I first went to see Reading play football in the 1972-3 season aged just 8. They were in the 4th division, now League 2. We lived in Tilehurst in Reading and my dad took me and my brother to home matches. Sometimes my mum came too which was unusual. There weren't many women at the games let alone much in the way of families attending. Clubs setting up family areas later was a way of tackling this. It was also a pretty working-class affair in those days. I felt I stood out as a middle-class kid.
Elm Park
The matches were at the old ground, Elm Park, which had a shed-like feel to it, all wood, bare concrete, and corrugated iron, the stands close to the pitch. It wasn't that big. When they introduced capacity limits it was set (from my memory) at 12,000. Before that, I went to a cup match against a team from the top division where I stood wedged, with no room for movement, between people behind, in front, and to the sides. 21,000 of us. The record attendance was 33,000 and I have absolutely no idea how that was possible.
Wayward shots over the bar (there were many) sometimes sailed over the roof and out of the stadium. I think some kids were employed to stand outside the ground, get the balls and bring them back. Abuse from the crowd at the matches was eye-watering. We sat near the front close to the pitch and you could smell the Deep Heat players put on their limbs to keep warm. You realised how physical the game was, you could hear the whacks as tackles went in. Players didn't make fake screams in those days when they got tackled. After the match, we had to walk past the away end, where the opposing fans came out, to get to the car park and it could be scary. The away fans could be very loud and aggressive, especially some clubs' supporters, and there were plenty of police, often on huge horses. I tucked my blue and white scarf into my coat. We parked the car in a small concrete area next to the ground which I think was also used as a training pitch. Training actually used to go on sometimes in the local park nearby, and players' fitness runs on public streets.
Two sides of the stadium had roofs, one with seats where we went. The ticket sellers told my dad to lift my brother and me over the turnstile so we could get in for free. When I went alone later I stood on the other side in the covered unseated stand. At either end were small uncovered terraces behind the goals with a rail here and there to lean on and usually acres of empty concrete steps visible between the odd person or group watching on. When it rained the supporters got drenched and amazingly if it was coming down at the start of a match people still decided to spend the next hour and three-quarters standing there getting soaked rather than buy tickets for a stand with a roof. One uncovered terrace had a small shop in the corner selling food - hot dogs etc.
Players
There were lots of players I remember in the early 70s. Gordon Cumming, a small Scottish winger/midfielder who came from Arsenal, a master of the precision pass, impressed me. He seemed to do a lot but in an unflamboyant way, as I remember it, and I liked him. This post is about a book by Alan Hester who reports that Cumming, now in his late 70s, still lives in Reading and goes to games home and away. I didn't know this and like the idea I may well have walked past him unknowingly at matches. Other legends were to arrive soon after, some renowned, like Robin Friday, others less so beyond the club, Gary Peters, Mark 'Chalky' White, Richie Bowman, and the young Lawrie Sanchez come to mind for me. Peters was an attacking full-back (I'm not sure full-backs attacked much in those days) who had a trick of feinting a pass down the touchline which wrong-footed the opposing player in front of him so that he could then cut inside and drive forward into midfield. It worked every time. Peters later became a manager. Bowman was a tenacious busy midfielder. Sanchez went on to score the winning goal in an FA Cup final, for Wimbledon against Liverpool, and became a manager.
Death, the Name and the Height
But the player who stood out when I first went to Reading was Steve Death, the goalkeeper. He must have been about 23 when I first saw him play about 3 years into his Reading career. Of course, to an 8 year old he didn't seem young at all. He is mostly talked about in terms of his name and his height, 5 foot 7.5. I never really thought much about his name at the time but I think others with the same surname called themselves De'Ath or such like. Apparently Death also never paid much attention to it. He just said his surname as it was. But, in Hester's book, his daughter reports him amused when there was a newspaper poll about calling roads in Reading after players and his came up as Death Row. His height was noticeable not just for a keeper, who are normally quite tall, but compared to any of the players. When the players ran out he was tiny compared to most of the rest. In photos of the team on the pitch there's a dip in the line of players down to Death.
Jumping and Diving
However, I remember two other key things about Steve Death. One was that he was very brave diving in at the feet of advancing players and nearly always came out clutching the ball. I used to wince, imagining a damaged Death left lying injured on the pitch. But he emerged unscathed (although he did break his jaw in a match once). The other was the spring in his leap. I imagine opposing teams were instructed by their managers to swing high crosses into the box to take advantage of the small keeper's lack of height. But when a corner was taken you just knew, after watching Death play week-in week-out, that he would emerge from the melée with a perfectly timed jump above towering attackers, the ball in his hands. You trusted him time after time in such situations. He was very reliable. It wasn't just his jump but also that he knew how to be in the right place at the right time. He rarely palmed or pushed the ball away. He nearly always held it. Of course, being small he was also good at diving down fast and stopping shots. He had a good record at saving penalties. Defenders report great confidence in having Death behind them but also amazement sometimes to see a shot destined for the back of the net suddenly plucked out of the air at the last second by Deathy's safe hands. Death was late for one match in his first season at Reading. Rather than put the reserve keeper in goal they started with 10 men, put a full-back in goal and waited for Deathy to turn up so they could restore the natural order. That was how much they valued him.
The Book and the Man
Alan Hester has written books on management and leadership and he recently delved back into his past to write a book, Tiny Keeper, on his childhood hero Steve Death. Reassuringly (in confirming my memories) he and his interviewees also pick out Death's capacity to spring high in the air and catch crosses and his bravery at the feet of attackers. He did all this, by the way, without gloves.
The Death I watched out on the pitch seemed quite a restrained, calm, and self-contained guy. But not lacking confidence. He perhaps appeared shy but I never really felt he was; quiet and unfussy but self-assured and Hester had a similar impression, confirmed by interviews he did with a large number of ex-Reading players for this book. Death's daughter Alexandria reports not finding out until later that her dad was well-known because he didn't make a big thing about his job at home. She had to go online to find out the story of Death the footballer. He won some awards and they could be found knocking around the house but not on display. Some report he was reluctant to talk about himself and didn't like attention, which seemed to be no doubt the case. But he was also a friendly man, it seems, and others report that approaching him for an interview they were able to sit with him for hours and chew over the game.
Death didn't lie down before authority and was key in wage disputes. In one he refused to play and had to be badgered to leave his house one Saturday by local sports journalists, who found him in bed at home reading the Sporting Life, and was driven hastily by car to the away match. The replacement goalie, John Turner, was injured and after some persuasion Death relented and went with them, chain-smoking through the journey. Fellow player Eamon Dunphy describes Death in Hester's book as forbidding and taking shit from no-one, having a hot temper that he kept bottled up, a description echoed by some other players' fond recollections. Players describe him as unassuming and quiet in the dressing room but sharp and on the point when he spoke, and with mental strength. Interestingly, though, some report pre-match nerves by the otherwise assured keeper.
The research for the book is impressive. Hester managed through various channels to get many ex-players and staff (from West Ham, his first club, and Reading) to talk to him, probably testimony to the esteem with which Deathy, as they called him inevitably, was held in as a player and person by them. There are some lovely contributions from Death's daughter who talked to the author and contributes a lot to the book, thoughtfully and tenderly.
Training and West Ham
I remember there was talk at the time I started watching Reading about Death being a big smoker. Other players were reported to have a pint or two (maybe more) in the pub across the road before matches. Hester recounts that in training Death went out with a packet of Embassy tucked somewhere in his kit, and smoked during the sessions. He smoked at half-time in matches and Death and the big centre-half Dave Shipperley, 'Ships', had a fag in the bath in the break listening to the manager's talk in the dressing room. He also, it's recounted by players, didn't participate fully in training, often just fielding shots with his elbows and feet and not deigning to dive around too much. Why did he need to? He was a great keeper. His reason was more modest, just that he didn't like training. But he liked to play outfield in training and apparently enjoyed that more. I didn't know but Hester reports that Death was originally a speedy winger as a kid, which you could imagine, but shifted to goal one year when he injured his knee. This new position stuck. Gordon Cumming recalls that on one training run they were passed by a tractor on which Death and the club bad boys, strikers Robin Friday and John 'Minty' Murray, had hitched a lift to avoid the run. In club photos Murray and Friday are often both pulling faces at the moment the shutter clicks. The other rebel at the time was the Irish midfielder, Dunphy, later a renowned opinionated journalist. Death also liked a pint and loved his greyhounds, horse racing, golf, a bet, and his family. His daughter reports he was a talented artist.
He was a great player, almost certainly kept down in lower division football because managers would not take a chance on his height. He played one game in the top division, for West Ham in 1969 against Man City with players on the pitch including World Cup winners Hurst, Moore, and Peters for West Ham and for Man City legends like Summerbee, Bell, and Lee. Death later played for Reading against a Man Utd team that included George Best, Bobby Charlton, and Denis Law - there's a photo of Death diving in at the feet of Best (it's on the cover of Hester's book; Best and Death didn't look dissimilar) - and in the cup against an Arsenal team featuring Charlie George, another World Cup winner Alan Ball, and too many other stars to list here. Reading got very creditable results in these matches. The West Ham academy manager when Death was there (later first team manager at West Ham and England manager), the technically-minded (for the time) Ron Greenwood, was fond of him and brought a young England team to Reading many years on to play at Death's testimonial. I went to that match. I had to be there to support this great and likeable keeper. Everyone says he could have played for England if taller (although, knowing Death, he could have just as well chosen not to, given the chance). When a Reading fan or player says he could have played for England, you take it with a pinch of salt. But when interviewee after interviewee in this book says so you have to think maybe there's something to it.
Mark White's Own Goal
Mark White played at left back in the Steve Death years. He was a skillful and reliable full-back, probably a cut above many other players in the division. One year I was sitting in the stand, in line with White and the view back to Death. White turned at one point and hoofed the ball back to Death from some distance. He didn't look to see where the keeper was. Death was a bit off his line, unusual in those days for a goalie, and the back-pass soared over his head and into the goal. Quite an own goal. I remember both the players stood and just looked at each other for what seemed forever. White recounts in this book that it was probably because neither really knew who was at fault. Death shouldn't have been so far off his line. White should have looked before his back-pass. I imagined that it was also because Death wasn't a shouter and neither was White, who seemed a mild-mannered, unpretentious kind of guy. Some players reported to Hester that Death could do his fair share of shouting on the pitch, if quiet off it; others that he was also quiet on the pitch, the latter more my memory of it. I imagine Death and White had a chat at the end of the match. Hester was there and recounts the incident. It's odd to be at such an obscure moment in history and read the story from someone else who was also there. This match was about 50 years ago and I guess many people who saw Mark White's own goal that day are no longer with us.
The Record
In his youth Death played for England schoolboys, ahead of Peter Shilton who eventually played 125 times for England. Death cost Reading a club record fee of £20,000, aged just 19. It was a lot to shell out. I'm not sure whether goalkeepers attracted such high fees in those days, if I remember right, but Death had clearly impressed while on loan at Reading. They got their money's worth. He set a record for the longest stretch in the football league keeping a clean sheet - 12 games and 1103 minutes. Credit the team in front of him too: attack is the best form of defence, while the defenders were Peters and White at full-back and Martin Hicks and Steve Hetzke at centre-half. I didn't see a better defensive line than that in my early days watching Reading. He was the fans' player of the season in 1972-3 and '73-4. Then along came the legendary, wayward, and hugely talented striker Robin Friday who won it the next two years. I imagine Death probably came second or so then and may have won it otherwise. Then Friday left and Death resumed taking the award again. He won it four times in all, more than any other player before or since, and I guess was up there the other years. Every season I waited with great anticipation to see if any Reading players had got into the PFA's division's team of the year, voted for by fellow players from the league. Death made it twice and I am sure he came close other times.
Death played for Reading 537 times over 13 years between 1969 and 1982. He made the 2nd most appearances of any Reading player behind Hicks with 603. I remember the reserve keeper for some of that time, John Turner, was decent, on the rare days Death was injured and Turner managed to get a look in. He probably would have been first choice for other 4th division teams at the time but Turner seemed satisfied sticking around as second in line at Reading for three years in his early 20s before moving on and getting more game time elsewhere.
After Reading
Death left Reading under a cloud in 1982. I read about it back in the day and Hester has pieced together an account. In the background, financial problems were leading to strange proposals for the players, like them going part-time, and it was put forward that Death's home owned by the club be sold. When Death was injured that season, young reserve keeper Ron Fearon got a run in the first team. Deathy returned from injury and was selected again. But in February he said he didn't want to play and was suspended. The manager said that Death told him his footballing days were over and maybe there was some sporting self-doubt. But there was talk of eviction from the house and it sounded like there was bad blood between him and the suits at the club. He was only 32. He could have played for longer at Reading or elsewhere, but he'd had enough. He left suddenly, decisively, and with no turning back. When it was done he was gone and he moved on (apart from coming back to play in Chalky's testimonial). Players were confused to come in one day and find he wasn't there. His family had to move out of the house. He had no job, no home, and no career. It felt like a dark thing to me: this great, likeable, popular, loved, and loyal player was out in circumstances of conflict and alienation from the club he had served so well.
Death retired and went back to his home turf of Suffolk. But country life didn't suit the family and he moved back to Reading. He became a golf club greensman, living in Tilehurst where I'd lived but had left by then. The autonomous and sole nature of the job probably suited him, as Hester says. It had elements of the country life he'd grown up with in Suffolk. In those days players got paid less than many of the working-class people who watched them, some leaving football for manual labouring jobs that paid more. So they all had to take jobs after football, running pubs being the stereotype, not an entirely inaccurate one, but other jobs too. White became a physiotherapist with the NHS. Cumming ran a restaurant. I read that Richie Bowman ran a sandwich shop near London Bridge station. I go there sometimes and have looked out for him but he's probably well since retired. Martin Hicks became a postman. If I had continued to live in Tilehurst I may well have seen Death cycling to work, that's how he got there, although his hair was shorter and whiter in those later days so maybe I wouldn't have recognised him. He tragically died of cancer in 2003 aged only 54. Apparently, he took his illness stoically and in his quiet way, which sounds as I would have imagined it.
I felt quite tearful at the end of the book, in part the fine writing of Hester, in part the memory of Steve, and the fond thoughts of those who knew him. A great player, a favourite of the fans. By all accounts a nice and much-respected man. A lot of labour went into the research for this book and it is a labour of love.