3, plus a £2 win bonus. Allison knew, however, that the FA paid a £5 basic per player for such games. As he and his colleagues got changed for their next match, Allison instructed them, ‘Don’t get stripped, don’t get changed. We’re not playing unless we get that two quid, the twenty-six quid [Fenton] owes us.’
Fenton had not yet appeared in the dressing-room, and trainer Billy Moore sent the urgent message, ‘You’d better come down, they’re not getting stripped.’
Allison greeted Fenton with, ‘You done us out of twenty-six quid.’ Fenton scurried off to get the money and the game went ahead.
Another time, Allison ignored a director’s praise in the changing-room after a victory at Huddersfield and received the kind of reminder about manners that one might give to a surly teenager. And he upset chairman Reg Pratt when Cliff Lloyd, preparing the ground for the Professional Footballers’ Association’s battle against the £20 maximum wage, asked players to detail any illegal payments they had received. PFA secretary Lloyd’s argument was that the system – as well as being restrictive on the players – was being abused by the clubs. Pratt summoned Allison and told him that he assumed the players would not be participating. Allison took great delight in informing Pratt to the contrary.
Such battles, he wrote, would help him in his later career, having taught him how to argue a coherent case. ‘I had lost any reticence about disputing points,’ he said. Allison also explained that he fought club officials ‘only when I felt they had treated the players with a particular lack of respect’. In the end, however, their snub to Allison showed that they had found a way to exact some form of revenge.
There was to be one further dispute as West Ham prepared for their first season back in football’s top flight and Allison fought to prove that there was room in the team for a one-lunged player. At the start of 1958–59 season, he was offered £17 per week. Allison countered by demanding the maximum of £20 if he gained a first-team place, backdated to the start of the season. The board, wanting evidence of his fitness, suggested £20 a week once he had played ten games in the first team and told Allison that if he refused those terms he would be given a free transfer. The message was clear: the club would rather release him than allow him to dictate to them. One week later, however, a compromise was reached when they agreed that if Allison reached the ten-game mark his £20 would be backdated to 1 August. He felt he had won a point of principle, not an inconsiderable feat in the dark days where the clubs held all the contractual aces and players were treated as little more than serfs. Now he could concentrate on winning back his place in the side.
While West Ham were making an encouraging start to their First Division campaign, Allison was toiling in the reserves, desperate to prove himself up to the rigours of the sport. By the second week in September, after three wins in their first five games, West Ham were facing an injury crisis, with three half-backs – Bill Lansdowne, Andy Nelson and, finally, Malcolm Pyke – ruled out of a Monday night home game against Manchester United. Ted Fenton was left facing a straightforward choice at left-half between the convalescing Allison and 17-year-old Bobby Moore, once described by Malcolm Musgrove as ‘Malcolm’s pet player’.
It is ironic that it turned out to be one of the youngsters Allison had helped nurture who threatened his ambition of a First Division return. His sessions with the club’s junior players had quickly given him confidence in his ability for talent-spotting. He enthused to Ted Fenton about Moore, even though his natural talent fell short of that of striker George Fenn, who had once scored nine goals in a game for England Schoolboys. While Allison reported that Fenn wasn’t committed enough, his verdict on Moore was, ‘Everything about his approach was right. He was ready to listen. You could see that already he was seeking perfection.’
Moore would tell his friend and biographer Jeff Powell of the debt he owed Allison for teaching him the self-assuredness that became his hallmark. Allison’s mantra was, ‘Be in control of yourself. Take control of everything around you. Look big. Think big. Be big.’ And when Allison told Moore to copy the great Alfredo Di Stefano and think about the next pass before receiving the ball, it was a revelation that Moore likened to ‘suddenly looking into the sunshine’.
Powell recalls, ‘Malcolm had a big effect on Bobby in terms of understanding the game, reading the play, being aware of what is going on around you, looking up and anticipating, knowing where the ball is going before you get it. He influenced all of those things that Bobby became renowned for.’ Moore was unashamed in recalling his admiration for Allison. ‘He took a liking to me when I don’t think anyone else at West Ham saw anything special in me. Just for that I would have done anything for him. Every house needs a foundation and Malcolm gave me mine. He was the be-all and end-all for me. It’s not too strong to say I loved him.’
The future England captain was not alone in his appreciation of Allison, whose impact on the youngsters at the club was as significant as the changes he instigated in and around the senior team. Cartwright remembers the education he received from Allison extending beyond the training ground. ‘A few of us, including Bobby, used to go out at night with Malcolm. He introduced us to the West End, where I had never been before. There was nothing riotous about it, we just enjoyed his company and he was showing us that there was another part of the world. But he was saying to us, “There are things that can actually stop you from being top-class players if you let them get on top of you.” He was trying to show us, “Beware. This is what is available to you, but if you are not careful it can bring you down.” Yet at the same time he was enjoying that kind of life himself.’
Back on the training ground, winger Terry McDonald recalls the conflict between Allison and youth-team boss Bill Robinson, a former Charlton teammate, whose methods included little that could be described as coaching. ‘It was so boring – all running, running, running, Malcolm made the game more interesting and you wanted to play. Bill could never laugh or joke about anything, which Malcolm could do with ease. He got you working but you were still relaxed. Malcolm knew your assets and tried to build on them. With me, it was a lot of speed training. He would say, “Your job is to get past your full-back, get your crosses in. Change the game, switch positions, dribble with both feet. If you are playing against a one-footed left-back, drop your shoulder and come inside on his right foot. He’ll fall over. Most of all you have got to stay in the game. You can’t just stand there at outside-right or outside-left and expect people to give you the ball.”
‘You had to think about the game with Malcolm. I remember him saying, “It should become clockwork football.” He felt everybody should be able to play in two or three positions comfortably. You weren’t just a centre-half or centre-forward. He used to change the team around during the game. His ideas were so far advanced.’
Fenn, a member of the West Ham team that lost over two legs in the FA Youth Cup final of 1957, never fulfilled the great promise of his teenage years but his admiration of Allison was so strong that he named his daughter after him. Speaking to Ex magazine, he said, ‘Malcolm completely changed training for us younger lads. He showed us how to sprint properly, which was unheard of in those days. His ideas and knowledge were 10 years ahead of anybody else’s. The stylish football West Ham became famous for was all started by Malcolm – he loved the game so much. I think he loved football more than life itself. We went on a tour of Belgium and Germany and when we got back, Ted Fenton said which boys he thought would make it and those he thought wouldn’t. He told Bobby Moore he had no chance; that he wasn’t up to it. He said the same to Harry Cripps, who was in tears. But I think Bill Robinson didn’t recognise talent, he didn’t seem to have a clue and ruined too many young boys, which is why Allison took over the club coaching. In fact, Allison took over the club. Malcolm kept Bobby Moore at the club. He believed in him more than anybody else at that time.’
McDonald adds, ‘If Moore had been in our year he might not have gone through – they might have ousted him. But Malcolm saw the potential in him.’
Moore himself recalled the early days of the 1958–59 season before his first-team debut. ‘It’s not like Malcolm to give up. By the start of the ’58 season we were battling away together in the reserves, Malcolm proving he could still play, me proving I might be able to play one day.’ Moore was torn emotionally by the fact that selection for the United game came down to a straight choice between the two men. ‘I’d been a professional for two and a half months and Malcolm had taught me everything I knew. For all the money in the world I want to play. For all the money in the world I want Malcolm to play because he’s worked like a bastard for this one game in the First Division. It would have meant the world to him.’
Ted Fenton was no less anguished, turning for advice to Noel Cantwell, who recalled that ‘there was no question in Malcolm’s mind that he was going to play again’. Cantwell thought for a while before telling Fenton, ‘I’d pick Bobby.’ He explained, ‘Malcolm was bitterly disappointed when the sheet went up and I didn’t like myself for doing it, but we won 3–2. How he got to know I don’t know, but he came in the bath at the end and slaughtered me. That upset both of us for a while and Malcolm never played for the first team again, but he eventually realised I did it in the interests of the team and we stayed friends.’
On hearing that he was to play, Moore had walked into the dressing-room – and straight into Allison. While Moore fought the urge to hand his shirt to his mentor, Allison said, ‘Well done, I hope you do well.’
Jeff Powell continues, ‘The two had become very close. Malcolm was always very emotional behind that front and often cried a bit. He filled up and Bobby said to him, “Don’t worry, you’ll be back,” knowing that he probably wouldn’t be.’
Almost two decades after that night, Powell wrote:
Through solitary hours spent counting shadows on bedroom ceilings, Moore still nurses the guilt that his own precocious arrival on the central stage of English soccer denied Allison the fulfilment of his own playing career. In the moment of Moore’s accession to the number six shirt, Allison lost his forlorn chance of playing just once in the First Division for West Ham United. Allison, the man who taught Moore all he knew. Allison, his idol. Allison, friend . . . The immaculate Bobby Moore was conceived out of Allison’s most grievous disappointment.
Powell adds, ‘Malcolm felt a huge sadness at the effective end of his own career and great delight for Bobby, who he recognised as a great player at the beginning of his career. Malcolm did say later, “Well, if I was going to be replaced by anybody, I am glad it was by a guy who became the greatest defender in the world.”’
Allison spent the next few months wondering how things could have worked out if he had played against United. He believed that West Ham’s superiority on the night would have enabled him to ‘cruise through the game’, perhaps re-establishing himself in the side. Instead, he realised that there was nowhere left for him to go as a professional footballer. More than a month passed as he faced up to the inevitable. On 22 October, he dropped a letter onto Fenton’s desk.
With great regret I feel that I cannot regain the high standard of fitness to do justice to my status as a professional footballer and so the dreaded day has come when I feel I must hang up my boots. I would like to thank you for all the fine treatment I have received in my stay at West Ham and I hope that in the 300 games I have played for the first team I gave you something in return for the transfer fee and good treatment I received.
The club immediately announced that a benefit game would be staged in November and a crowd of 21,600 turned up to see a West Ham team beat an All-Star side 7–6. Jimmy Hill, Frank O’Farrell and Danny Blanchflower acted as match officials and Bobby Charlton, Brian Clough, Jimmy Scoular and Don Howe were among those who played in a match that earned Allison £3,000 – enough for him to buy the club house in Barkingside in which he lived. Despite having been pleasantly surprised at West Ham’s gesture, Allison could not avoid heading into the next phase of his life with the feeling that he had been short-changed by fate in general and the club in particular. He would write, ‘A terraced house in an unfashionable suburb had never been the sort of goal I had pursued in those nine years at West Ham. I had given everything I had to the club and I knew that I had done a lot to re-shape it, to prepare it for a new age of football.’
That Allison was not to continue to play an important role at West Ham was a surprise to some. John Cartwright recalls, ‘We all thought that when Malcolm had recovered from his TB he would come back into the club as coach. He was the instigator in changing the club’s footballing beliefs. The business about the West Ham Academy was basically Malcolm. We assumed that he would come back as a coach, but unfortunately the directors were opposed to that and he never returned.’
Eddie Lewis adds, ‘I don’t think the directors liked Malcolm. His social life tended to come into that, and he was too over the top with his passion for the game. He upset too many people.’
By the time Allison would be back in First Division football, in 1966, West Ham had won the FA Cup, conquered the Continent in the European Cup-Winners’ Cup and seen three of their own – Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters – lead England to triumph in the World Cup. Few doubt that such achievements would have been impossible without the drive and vision of Allison. According to Cartwright, ‘They should have a statue to Malcolm at West Ham. He laid the foundation for the success of the club by what he gave to other people.’