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book was brilliant for pulling the talent. We’d use it to get into the Cinema Royale in
Manchester
. So if you took a girl out you could get complimentary tickets to see the film – posh seats as well.
      You could also use it to get into any football ground in the country for free which was good if you wanted to check up on an opposing player. It was like a press card I suppose.
    I did not have a car so I started taking lessons. I went in for my test wearing my City blazer. I thought it might impress the instructor. When I sat down in the car the first thing he said was: “Don’t like football, I’m a rugby man!” You’ve guessed it, he failed me.
    The second time I went in for my test there was no blazer but I was so cautious it was untrue. This time he failed me for being too cautious, so it was third time lucky with me. Before I had passed my test   I used to borrow a friend’s car, a 1936 Austin Seven you had to double de-clutch to get started. One day when I was injured I went back to
Manchester
for a couple of hours to pass some time. I was heading back to the ground to receive some more treatment and just as I was turning into
Maine Road
my foot slipped off the brake. It was raining and the car skidded straight into the back of another car, right in front of the main entrance.
    Picture the scene: I had no licence, no insurance – nothing at all. Straight away the owner of the damaged vehicle recognised me and he let me off. I know it was only a little bump on his car but I could have easily been banned at a critical stage of my career. I got him some tickets to watch us play. He was a blue – Thank God!
    Finally, I bought my first car, a little blue second-hand
Austin
. Chris was twenty-two at the time, he couldn’t afford a car so he used to borrow mine if he was out with his girlfriend. It was great because I would let him borrow it for the use of his sweaters! By now I was getting interested in the fairer sex too and believe it or not, the thing to have at the time was a nice sweater!
    Looking back, I think we really only had the one real bust-up. Chris bought himself a radiogram – it was so big it was like a sideboard with a record player in it. He said it was a piece of furniture for when he got married.
    By this time I’d started dating a girl and after training at City I would take the girlfriend home in the afternoon and play records on his precious radiogram. He went mad at me over that but I understood where he was coming from and I’d have probably gone to town on him had it been the other way round. I always had the ace card up my sleeve though, which was to simply dangle the car keys in front of him and suddenly it would all be forgotten!
    It was very funny one particular day when Chris brought his girlfriend home. He was getting engaged to her and he used to call me his little kid brother. At the time though I was probably three inches taller than him! Well I was in the sitting room doing the ironing for mum, just wearing a pair of underpants. In walked Chris with his girlfriend – you should have seen the look on her face. This was the first time she’d met Chris’s ‘little kid’ and there I was, six foot one, looking like Tarzan doing the ironing! We had a good chuckle over that afterwards!
    I’d been going out with my girlfriend Margaret for about six months when she got pregnant, so I did the honourable thing and we got married! I was nineteen and she was seventeen - things were oh so different in those days. In all honesty it was a shotgun wedding but we lasted seventeen years which isn’t bad, all things considered. Of course, these things have a bearing on your life but I maintain I was happy enough with my family life and it helped me settle down and concentrate on the game.
    My mum had moved to a flat in Handforth – the same flat I now live in with Carmen – a couple of years earlier so when we first got married we lived with her in the flat. Back then my