BEST PLACE IN LONDON: August 1976 – Fulham sign George Best & Rodney Marsh………

[email protected] October 11, 2021

Like it or not, we live in an era when 24-hour TV sports channels give credence to the most inconsequential football story, social media providing a platform for views most sane followers of the game could live without knowing anyway.

The development of such mediums has left curmudgeons such as myself reflecting wistfully on days when the school playground or barroom would buzz in regard to the ‘Soccer Sensation‘ emblazoned across the back page of every morning newspaper.

While today a clutch of ‘informed’ former players have become more noteworthy for their opinions on present day football than for whatever skills they might have possessed when playing, there was a time when a ‘Soccer Sensation‘ was of such magnitude it would begin conversations between school-friends and drinking mates for days on end.

True, there were outspoken, ‘good for a quote‘ managers who would be asked for their say on such matters, but at the time newspapers felt they could do without a squad of ex-internationals touting cliche-ridden opinions containing barely an original thought between them.

Generational cynicism is to the fore here but let’s face it, endless Premiership pontification is all smoke and no fire compared to the era of say Colchester knocking Leeds out of the FA Cup, England missing out on World Cup qualification on being held to a Wembley draw by Poland or Bill Shankly resigning.

These seismic developments sent football grey matter into a state of heightened engagement, the game a constant source of wonderment to the mid-70s teenager – one of whom concedes there may well be an enraptured fifteen-year-old right now checking an app for the latest transfer speculation or current hairstyle of Paul Pogba.

If not the biggest football talking point of the aforementioned decade, but one of the most intriguing tales while it lasted was the signing by second division Fulham of mercurial superstars Rodney Marsh and George Best in the early days of the 1976-77 season.

From the mid-60s through to the early-70s Belfast-born Best had been the defining figure of British football. His sublime skills were instrumental in Manchester United becoming European Champions in 1968, but episodes of wayward off the field behaviour as the team fell into decline resulted in him walking out on the Old Trafford club for the final time in January 1974.

His time prior to joining Fulham had been spent playing in a couple of high paying, low echelon guises – although when contact came from down by the Thames, Best was playing in the lush and lucrative surroundings of Los Angeles, whose North American Soccer League outfit LA Aztecs were co-owned at the time by rock star Elton John.

Also playing in the United States, but for Tampa Bay Rowdies, Marsh had been eminent among an emerging group of highly skilled English players labelled ‘mavericks’ through their flamboyant approach to the game. An off the cuff style of play endeared the likes of Marsh, Alan Hudson and Stan Bowles to supporters but often set them at odds with their managers and coaches.

Coming to prominence with Queens Park Rangers, Marsh excelled as they won the League Cup as a third division side in 1967, QPR winning promotion the same season. Having already played for England, Marsh was signed by Manchester City for £200,000 in March 1972, but his time there proved suitably erratic, the player decamping to America in 1975 on receiving an offer from Tampa during another bout of mutual antipathy with the Maine Road club.

Seeking a way to boost attendances at Craven Cottage, the novelty of signing England World Cup winning captain Bobby Moore from West Ham in 1974 and reaching the FA Cup Final 12 months later wearing off to the extent gates had dropped below 10,000, pugnacious chairman Ernie Clay became aware the NASL season ran to the end of August – sounding out Marsh in relation to playing for Fulham until his Stateside commitments resumed.

Enamored at the prospect of returning to a club he had joined as a teenager, Londoner Marsh suggested they approach his carousing pal and fellow exile Best – and in turn he also proved receptive to overtures that came with a £500 per match contract.

On August 12, 1976, Clay was able to announce Fulham had pulled off the coup of landing Best and Marsh – who would be joining the first team squad of manager Alec Stock at the end of the month.

Marsh made his debut on Tuesday 31 August in a League Cup tie against Peterborough United that drew a gate of 10,222 to Craven Cottage – but that figure more than doubled when Best made his bow against Bristol Rovers four days later. Rarely one to disappoint headline writers or a watching football crowd, he marked his return to the English game by scoring after just 71 seconds, a goal that brought Fulham their first league win of the season.

Seven days later recently relegated Wolves travelled to SW6 for a fixture that a month earlier the promotion favourites would have been expected to win with something to spare – but now found themselves facing a triumvirate of football royalty in Best, Marsh and Moore. Almost 26,000 witnessed a hard fought 0-0 draw in which Best and Marsh both produced some dazzling moments.

But if that match proved Best, Marsh and Fulham as a team could cut it against the best Division Two had to offer, the next home game served notice that any side giving them license to entertain were likely to be made fools of.

Hereford United, the next visitors to Craven Cottage, proved particularly accommodating as Best and Marsh went through their full repertoire of tricks and tomfoolery. Sun-tanned and thickset by virtue of the California high-life, Best still had too much trickery for opponents who often look disbelieving in sharing a pitch with players of such renown.

He provides the cross for Marsh to score the third in a 4-1 extravaganza – which takes on Harlem Globetrotter proportion when he and Best tussle each other for the ball in an attempt to conjure the next piece of audacity, another mammoth Thames-side crowd royally entertained even before Marsh completes the scoring with a glorious curling shot.

Not since his halcyon days of taking defenders to the cleaners in the colours of Manchester United had Best played with such unbridled enjoyment, flashes of the most famous grin in the game emphasising just how much pleasure he was deriving from being part of a football equivalent of the Rat Pack.

But telling the press he wanted to ‘make football fun again‘ after lording it over hapless Hereford was one thing, Division Two was packed with teams less inclined to play the straight-men, FA Cup holders Southampton not wanting any part of a comedy show when Fulham visited The Dell soon after. They inflicted a 4-1 defeat on the haphazard visitors during an afternoon when the most notable volley from Best was that of abusive language aimed at a linesman – for which he received a red card and suspension.

Thus, a pattern emerged of Fulham scoring plenty while at the other end, even with Moore marshalling the backline, they leaked goals like a sieve. The season was encapsulated in three consecutive matches as autumn turned to winter; visiting Notts County found gaps galore in a porous rearguard as they cruised to a 5-1 win, Fulham then came from two down to level at Blackpool only to be sunk by a late defensive lapse, this fortnight of mayhem ending with a 5-0 Craven Cottage drubbing of promotion chasing Oldham Athletic – Best scoring the fourth with a delightful chip that was breathtaking even by his 60s standards.

Such wild inconsistency made a causality of manager Stock who was replaced by first team coach Bobby Campbell in mid-December, only for the change to precipitate even worsening fortunes, Fulham embarking on a twelve-match winless run that would not see them record another victory until 19 March.

But if an alarming slide down the table was the major concern for Campbell, his other problem was the nocturnal activities of Best, who sometimes accompanied by Marsh and Moore, was becoming a presence in West End drinking establishments – one such session resulting in Best wrapping his car around a lamppost outside Harrods, the consequence being 55 stitches in a head wound.

On the field the nadir came at Wolves on February 19 where they were trounced 5-1. There were occasional sparks of former glories from Moore, Best and Marsh, but Fulham as an entity looked a sorry lot. As no match footage appears to exist, (which is surprising as television cameras, for obvious reasons, were at a host of Fulham games during the 1976-77 season), the personal recollections of SAMTIMONIOUS.com are based on the consternation of his dad solemnly commenting on:

‘Our World Cup winning captain being reduced to second division canon fodder.’

As Wolves scored second half goals almost at will, the fixture came to mind many years later on seeing actor Robert Shaw play General Custer in the film ‘Custer of the West.’ Like Moore a blonde totem, in the climactic battle scene at Little Big Horn everywhere Custer looks his men are being overrun, much the same as Moore on that muddy Molineux afternoon.

While Marsh returned to the US shortly after that particular massacre, (in total Best, Marsh and Moore played just 15 times together during the season), Best not only stuck it out, but manfully applied himself to the task of ensuring the Cottagers avoided relegation. Just six weeks after his Knightsbridge traffic accident, he produced a performance par excellence, including a superbly taken goal, as Fulham recorded a 3-1 Good Friday home win over neighbours and current table-toppers Chelsea.

Ultimately, they beat the drop by a point. Moore called time on his illustrious career when Blackburn Rovers hosted Fulham on the final day, while Best was recognised for his efforts in being named their Player of the Year.

With both his fellow headliners elsewhere, Best surprisingly signed on for the following season. Despite now being 31 he still had a range of passing and close quarter skills to outwit the opposition and excite crowds, although behind the scenes familiar transgressions were taking hold as Best began to miss training sessions – player and club clashing over issues relating to fines and unpaid wages.

On Saturday 16 November 1977 he played what proved his final game for Fulham, turning out for the home match against Sunderland. Fittingly, it was an entertaining 3-3 draw with Best scoring a characteristic virtuoso goal. Departing Craven Cottage under something of a cloud, it still could not detract from many sparkling displays he had produced in the previous 15 months.

Upon leaving London Best flitted from club to club on a worldwide basis, each stop on this nomadic trail accentuating the theory of his career effectively ending when he left Manchester United – but that conveniently overlooks the 47-game spell at Fulham, a period when he came closest to recapturing the form that once made him the most exciting footballer in Europe.

In the days shortly before he succumbed to an alcohol-related death at the age of 59 in November 2005, Best expressed the wish to be ‘remembered for my football.’ Those who witnessed his brief, late career renaissance at Fulham were unlikely to forget what they saw, Marsh recalling the time by saying, ‘the fans came to be entertained and we entertained them,’ to which Best added, ‘we did it to put a smile on people’s faces.’

With the football media currently gripped by takeovers, bizarre tactical jargon and twittish tweets, a story of footballers going out to entertain supporters seems quaint, decidedly old-fashioned and yet strangely affirming of how once upon a time such things mattered in football.

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NEIL SAMBROOK is the author of ‘MONTY’S DOUBLE‘ – an acclaimed thriller now available in paperback and as an Amazon Kindle book.