Feature article on Bobby Stokes, cup final hero, in The Times 2003
The ball was slipped through to Bobby Stokes. Alex Stepney, the Manchester United goalkeeper, expected him to either blast it or move towards goal with it at his feet. Stokes did neither. The match had sapped his energy and he could only stroke the ball forwards. Stepney, surprised, let it roll past him and into the net.
It was the 83rd minute of the 1976 FA Cup final and the game's solitary goal secured Southampton their one and only major honour. In the build up to this year's final between his former club and Arsenal, it will be shown repeatedly on television, written about in newspapers.
Once more, Stokes will be 25 all over again, slotting it home and skipping joyfully into the arms of his team-mates. He'll be shown in after-match repose, glass of champagne in hand, cigar in mouth - king of the world. Footage of the homecoming will be dusted off, when more than 175,000 fans teemed on to Southampton's streets desperate for a glimpse of the kid with the cheeky grin.
Back then, the cup final really meant something. England stopped, and a good deal of the world too. It was the match of the year, the first day of summer; football and life joined up. After the game, kids raced on to patches of grass, dads and grandads usually in tow. Wembley was on every street corner. There was always a commentary, delivered in a kind of dry shouted whisper: ''And McCalliog plays it to Stokes. He shoots - it's there!''
A year later, there is another cup final, another hero. Like birthdays, they seem to come around more quickly each year. Players like Bobby Stokes slip from memory. Their names become answers to pub quiz questions.
While footballers accept that fame is ephemeral, few have experienced the rate of Stokes' descent from glory. He made just eight full appearances for Southampton after the final. Nine years later he was making sandwiches and washing up in an archetypal greasy spoon café. At the age of 44, he was to die in pitiable circumstances.
"It's a tough call but I don't think scoring that goal did him any favours," said Jim Steele, his former Southampton team-mate. "There was nothing else in life that he could do to better it or even come anywhere near."
Stokes won a car for scoring the goal (though he couldn't drive) and it also won him free drinks for life from grateful Southampton fans. Unfortunately, he took too many of them up on the offer. While his death certificate records broncho-pneumonia as the cause of death, his friends agree heavy drinking was largely to blame. And a lack of will to live.
Peter Osgood was his best friend in the cup-winning team and they stayed close after retiring from the game. He noticed the drinking had become excessive when he invited Stokes to help at his children's soccer schools. "I caught him taking swigs first thing in the morning before the sessions started. You could smell it on his breath," he said. "We were driving in my car once and I had a couple of miniature whisky bottles in there. They'd been left over from a golf tournament. I stopped at a petrol station and when I got back they'd gone. I asked Bobby about them and he pointed to the can of pop he was drinking - he'd put them in there. He thought it was funny."
Until the last few months of his life, Stokes was known for his gift of making others laugh. Osgood smiles when he recalls the time Stokes was the victim of a practical joke. On a stopover with some other players, he was served up a snack of dog food and beans. When he was told later, he claimed it had tasted fine; he was ill the next day. "He was a smiley, happy person who was everyone's friend," said Mick Channon, another former team-mate. "He was probably too nice to be a professional footballer."
Channon and Stokes were apprentices together at Southampton in the mid-Sixties. Friends say Stokes remained in awe of Channon but his own career was not without merit. He was an outstanding schoolboy footballer, scoring 53 goals in one season while at Hillside Junior School in Portsmouth. He played seven times for England Youth and was one of only two offered terms by Southampton after trials involving 600 boys. His starting wage was £7 per week.
He made his full debut at the age of 18, scoring two goals in a 5-2 home win against Burnley in April 1969. He went on to play more than 200 games for Southampton, forging a role as a tricky and industrious attacking midfield player. A year after the final, he joined Portsmouth but didn't settle - it was an unlikely exchange of clubs considering their bitter rivalry. In 1978 he joined the exodus of players to the United States, teaming up once more with Jim Steele at Washington Diplomats. Johan Cruyff was a team-mate ("He spent most of the time sitting in a whirlpool smoking a cigar," - Steele) and he played several times against a New York Cosmos side featuring Pele.
He returned to England and became a pub manager, as many ex-players did at the time. The Manor House in Cosham, Portsmouth, is a typical estate pub - roomy, ersatz wood panelling, chips with everything. The sign outside has faded and slipped from its frame. Ask the current manageress if any of the locals remember Stokes' tenure and she'll tell you they don't. They do remember his cup final goal though.
The long hours at the pub left Stokes and his wife, Janet, disaffected and they left after three years. While he looked for work, his cousin Maria asked if he'd like to help at her Harbour View café, overlooking - as its name suggests - the harbour at Portsmouth. He stayed for nearly 10 years.
The café is housed in a building shaped like an ocean liner in nautical colours of blue and white. The 'view' close up is of backpackers leaving the Isle-of-White ferry terminal. Metal waste skips are pressed close to a wall stained green from the sea spray and rain. Further out, the sea heaves to and fro and blocks of flats mark the other side of the harbour. Across the café entrance is a banner: 'Under New Ownership'. These new owners keep a tidy shop, charging 70p for a cup of tea and £2.95 for a 'set breakfast'.
While he worked in the concrete boat, Stokes was often tracked down by journalists, usually at cup final time. He was obliging. He posed pouring tea, catching toast as it popped out of the toaster. He told them he worked from 7.15am to 4pm and mused: "Once you wake up in the morning, swing your legs out of bed and stand up, life is what you make it." He never asked for a fee for his co-operation. "I was with him on the way to a presentation one time and asked him how much he was getting," said Steele. "He said he wasn't on anything. He was doing it because he was flattered to be asked. It was typical of his modesty."
Stokes began drinking heavily in the winter of 1994 when Janet, who had been with him nearly 20 years, moved out of their home in Cosham. "Jan was the love of his life," said Stokes' friend, Denis Bundy. "She was a dancing trainer and lovely. Very bubbly and attractive but Bobby was a bit carpet slippers and a night at home."
Stokes fell into a depression that coincided with a series of benefit events
held in his honour - Southampton had prevaricated for years on this issue.
He became extremely drunk at one dinner and had to be helped from the venue.
"It hurt him badly when Janet left," said Osgood. "They'd been
together since they were teenagers. He wasn't able to cope on his own, he
needed looking after."
Osgood was asked by Stokes' brother to visit when he fell seriously ill at
his parents' house where he'd gone to stay. "I knew he was bad because
he'd tried to play golf a few days before and had four attempts to hit the
ball about a yard. He told me then that he'd been coughing up blood."
When Osgood saw him he knew he was close to death. "He was hallucinating.
It was awful to see because he was such a lovely, lovely lad."
Janet Stokes (now Janet Hussey) had noticed a marked change in Stokes after his football career ended. "When it finished, part of Bobby finished. The only time the sparkle came back into his life was when he was back with the lads, doing charity work or playing golf."
The couple hadn't had children, which Stokes' friends feel may have contributed to his disillusionment. "He was like a little boy lost at the end, thinking no one gave a shit about him. He'd given the club, with one kick, its most magical moment in history - this little lad from down the road," said Bundy.
The headline in the Southampton Evening Echo wrote itself when Stokes died: 'Death of a Legend.' He hadn't achieved repute like others - generals, doctors, politicians, poets - through great compassion, genius or determination. His was a sporting legend and they are more easily made. Perhaps too easily.
Where are they now - the Southampton FA Cup-winning team of 1976.
Ian Turner: A pipefitting supervisor, he has worked in Saudi Arabia and oil rigs in Scotland. He has two sons, Neil and Marc.
Peter Rodrigues: Formerly ran his own restaurant, The Honeysuckles near Southampton and was steward at a local social club. After the early death of his wife he moved to Spain.
David Peach: Fits double glazed windows near his home in Milford-on-Sea.
Nick Holmes: He formerly ran a newsagents in Winterslow near Salisbury but after a spell in the United States returned to manage Salisbury City FC in the Dr Marten's League.
Peter Osgood: After-dinner speaker and PR consultant. Keen golfer. Recently published his autobiography, 'Ossie: King of Stamford Bridge'. Lives in Southampton area. Has two grown-up sons and 13-year-old son to his wife Lynn.
Mick Channon: Highly successful horse trainer. Owns the West Ilsley complex in Newbury, Berkshire (bought from the Queen) where 180 thoroughbreds are stabled. Had 101 winners last season, generating £1.5 million in prize money.
Jim McCalliog: Runs the George and Dragon in Wetherby, North Yorkshire. Has two teenage daughters, Joley and Leah.
Jim Steele: Runs the Black Bear pub in Moreton-on-the-Marsh in the Cotswolds.
Mel Blythe: Has his own building business in Wallington, Surrey. Divorced with two children.
Paul Gilchrist: Works as a service assistant for a BMW dealer in Surrey. Has one son, Luke, aged 24.
Then and Now, footballers in 1976 and 2003.
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Football in 1976
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Football in 2003
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| Bobby Stokes' basic wage never exceeded £100 per week but bonuses could see this triple. His wage at the time of the cup final was £90 per week. | The highest-paid players will earn (with sponsorship etc) in a week what Stokes earned in his entire football career. |
| Footballers were relatively accessible. They'd open your supermarket for a free leg of lamb and a couple of Arctic Rolls. | They consider themselves blue-chip brands, every second dedicated to profit maximisation. Interviews invariably tied in with a plug for their boots, favourite drink or hair gel. |
| Footballers married their 'childhood sweetheart'. She was a hairdresser or worked at Woolworths. They married at 18 and had a honeymoon in Torremolinos. | Their PR advisor introduces them to a beautiful model/actress/another PR advisor at the opening of a new restaurant or night club. Six months later, 'Soccer Love Rat Dumps TV Beauty' (she was once on stand-by as hostess for Wheel of Fortune). |
| Centre partings and flares. | Alice bands and shaggy peroxide jobs. |
| They lived on the nearest 'posh' (bay windows, a garden and a garage) estate to the council house where they grew up. | They live 30 miles out of town in a big house in a small village with a triple-barrelled name, Something-on-the something. |
| ''Thanks a lot, there's the door.'' Players were given no academic training or help when they left football. | The word 'holistic' is banded around at most top clubs. Trainees attend college while, at the end of their career, they receive formal vocational advice. Praise be, the blessed few even have club chaplains. |
| Leaving the game and opening a pub was considered the high-life. | Leaving the game and visiting a pub (rather than a poncey wine bar) is a cultural faux pas. |
| Strains, cuts, broken legs etc could all be 'run off in a few minutes.' If not, the club doctor (who graduated from medical school in 1902) was summoned to pump them full of cortisone. | Players receive a mandatory month off (''Goa here I come!'') for a head graze. |