‘It was a great social life under Malcolm. But the football was crap’
– Former Palace striker Alan Whittle
Malcolm Allison escaped from the prospect of Second Division football by returning to South Africa for a second summer. In 1972 he had accepted the invitation of the Cape Town City club to organise six weeks of coaching clinics – an experience he found rewarding and, thanks to the natural beauty of the country and his hosts’ hospitality, highly enjoyable. It was different when he went back in 1973. This time he was exposed to what he described as the ‘harsh and terrible sadness’ of apartheid, the political system that had led to South Africa’s suspension by FIFA and attached controversy to any kind of visit by foreign sportsmen.
With the North American Soccer League not yet offering the summer opportunities it would in future seasons, several Football League stars took paid vacations in South Africa. As well as more coaching duties, Allison was invited to combine those players with some of his own choice and manage them in a series of ‘Test’ matches against local representative teams. Allison was able to call on Rodney Marsh, Frank McLintock, former England captain Johnny Haynes and several of his Palace players, including Don Rogers, for a series that he felt the local press blew up into grudge games. ‘I didn’t realise how much trouble and abuse I would be letting myself in for,’ he said.
The media jumped all over Allison’s usual habit of making sure his team enjoyed themselves between games and after one night out English football legend Sir Stanley Matthews, who had settled in South Africa, was quoted as saying he was ‘ashamed’ of the players. Allison claimed that what was described as an all-night session had been nothing more than a harmless evening of swimming and snooker at a local millionaire’s mansion. After a 3–2 defeat in Johannesburg, the media stated that the approach of the English team was an insult to South African sport. ‘The result was that the South Africans suddenly had some very angry and very talented players on their hands,’ said Allison.
One of the tourists’ critics was Allison’s former West Ham teammate Eddie Lewis, who had ended his playing career in South Africa and stayed to become a well-known television commentator. ‘When Malcolm’s team came out here, Marsh was walking out with the sleeves cut off his shirt and there appeared to be no discipline,’ he remembers. ‘They came out for a big jolly. And when I made some comments and was mentioned to Malcolm, he said, “Eddie Lewis? Who the fuck is he?”’
Comfortable wins in Durban and Cape Town followed and the final game saw a victorious return to Johannesburg, where the tourists won 3–1. Allison’s satisfaction at silencing the hysterical press with those wins over teams of white players was soon forgotten when he took his team to play the all-black Orlando Pirates. Rogers recalls, ‘There were just a hundred white people in the middle of the stand and everyone else around was black. It was a full house. Driving to the ground, you didn’t see a white face.’ Allison was shocked to see hundreds of police circling the stadium and then roughly searching the black fans as they approached the turnstiles. Later in the day, he was equally disappointed to find that the South African Football Association had refused to attend an official post-game reception, where the black players clearly relished their rare opportunity to rub shoulders with visiting dignitaries.
On the field, even though his team won, Allison was impressed by the carefree football of the opponents and charmed by their use of nicknames like ‘Card Shuffler’. Never one to turn his back on a potential gimmick, he decided to give his Palace players similar monikers. ‘He had them printed on the back of our tracksuits,’ says Rogers. ‘I was Trouble Maker.’
Allison also brought back an elevated opinion of Rogers, whom he had used in a more withdrawn role. ‘He even mentioned my name in the same breath as George Best. Malcolm was very good at making you feel as if you could play. He was lovely to play for because you could just go out and express yourself.’ Allison predicted Rogers would appear for England and saw him as a key component of a team for which he confidently predicted an immediate return to the First Division.
However, it was a season in English football where very little went according to the established order of things. Leeds United would fail to succumb to their usual First Division collapse, landing a second championship under the stewardship of Don Revie; Brian Clough would quit Derby, pitching up at Brighton and Hove Albion just in time to get spanked in the FA Cup by non-League Walton and Hersham; and England would be eliminated from the World Cup in the qualifying stages by an inspired piece of Polish goalkeeping at Wembley, a result that within a few months had cost Sir Alf Ramsey his job. Allison lost little sleep over Ramsey’s fate, while his only regret about Manchester United being relegated to the Second Division only six years after conquering Europe was that he wasn’t in the city to gloat.
Yet Allison would miss out on the opportunity to resume hostilities with Manchester’s ‘red cloud’ because Palace would themselves be leaving Division Two – in the wrong direction. The season, according to Rogers, was succinctly previewed in the very first game, a home defeat by Notts County. ‘We absolutely annihilated them, especially in the first half. We hit the bar about three times and the post twice and were only one up. They scored right on half-time because of a mistake and we ended up losing 4–1. And the year seemed to go like that. We were nowhere near the worst team, yet everything seemed to go wrong.’
Allison appeared confused about how to rectify Palace’s problems. Having urged the groundsman to widen the Selhurst Park pitch to encourage more wing play, he had it narrowed again. Alan Whittle explains, ‘He thought it would work for us because we had quality players at the side. But it just meant other teams could lump the ball into the corners and thrash us.’
It took until 11 September for Palace to pick up their first point when they eked out a goalless draw against Aston Villa. Other cosmetic changes had been made, with Allison switching the team’s colours to red and blue stripes. But Palace were no Barcelona. By October, having played ten games without winning, they were five points adrift at the foot of the table. Even Allison had to admit that his position should be reviewed if things had not improved by Christmas.
After a 1–0 defeat in a League Cup tie at Stockport, Allison accused his players of ‘cheating’. Director Dick Varey insisted, ‘We support and admire Mr Allison one hundred per cent. We admire his honesty. He has had a lot to deal with since he arrived here and he hasn’t flinched. We believe Mr Allison is trying to solve our problems in the right way. This is a time to keep our nerve and not to resort to panic stations.’
Allison’s justification of Palace’s problems was unconvincing, implying that the Second Division was below the true level of his team. ‘It’s a joke. Nobody can pass a ball. The quality is not as good as it should be. Long hopeful punts are not football; everyone is running around like a cavalry charge.’ Allison was still clinging stubbornly, perhaps misguidedly, to his beliefs in the way the game should be played. Pragmatism was anathema to him in football, as in life.
He also made the mistake of assuming his Palace players could be quickly taught to play the City way. He had forgotten that even City had been made into a tighter, meaner unit before he allowed them to become the personification of his romantic, attacking instincts. Rogers explains, ‘From the day I first met him to the very last day when I left, all he wanted was for people to play football all over the pitch. That was his philosophy. There was no kick and rush. In our situation, we probably went too much that way too early, instead of getting rid of it and playing in their half. The fact that Malcolm changed too much too quickly had a lot to do with our problems, but you couldn’t argue with it at the time because he’d had such success.’
Allison could see that his team needed major reconstruction and would talk later of the club set-up having been ‘diseased’ when he took over. Ideally, such an overhaul would be the kind of effortless regeneration achieved by a succession of Liverpool managers during the 1970s and 1980s. Allison, however, felt like a surgeon obliged to get to work on a patient struggling to survive on a life support machine.
He offloaded veteran goalkeeper John Jackson, who had lost his place to Paul Hammond in what was seen by some as a symbolic break from the past, along with a group of Bert Head signings including Iain Phillip, Charlie Cooke and Bobby Tambling. He went back to Maine Road to sign defender Derek Jeffries for £110,000 and midfielder Jeff Johnson, and added defenders Ron Barry from Coventry and Stewart Jump from Stoke. Home-grown youngsters like midfielder Nicky Chatterton, striker David Swindlehurst and the Hinshelwood brothers, Paul and Martin, were given opportunities and before Christmas an amazing total of 30 players had appeared in the team. That number included Allison’s most significant Selhurst Park signing, winger Peter Taylor, bought from Southend for £120,000 in early October.
Taylor, who spent 2006–07 as the next in the line of Allison successors as Palace manager, remains a staunch supporter of his former boss, having ‘loved him even before I met him’. He explains, ‘I had watched him doing games on TV with Brian Moore and he was always interesting and controversial. He said what he felt and didn’t hold back, so I was quietly nervous when I got the call to go and meet him. But from the first second he relaxed me and made me feel wanted. He said, “I have finally got you. I tried to sign you seven times in the past.” He asked me what money I was on and I told him it was £42.50 a week. He said, “I will give you £100 a week, plus £40 per point.” I thought I was a millionaire.
‘I had the time of my life at Palace. I just hope players enjoy training with me as much as I did with Malcolm. I was a little bit of a moaner if training wasn’t right, but it was always interesting and there was always thought in what we did – even down to having a pre-match meal of peaches and cornflakes instead of big fillet steaks.’
Taylor became the latest player to be administered a large dose of Allison’s positivity. ‘Every time I walked out of the office I felt I was the best player in England. He was willing to help anyone he knew was trying. I was delighted for him that things turned out well for me at Palace because I was in Southend’s reserves when he bought me, so for him to spend that money on me was a gamble. I was pleased that I had three excellent years at Palace.’
Allison would soon be raving about Taylor in public, saying, ‘He is being groomed to do everything Mike Summerbee can and did do. He is the nearest thing to Summerbee I have seen and he can shoot with either foot.’
Palace fans might not have cared much for Allison harking back to City, especially when the defeats kept coming. A loss at Nottingham Forest had taken Palace’s run to 15 League games without a win. It was then that chairman Ray Bloye chipped in with the dreaded, ‘I have complete faith in Malcolm Allison and the way he is doing it.’ Remarkably, he appeared to mean it.
Having at last achieved victory when a goal by Whittle beat Bristol City, Palace were still rock bottom when, at the end of the year, Allison prepared to defend himself before a meeting of the club’s shareholders. He also revealed that there was a clause in his contract that allowed the club to release him in March on the anniversary of his arrival. ‘I’m ready to go if that’s what the club wants,’ he said.
But as 1973 gave way to the New Year, Palace started winning. A run of five unbeaten games lifted them off the foot of the table and they went on to lose only two out of thirteen. Even with this being the first season of three-up, three-down in the top divisions, they looked as though they could secure safety. Meanwhile, Taylor was already attracting attention from most of London’s big clubs.
Then it all went wrong again. Inside a week, Palace lost at Millwall and at home to Fulham and Hull. Even after beating Swindon they went to Cardiff, managed by Frank O’Farrell, needing a win to have any chance of survival. A scrambled first-half goal by Jump gave them the lead, but a 1–1 draw sent Palace down again. ‘It should never have depended on tonight,’ said a dejected Allison. Rogers remembers, ‘Nobody at the club could believe it – a year earlier we had been one of the most entertaining sides in the First Division.’
Taylor admits. ‘I cried my eyes out after the Cardiff game. It was for Malcolm because he was doing his best as manager and I couldn’t believe that with his ability we had gone down. He was an out and out football man and we probably played too much football for the division we were in. Maybe now, with the new rules on bookings and sendings off, we would have been more dangerous because most teams didn’t let us play in the correct way. That might have been a slight excuse for us not doing so well. In this day and age we would have had more room.’
Whittle is a little more pointed in his belief that Allison has to take much of the blame. ‘It wasn’t Malcolm’s fault that we got relegated from Division One, but it was his fault we went down to the Third Division. He thought that he could get us back up purely on his charisma, but you have to be able to transfer that on to the park. Malcolm thought he was still at Manchester City – he didn’t evaluate the club he was coming to. I remember doing the same thing when I arrived from Everton. I thought that every club had the kind of set-up we had there but things at Palace were abysmal in comparison. Mal was a great coach but had no success as a manager. He needed someone to manage him and maybe Bert Head could have done that. But Mal went there to be the number one. He could have been our own worst enemy in the end because his personality meant that he was a big scalp for other teams in that division. We got raped by them all. Malcolm thought we could get through with pure skill, but he should have realised he needed a little more.’
There were more than a few smirks at Palace’s fate. Allison, despite having dropped a division, remained one of football’s most visible personalities, always a ready-quote for the media. In January, he’d made headlines by suggesting London clubs should play on Saturday and Sunday on a rotation basis1 and he continued to appear regularly on ITV football shows. It meant that he was there to be shot at, and some journalists were quick to take aim. An article written by John Anthony in Football Digest late in the season appeared under the heading, ‘Is Allison Just a Big Mouth?’ It pointed out Allison’s fall from his position as the one rival to Brian Clough in the public’s choice as next England manager. Noting that ‘the very people who a year ago would have ushered him into Ramsey’s seat now dismissed him as a raucous second-rater’, the article read:
Possibly the most instructive sound to emerge from our football grounds this season is the hum of satisfaction which runs through a crowd when it hears the latest score from Crystal Palace. As the news from that depressed area has grown worse, the general satisfaction has become more tangible.
Malcolm Allison has given more pleasure to more people with one season of failure than ever he did with all of those years of triumph. It is not a pleasant state of affairs, but given the national attitude towards extroverts, it is an inevitable one.
Ironically, it would not be Clough nor Allison, but Joe Mercer who was given the opportunity to lead England during their summer programme of matches before Don Revie’s appointment as full-time successor to Ramsey. In 1996, Allison would claim he had turned down the chance to work alongside Mercer with England, although he never mentioned it in his 1975 autobiography, at which time he was still saying that he never cared whether he ever spoke to Mercer again.
Allison as England coach does not seem such a crazy idea from a purely footballing standpoint, but in truth it had even less chance of happening than Clough’s appointment to the job. Both men had opened their mouths wide enough and often enough to get themselves into trouble. Allison had been a frequent critic of the FA’s coaching infrastructure and philosophy and had fallen out with Harold Thompson, who went on to become chairman of the Football Association, as long ago as his stint at Cambridge University. After his success with the Light Blues, Allison had been offered by Thompson the chance to coach Pegasus, the combined Oxford and Cambridge team. Blunt refusal followed, however, when Thompson indicated that he himself would handle team selection. ‘I told Thompson, in effect, to stuff Pegasus,’ Allison recalled.
Both Clough and Allison liked a drink, although the former’s weakness emerged only later in his career. But while Clough kept his boozing off the tabloid news pages, Allison was an unashamedly public carouser – hardly what the FA was looking for.
Another relegation severely tested Allison’s ability to look at life through the spectacles of an optimist and lose sight of his troubles through the glass of a champagne bottle. He claimed to take comfort in having modernised training methods and cut the Palace wage bill, but he took the first real failure of his career deeply to heart. He would describe himself being ‘crushed’ by defeats that ‘came like a succession of hammer blows’. He found himself pacing his Kensington flat in the early hours of the morning, making cups of tea as he anguished over ways to make Palace win. Rogers comments, ‘He must have found it very difficult, more than the rest of us, having had the success he’d had. We were just getting worse and worse as the season went on and he was frustrated, although he tried not to show it.’
When Allison attended the end-of-season Footballer Writers’ Association dinner, he hated the looks that were cast in his direction – varying from the pity of friends to the sneers of those who enjoyed his comeuppance. As his discomfort grew and the alcohol worked its way into his system, Allison needed his companions to hold him back from storming the top table to give an unscheduled lecture about the fine margins between great success and horrid failure. He had now experienced both. He later wrote about the contents of the speech he never made:
I would have said that there were a lot of compromisers and cowards in football and that often the system, which beneath a thin veneer of respectability is incredibly cynical and sometimes corrupt, most favoured those who were ready to be two-faced and even dishonest. I would have made it clear that I didn’t have too much respect for the criteria of success and failure in the game, or the majority of the men who occupied positions of most power.
It is as well those words remained unsaid. The football community doesn’t go in much for sermonising by someone who has been quick to revel in his own previous successes. In the cold light of day Allison at least had the grace to recognise that his speech might have sounded like ‘the self-justification of a condemned man’.
Palace’s performances in the latter half of 1973–74 had at least raised, once more, hopes of immediate promotion when the new season began. But despite playing reasonably well throughout they made only a few fleeting appearances in the top three and wound up fifth after winning only four of the final fourteen games. At one point Allison blamed his team’s diminishing returns on the state of the winter pitches, asking, ‘How can you expect an artist to work in these conditions?’
There were encouraging performances from the former youth-team players, notably Swindlehurst, who finished as the club’s top scorer, while Taylor was selected regularly for the England Under-23s. Stewart Jump is forgiving of Allison’s performance at Palace, saying, ‘Ultimately, it has to come down to the players – you have to bear responsibility for not getting results. We had some good talent and sometimes it didn’t gel.’
Some would argue that ensuring against any lack of cohesion was the coach’s job, but Jump highlights Allison’s continuing ability to improve players as the reason for the progress being made by the younger squad members and development in his own game. ‘His genius was in giving you confidence. He thought about the game more than any coach or manager I had worked with and he made you think about it; talking to you about the guy you were up against and pointing out what he could or couldn’t do.
‘Even though he had a bit of a reputation away from football, nobody second-guessed his soccer knowledge. I was definitely a better player for having been with him and I still remember the things he taught me when I coach kids now, trying to make them more aware and asking themselves why they are doing certain things and how they can get the opponents to do what they don’t want to do.’
There wasn’t quite the turnover of players in 1974–75 that there had been a year earlier but Allison still managed to use 28 of them during the season. One who had hoped to be in a Palace shirt was Bobby Moore, released by West Ham in March 1974 after winning the last of his 108 England caps earlier in the season. Having previously indicated his interest in Palace to Ray Bloye he was convinced Allison would attempt to sign him. ‘I believed Malcolm could give me the lift and the appreciation I needed to go on playing well, raise my game again. I wanted Malcolm to tell me where I went wrong and to pat me on the back when I did well. I wanted to play for Malcolm so much I decided in my mind that if Palace were a bit tight for money I would take £5,000 less on my contact to go there instead of any of the other clubs.’ Allison didn’t make a move and while he was attempting to steer Palace out of the Third Division, Moore was helping his new club, Second Division Fulham, to an FA Cup final appearance against his former team.
While Mel Blyth, the last stalwart of the Bert Head era, was sold to Southampton, the most significant transfer development of Palace’s season came when Don Rogers, marginalised by the impact of Taylor, moved to Queens Park Rangers. Travelling in the opposite direction were the 22-year-old Welsh central defender Ian Evans and the former Chelsea and Tottenham midfielder Terry Venables, who was then 31. Venables had remained good friends with Allison and had even asked for his advice on the football novel he had co-written. Allison, meanwhile, saw someone who shared his modern thinking, his technical vision – and someone with whom he could enjoy a good night out. Venables was almost gone within a week, however, when QPR chairman Jim Gregory sacked manager Gordon Jago and approached Venables about the job. Allison told Rangers it would cost them £10,000 and Gregory changed his mind.
Venables appeared in only 14 games in Palace’s midfield before Allison called him into a New Year’s Eve meeting that set in motion events that helped shape English football history. Allison was typically blunt. ‘You’re finished. You are not going to be able to give of your best on the field, particularly as you have lost a bit of pace, so you’re going to stop playing and work with me on the coaching side instead.’
Taken aback, Venables replied, ‘I wouldn’t take this from anybody else. I’m not even sure I am going to take it from you.’
‘Listen. You are finished,’ Allison continued. ‘Come on the coaching side and you’ll be more benefit to us than you will as a player. You’re going to be a good coach. Go away and think about it and then come back and start doing it in the morning.’
Venables marched grumpily out of the door, but then turned, knocked and went back into Allison, who looked up, resigned to an argument. ‘Happy New Year,’ said Venables, turning on his heels. The future England manager had been born.