Yampy Al
Teenage years in Small Heath were interesting and varied.
My friends and I were unnecessarily cruel to a much older lad who lived in our area, we used to call him “Yampy Al” and follow him around the streets chanting “Yampy Awhooool” rather like a sound of a wolf howling. I’ve no idea why we picked on him in this way, he’d done nothing to deserve it, and it shames me now to think about the way we behaved. He eventually joined the Military Police – I’ve noticed that people who’ve been bullied will often get a job that offers some kind of uniformed authority. Yampy took things to extremes, though; apparently one of the things Military Policeman like to do is have the peak of their caps pulled down tight over their eyes, so Yampy decided to bash his face against a wall, flattening his nose in order that he could get the peak really close. Go figure.
Football Star
Our next-door neighbours were the Dormans. The father, Billy Dorman had been a Spitfire pilot in the War. Billy’s brother was Don Dorman, a former footballer who was Head Scout for Birmingham City. Don was well-known for having brought the great Trevor Francis to the club. I used to plague Don, pestering him to give me a trial for the Blues, but he wisely resisted, eventually agreeing to come and watch me play, in order to see if I was as good as I thought I was!
Don duly came along to watch me play. I usually played at right back and in this particular game somehow managed to score a very rare goal. I went down the wing, cut inside the defender and swerved the ball around the goalkeeper with the outside of my right foot. I sometimes think I taught Roberto Carlos everything he knows! There was obviously absolutely no way on Earth that Don couldn’t offer me a trial now. He would be thrilled to have discovered the Next Trevor Francis and so strengthen his reputation even further.
He didn’t offer me a trial, instead giving me a frank and honest appraisal of my attributes:
“You’re a good passer of the ball and very strong in the tackle, however you’ve got no pace and without pace you’ll never make the grade at a high level. You shouldn’t really be playing at full back, any half-decent winger will skin you time after time, if I were you, I’d move to a defensive midfield position where your tackling and passing would be useful. There’s no point in you coming for a trial at Blues, but if you want, I can get you a trial with Bristol Rovers or Tranmere Rovers where you’d stand a chance of getting in”
I wasn’t interested in going to Bristol Rovers or Tranmere Rovers, so scrapped my dreams of playing professional football and opted instead to focus my future efforts on girls and music.
Don Dorman (right) with manager Stan Cullis and the Birmingham City Youth Team © Birmingham Evening Mail
Jack Charlton
In 1967, my friend Roger and I toddled along to Villa Park where Chelsea was playing Leeds in an FA Cup semi-final. We’d often go to the semis and try to find a way in without tickets. Outside the ground we met Leeds and England centre-half Jackie Charlton, who was on crutches. He’d broken a bone in his foot playing against Scotland a few weeks before. We asked for his autograph and walked alongside him for a while. He was a really friendly bloke, and I’ll always remember seeing his neck muscles tension when he bent down to sign autographs – his neck muscles were like most people’s arm muscles! Jack said that he had a spare ticket to sit with him in the directors’ box and, if either of us wanted to join him, we would be most welcome. Rog and I were reluctant to be separated, so refused the offer and some other little kid jumped in and nabbed the free ticket.
We wandered down Trinity Lane towards the Holte End and came across a group of Leeds fans with a scam going: In those days there used to be big exit gates alongside the Holte End, about 15 feet high. The Leeds fans were getting kids in by getting them in a sort of ‘leg and a wing to see the king’ routine, swinging them to and fro, then launching them up and over the gates, to be caught on the other side by some blokes. Naturally, Rog and I were up for this, but I still remember flying through the air and thinking “I hope they weren’t lying about the blokes on the other side”. We got in OK and Chelsea won 1-0.
Jack Charlton in a hard training session
The MG Magnette
My brother, Ian, used to generally drive Morris Minors. He had a series of them in various states of decomposition, but they were popular because they were very easy to work on and maintain. One of the most common sources of problems with the Morris was the SU carburettor they used, so Ian invested in a few of them from breakers’ yards as spares. I was more mechanically-minded than Ian and had more patience with fiddly things, so he’d pay me to strip down, clean and rebuild the carbs. I used to do this on the dining table in our front room, so Mom became accustomed to the house reeking of petrol.
Then, one day, after his latest Morris Minor had collapsed in a pile of rust, he came home and announced he’d bought an old MG Magnette. I thought it was great, but Mom was convinced this would turn out be a massive mistake by the ever-impulsive Ian.
The MG Magnette was a fairly big saloon car; it looked a bit like a Jaguar. Ian’s had a valve radio installed under the polished wood dashboard. It also had quality leather upholstery. It was quite fast and spectacularly unreliable; he would often find himself stranded by the roadside somewhere. I loved it.
An MG Magnette with the same colour scheme as Ian’s
©Classic and Sportscar Centre
One day, my siblings Ian and Cynthia announced they were going on holiday to the Isle of Wight with their respective girlfriend and boyfriend, and that they were all going in the Magnette! Plans were laid, the big day came, the car was laden with suitcases and the four of them headed off down Monica Road. Mom and I stood watching:
Me: “Do you think they’ll make it?”
Mom: “Absolutely no possibility, in that heap of scrap. They’ll be doing very well to get as far as the corner of the road.”
How wrong we were. The car behaved impeccably for the entire holiday, got them all the way to the South Coast without a hint of a problem, toured around the island, and got them home without a hiccup.
Literally a few days after their return, it broke down, never started again and ended up in Henry Taroni’s scrapyard. Visiting Hampshire had evidently been on the Magnette’s bucket list and it died happy.
David Moves In, Cynthia Moves Out
When I was about 15, Cynthia’s boyfriend David came to live with us for a while. He’d had some kind of bust-up with his dad, Doug, who had thrown him out. There wasn’t a great amount of space in our three-bedroom terraced house; Mom and Leah shared one bedroom, me and Ian shared another, whilst Cynthia had a small box room to herself. David was moved into our room, which had two single beds, so he was given my bed, and I was relegated to a mattress on the floor. David was much tidier than me and Ian, he’d always fold and hang up his clothes carefully before going to bed, whereas Ian and I would just leave them scattered around.
After a couple of months of politely enduring our disorder, David got himself a flat in Yardley and not long after that, Cynthia moved in with him. It was not really a biggie – they were engaged and making plans for their wedding, so were merely moving in together slightly earlier than planned.
I inherited Cynthia’s bedroom and started making the necessary adjustments. The room was swiftly painted dark brown and dark blue, you’d walk in, turn on the light and it made no difference! I had my Who poster on one wall and a lovely psychedelic Jimi Hendrix poster on another wall. The Hendrix poster was really special; it had come from Athena Reproductions and was a sort of stencilled image with a blue background and Hendrix etched out in black felt. The Who poster was the one taken from the souvenir package that came with their Live at Leeds album:
Another wall bore my treasured collection of football scarves stolen from opposition fans who’d had the temerity to visit St. Andrews. There were a few good ones there, the pride of place being a Leeds United scarf, obtained after a fair old 'take no prisoners' scuffle outside the Kingston cinema.
The fourth wall was dominated by the door and a wardrobe, so I couldn’t hang anything on the wall there, however I nailed my dartboard to the back of the bedroom door.
The bedroom became my base as I drifted aimlessly into my early working career and later teenage years, of which more later…
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