A new book celebrating the 100th anniversary of Spurs and Northern Ireland legend Danny Blanchflower’s birth is reviewed by Eric Brown…
BY ERIC BROWN
Several times in the early 1960s, I made a pilgrimage to see one of the finest footballers the UK has ever produced.
Skipping out of school early, I took a train five stops to Charlton, where I hopped off and walked downhill to the gigantic Valley ground.
There I’d pay three pence at the turnstiles, hoping that Danny Blanchflower might be in the Tottenham Hotspur reserve team facing Charlton for a Football Combination League game.
These matches were staged on Wednesday afternoons and regularly drew in 8,000 to 12,000 spectators when Spurs visited. Not many for a 75,000-capacity stadium, but a decent crowd for reserve football.
On each occasion, I’d eagerly search the single-sheet programme for mention of Blanchflower among the Spurs names. Just let him be recovering from injury, l whispered to myself.
I saw Tony Marchi, Mel Hopkins, Tommy Harmer, John Hollowbread, Terry Dyson, Terry Medwin and other members of Spurs’ 1961 League and FA Cup double-winning squad, plus a youthful Frank Saul.
But not Blanchflower. I had to be content with watching him in televised Cup Finals and internationals before later encountering him as a manager and press box colleague.
Blanchflower, twice elected the Football Writers’ Association’s Footballer of the Year, was surely one of the most influential British footballers, along with England’s Bobbys, Moore and Charlton, and Welshman John Charles.
Written to celebrate 100 years since Danny’s birth, a new authorised biography provides insight into his glory years on the pitch and later life as a journalist and club manager.
Author Mike Donovan, formerly of Today newspaper, has delved into Danny’s careers assisted by son Richard and other Blanchflower family members.
The result is an intriguing narrative of a football leader, rebel and pioneer who shaped football’s development from the stereotyped 3-2-5 formation towards the game we witness today.
Belfast Telegraph writer Malcolm Brodie, who covered all of Blanchflower’s 56 Northern Ireland international appearances, summed him up most accurately when he said: “Danny was perhaps 20 or 30 years ahead of his time and perhaps the finest captain the British game has known.”
Blanchflower came from a curious family that seemed to change names as often as their shirts.
Robert Dennis Blanchflower was born in Belfast on February 10, 1926. Named in honour of grandparents, he soon became known as Danny.
Brother John, who joined Manchester United and survived the 1958 Munich air crash, was always known as Jackie. His sister June was known as Agnes, while younger brother William Henry was frequently called Harry. Blanchflower’s father often called him Robbie or Bob.
Danny’s glittering football career may never have been launched. First, he survived a serious scare when falling downstairs as a toddler, and second, he almost left Britain while still a child.
Father John, a shipyard worker, sold the family house and planned emigration to the USA when Danny was two years old. But a paperwork problem led to the US immigration department refusing the application, and Danny was left to pursue a soccer career rather than playing baseball or even American football.
Eventually, apprentice electrician Danny joined Belfast-based Glentoran, before moving to England, where he progressed up the ladder from Barnsley to Aston Villa and then Spurs.
There, he became a British football legend by leading Spurs to the 1961 League and FA Cup double, another FA Cup in 1962, the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1962/63, and he captained Northern Ireland to the 1958 World Cup quarter-finals before later becoming manager. They are the bald facts of Blanchflower’s football career.
But Donovan describes how the intelligent Blanchflower influenced training and tactics during his playing career, insisting players use a ball to train with instead of running endless laps around pitches and unhesitatingly switching team tactics during matches.
Unsurprisingly, this brought him into conflict with managers. He was never afraid of confrontation. Yet even Bill Nicholson, Spurs’ legendary double-winning manager, allowed Blanchflower the privilege of giving dressing-room team talks and rarely complained if his captain overrode his tactical instructions during matches.
Blanchflower, the tactician and playmaker, formed a dream wing-half partnership with tough-tackling Dave Mackay, which formed the basis of Spurs 1960s trophy glories. Dave demolished and destroyed, Danny dominated and dictated.
Brutally honest punditry, and a ‘This Is Your Life’ snub
With his knowledge, skills, insight, tactical know-how, and communications ability, he should have been a shoo-in for club management, but when Bill Nicholson retired, Spurs directors unaccountably preferred Terry Neil. Perhaps one or two were wary of Blanchflower’s sharp tongue and forthright views.
Teetotal Danny wasn’t really one of the lads, preferring to slope off and read a book after games rather than join teammates in a bar.
Erudite and widely read, Blanchflower utilised his intellect to write a book on how to play football and then self-penned an autobiography while still at Spurs.
One of his first acts at White Hart Lane was to start penning a column for the London Evening News. He wrote for the Sunday Express from 1964 to 1988, contributing stories and match reports as well as a regular column. A belated chance at club management with Chelsea ended in failure after a few months, when no doubt those Spurs directors permitted themselves wry smiles.
I recall leaving a Blanchflower post-match press conference with a notebook full of quotes containing little real substance. Danny never used half a dozen words when 25 would do.
This wordage overflow may have cost him a television career. An experiment with match commentaries on the developing game in America soon backfired. After 20 tedious minutes of one game, honest Danny commented: “Neither of these sides can play.”
An apoplectic producer shouted into his earpiece, “No, no, no. We’ve got to be positive.” Quick as a flash, Danny responded: “I’m POSITIVE neither of these sides can play.”
After retirement, television seemed a natural outlet for Danny, and he took the reins of Granada Television’s Junior Criss Cross Quiz.
An eloquent and entertaining guest on many chat shows, he seemed the perfect choice to host his own. Yet his tendency to ramble, failure to adhere to a schedule and the possibility of rebellious outbursts blocked his path.
It might have seemed an odd appointment anyway after Blanchflower catapulted himself onto newspaper front pages and TV history by becoming the first to reject the BBC’s hugely popular “This is Your Life” programme in February 1961.
Confronted “live” by host Eamonn Andrews, wielding his red book, Blanchflower turned and fled, leaving a studio full of family members, playing colleagues and TV staff twiddling their thumbs.
This episode underlined Blanchflower’s oddly inconsistent character. He happily occupied the limelight when it came to giving football speeches, appearing in films, on the radio or on television, or just driving his Mercedes with a personalised number plate. Yet he also valued his privacy.
Julie Welch, the first female regular in football press boxes, regarded Danny as a capitalist but also a bolshy left-winger. “He was a man of contradictions,” she says. She suggests in the book that she may be the only person in existence who remembers Danny as a colleague. Sorry Jules, I remember both you and Danny.
Donovan has drilled deep into archives and tracked down family members and former teammates to interview in his quest to provide the clearest picture of Danny Blanchflower.
There’s a superb statistical career run-down and a chapter devoted to Blanchflower’s most memorable quotes. Spurs and Northern Ireland fans will drool over it.
Reading this excellent book will allow a whole new generation to share Danny’s life and, at the end of it, feel they have come to know him.
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