Paddy Crerand - Paddy Crerand: Never Turn the Other Cheek

Id like to thank all of the following people who helped with this book. Firstly, Andy Mitten, who put my thoughts into words. We spent a lot of time together and had a laugh, although I think he learned some words he wont have heard inside a football ground.

All of the following people helped directly: Brian Kidd, Joyce Woolridge, Tony Smith, Tony Veys, Billy McNeill, Steve Bower, Vinny Scarvey, Ray Adler, my sister Bridie and my children Patrick, Danny, and Lorraine. My wife Noreen chipped in, too, usually over an argument in the kitchen.

Thanks to Paul Moreton, the agent who brought the project together and to everyone at HarperCollins including: Tom Whiting (editor), Michael Doggart (publisher), Jane Beaton (publicist), Dom Forbes (cover designer), Louise Connolly (picture researcher), and Chris Stone (reader).

There are many individuals who have shaped and influenced my life. In years gone by it was people like my brother, Charlie Duffy, Jock Stein, Mick Jackson, Paddy McGrath, Ruben Kaye and then Matt Busby and the lads. These days its my three children and my eight wonderful grandchildren. For the vast majority of my life Noreen has been there for me. I really dont know how youve put up with me for so long, but Im glad that you have.

Born: Glasgow, 19 February 1939

Married: Noreen Ferry, 24 June 1963

Children: Patrick, Lorraine and Danny

Education: St Lukes Ballater Street Primary School, Holyrood Secondary

Clubs

Duntocher Hibernian

July 1957August 1958

Celtic

August 1958February 1963

Celtic debut: v Queen of the South, 4 October 1958

Celtic career: 120 games, 5 goals

Transferred to Manchester United for 43,000 on 6 February 1963

Manchester United

February 1963July 1972

Manchester United debut: v Bolton Wanderers (friendly in Cork) 13 February 1963

Manchester United league debut: v Blackpool (h) 23 February 1963

Appearances for Manchester United

Four more appearances in the Football League Cup and five in other games

Total Manchester United appearances: 396, 15 goals

Became Youth Team coach: 26 August 1971

Retired as player: July 1972

Appointed Assistant Manager: 2 January 1973

Left position as Assistant Manager by mutual agreement: May 1976

Northampton Town manager: August 1976January 1977

Honours

European Cup winner: 1968

Football League Championship winner: 196465, 196667

FA Cup winner: 1963

Scottish Challenge Cup runners-up medal: 196061

Scottish international appearances

196061: v Republic of Ireland (twice), Czechoslovakia

196162: v Northern Ireland, Wales, England, Czechoslovakia (twice), Uruguay

196263: v Wales, Northern Ireland

196364: v Northern Ireland

196465: v England, Poland, Finland

196566: v Poland

My dad felt uneasy about going to work on the night of 12 March 1941. He wanted to be with my mum, who was about to give birth to their fourth child. He was also nervous because German bombs were being dropped around the shipbuilding yards on Glasgows River Clyde with increasing frequency, but my mother reassured him that he would be fine and off he went.

Dad Michael worked for John Browns Shipyard in Clydebank, one of the most famous shipbuilding yards in the world. In later years, the Queen Mary and the QE2 liners were constructed there with the Clyde-built seal of quality. Before the war, John Browns built many notable warships and liners like the Lusitania and HMS Hood.

Eighteen months into the Second World War, the focus of the yard was HMS Vanguard, which was to be the biggest-ever British battleship. Dad was not a skilled ship worker but a recently arrived Irish immigrant who had ambitions of opening a grocery shop in Glasgow. He was on fire-watch when the German bombers flew along the Clyde and made several direct hits on the shipyard.

Dad was killed instantly by a Luftwaffe bomb. Several other people lost their lives that night, most of them Irish immigrants who had come to Scotland to make a living. Michael Crerands name is etched into an obelisk that stands in Clydebank. Id like to see it one day.

The day after my fathers death, my sister Mary was born. Can you begin to imagine what my mother, Sarah, went through in those twenty-four hours? She never did speak about it. Mum became a widow with responsibility for four children, all of them under the age of four. My brother John was three and a half; I was two; and my sister Bridie was just a year old when my father was killed.

My parents were originally from County Donegal, in Irelands beautiful north west. At 19, mum left the small town of Gweedore to work as a maid at the Baird Arms Hotel in Newtonstewart, County Tyrone, following in the path of some of her eleven sisters. Mum worked for next to nothing, but that she didnt have to pay for food and accommodation meant she was in a better position than many of her friends. The hotel owner was originally from Kilmacrennan, County Donegal, and she had two sons, one of whom, Michael, became my father. Dad worked in the hotel, too, and thats where he met my mum.

Dad was 15 years older than mum and his mother did not approve of the relationship, partly because of the age difference and partly because my mother was a maid, which she considered to be a lowly profession. Mum and dad were in love though and, unable to face the hostility from my dads family, they eloped to Symington in Ayrshire, Scotland, where his brother John was a priest, the youngest in Scotland. My parents married at the beginning of 1937, but John couldnt conduct the service as he died from pneumonia in late 1936. When my grandmother heard of the marriage she hung a black bow on the door of her hotel, as was the custom in Northern Ireland when someone died.

My parents returned to Northern Ireland and opened a food shop in Plumbridge, County Tyrone. Poverty was rife and it was difficult to achieve a good standard of living if you were a Catholic because you were treated like a second-class citizen, no matter how hard you worked. The Catholics suffered extreme hardships under British rule. British imperialism meant Protestant landlords got the best land which they rented to Catholic tenants. This created deep religious animosity and the Catholics rightly felt persecuted. During the Famine of 184549, the British offered relief to the Catholics on the condition that they attend a Protestant church. It was no surprise that Irish nationalism gained momentum.

The British had no right to be imperialistic in Ireland, although the British media usually see it differently. They claim now, for instance, that everybody in Iraq who fights against the invading British or American forces is a terrorist. But what right do the British and Americans have to be in Iraq? If you invade someone elses country then you are wrong. I cringe at phrases like the sun never set in the British Empire. That meant nothing to the ordinary man in the street who was used as cannon fodder so that the rich could get richer. The British conquered and exploited countries all over the world for centuries. Catholics had a very difficult existence under British rule, but it was seldom easier for the working-class Protestants either. They just werent aware that the British were dividing and ruling. My family were deeply resentful of the British in Ireland.

My older brother John was born in Plumbridge, but the shop was not a success so he and my parents moved to Glasgow, with dad finding work digging the tunnels that were to form the Glasgow underground system. He always saw it as a temporary job and hoped to scrape enough money together to open another shop. It never happened.