Malcolm Allison (5th September 1927 to 14th October 2010)

 

When I was at primary school I used to get the annual football sticker book. You bought a strip of hard chewing gum and some random stickers came with it. At the top of each page was a space for the manager and a few remain in my mind - Tommy Docherty (Man Utd), Brian Clough (Nottingham), Bob Paisley (Liverpool) and Malcolm Allison (Manchester City). I remember Malcolm as he wore a fedora and sheepskin coats and looked like a dodgy car salesman.

 

In the sixties and seventies when football ruled the world Big Mal was a character who dated Playboy bunnies, loved champagne, chomped on cigars, was outspoken and didn’t care for the opinions of others. I thought I’d visit the place where the nursing home where life finally puttered out and the crematorium where he was turned to dust – also the old Maine Road area where City’s stadium stood for decades (now redeveloped.)

 

A quick summary: this bright lad who was born in Kent was heading to grammar school but he deliberately failed the exam as the school played rugby not football. He was obsessed with football and after some menial jobs he joined Charlton Rovers and then Charlton Athletic.  After seven seasons he was shown the door after telling club coaches know that their training method of making players run up and down the field was useless. He started staying behind after training to work on new tactics and training methods. He moved to West Ham but life as a footballer was suddenly over. He was ill after a game against Sheffield United, contracted tuberculosis and had a lung removed. Thinking the dream was over he left football altogether and worked as a car salesman, professional gambler and nightclub owner. However football was in the veins and he returned to play a final season for non-league Romford in 1963.

 

The old training sessions he’d instigated years before proved to be a golden egg. He coached for Cambridge and then moved into management at Bath City. He doubled the number of training sessions to four even though the players had full-time jobs. This reaped successful results and other football clubs took interest in him. He soon moved to Manchester City where he became well known to the wider public. Their manager Joe Mercer was hampered by ill-health and needed a sparky assistant. Sparky Malcolm got the job. The Mercer/Allison chapter is probably the strongest in Manchester City's history (even I can remember it.) Results came fast: at something like 200-to-1 odds they were the shock winners of the First Division in 1967–68 and in the following seasons they won the 1969 FA Cup, the 1970 League Cup and Cup Winners' Cup. Stubbornly Joe Mercer refused to step down and their relationship soured. Eventually Malcolm became manager but it was too late to save the relationship. Joe left, the team struggled and Malcolm resigned in March 1973.

 

He went to manage Crystal Palace and this flamboyant character whose colourful life was often on the front pages than the back pages gave the supporters a rollercoaster ride. After loses he implemented profound changes in style on and off the field (the sweeper system was unknown at that time), made countless media appearances, re-branded the club's rather homely nickname (they went from 'The Glaziers' to 'The Eagles') and - after a 68 year history - changed the home strip colours. This larger-than-life splash of colour put Palace on the map and increased the number of supporters.  Fortunes rose though and the 1975–76 season was the most successful season for years. At this time Malcolm’s fedora hat started making an appearance and the media made much print out of the flamboyant man under it. He resigned in May 1976 and three years later was back at Manchester City. With a decent war chest Malcolm built a new team but success was patchy. His off-field life was more interesting than his football life. The tabloid newspapers liked his quotes, unpredictable nature, politically incorrect outspoken nature and womanising. Among the many women he associated with were some known faces - Christine Keeler (Profumo scandal), singer Dorothy Squires and two Miss United Kingdom beauty queens.

 

He managed clubs in Turkey and Portugal but seemed to fade away after that. Life had brimmed. There were six children in total. He had four by his first wife Beth who he was married to for 22 years, a daughter from a lady from the Playboy Club (who he proposed to after they had been in a car crash) and another daughter from long-term partner Lynn Salton who he was with for seventeen years (this relationship ended too.) There were 13 grandchildren and three great grandchildren.

 

What had happened to him? After a colourful but bumpy career he did a touring chat show with Tommy Docherty and seem to fade away after that. Malcolm’s son revealed his 74-year-old dad was an alcoholic and a few years later it was reported he was suffering from depression and dementia. He spent the last few years in a nursing home in Urmston on the outskirts of Manchester and died there. At the funeral there was a lap of the Etihad Stadium for the fans who turned out. A Manchester City scarf was draped over the coffin next to an ice bucket containing a bottle of Moet et Chandon champagne. He was cremated at Southern Cemetery in Manchester.

 

As I can still remember this champagne-swigging, bunny-girl-banging flamboyant character who brought more light that darkness to football I thought I’d visit the church where at Southern Cemetery where the funeral service was held (I was hoping he might have been buried near Sir Matt Busby). I had to park some distance up the road on that Sunday afternoon as there was a burial/funeral in the Jewish part of the cemetery next door. I walked among the dark-dressed mourners and received some odd looks.

 

Next I drove fifteen minutes to Moss Side where the old Maine Road football stadium once stood; surely this was where Malcolm’s golden days were lived out – not the Etihad. The last time I went to the Maine Road stadium was in the 1990s to see Rod Stewart (supported by Belinda Carlisle and Paul Carrick.) I can remember walking up the rabbit-warren of Victorian terraced houses and the stadium appeared. I got out of the car and had a walk around the new rather dull housing development. Most of the houses looked the same and the streets looked the same too. Drab Developments Limited had missed a chance to create something better. It’s surrounded by old Coronation-Street-style terraced streets whose Victoriana dumbs down the new development a little. I had a walk around and only saw one person. Everyone seemed to be indoors watching huge 50”+ televisions. There were no chimneys, just flues (I like a nice bold chimney stack.) I stood on the central patch of grass assuming this had been the middle of the football pitch once.

 

Light was fading but I made my way to Urmston to the nursing home where Malcolm’s life ended. I found it down a quiet single-traffic road next to a car park and Trafford Football Club. I took a few photos before the sun finally went to bed. I sat in the car and had a coffee, a peanut sandwich and some crisps. Bursting for a wee I got out and slashed in some bushes. Suddenly a woman appeared with a dog and I turned away so quickly a thorny bush took purchase of my manhood. Pulling it out I got a couple of thorns stuck in it. As I sat in the car pulling them out I thought, “Well….Malcolm’s worth a thorny manservant. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore.”

 

 

 

 

 

Around the back…

 

 

Next door is the Jewish section of the cemetery. I mingle around the mourners and got some odd looks…

 

Malcolm’s cortege went round the new stadium…but I went round the site of the old Maine Road stadium…

 

Central to the development is this patch of grass…

 

 

The development at the end of the street is where the stadium once stood…

 

From that….to this…

 

Oasis played there in 1996…

 

The nursing home where Malcolm died…