Guest Post by Ian Miles
I stood patiently in the line that stretched out of the new shopping centre and around the block. We shuffled in slowly, and they came in sight. Pop Robson, Frank Lampard and Trevor Brooking, sitting there, signing photos in honour of the late 1970’s retail development that was already rendered obsolete by Tesco at Pitsea. It was the 70’s… Canvey had Dr Feelgood, The Goldmine, The Monaco… and now we had Trevor Brooking. You can probably pinpoint that day as the zenith, after which the Island’s fortunes descended to who knows what Nadir? I imagine if we opened a shopping centre now we would get someone who came 7th on Xfactor.
It was the Admiral shirt – you know the one, with the big castle on the badge. I studied his autograph, over his photograph. I was impressed by the stylised ‘T’…. by the legibility of the whole signature. I took it home, and I practised his name dozens of times until I could pass off a reasonable ‘Trevor Brooking’. My own name begins with ‘I’, but I wondered if I could modify his ‘T’ slightly to become my ‘I’. Thirty-something years later my ‘I’ still owes something to his ‘T’.
When we say ‘role model’ we always imply ‘for children’. Perhaps it is too patronising to suggest that role models are useful for adults too. Think about modern footballers, and ‘role models’, and how ‘not a suitable’ is the phrase most likely to be juxtaposed. Never was there a more suitable role model than Trevor Brooking.
I should know.
You see, in my family, Trevor Brooking wasn’t just knighted – he was canonised in living form. I hated greens, yet as a young kid I choked down the disgusting ferrous slime (Mum was no chef), safe in the knowledge that St. Trevor always ate his greens. That must be true, because I was told it by the people I loved who surely would never lie to me? Trevor got his ‘O’ levels. By the time I got mine I had certainly stopped eating my greens. I didn’t need a role model, but nonetheless I was keenly aware that there were now only two people that my Granddad cared about that had passed an ‘O’ level.
I’m not really old enough to remember Trevor as a player – not in person. I saw him play live no more than 10 times. I’m not sure that matters – after all, I’m not old enough to remember Hitler, but I am willing to take the word of others. I sometimes feel that on WHTID that “West Ham was invented in 1963 – which was a little early for me”, but not in this case.
I saw enough.
Actually, I’m sure that I saw him as much as an England player as I did for West Ham, such was televised football then. The memory of the ball wedging in to the upright.
500 words, and I didn’t mention the rare headed goal. Another 500 please.