Mike Summerbee: The Autobiography [Hardcover]

Following the recent change of ownership Manchester City are purported to be the richest football club in the World. It is said that they have the finances available to buy any player they want, at any price.

Even with this vast financial clout, will they ever make three better signings than City did in the sixties when they paid just £35000 for Mike Summerbee, £45000 for Colin Bell and £60000 for Francis Lee? Three players who almost forty years on are still talked about in revered tones by the City faithful.

People tend to overlook them now but, as Mike Summerbee reminds us in this excellent autobiography, Manchester City were a brilliant team in the late sixties/early seventies. Built by the chalk and cheese partnership of Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison they won the League Championship, FA Cup, Football League Cup and the European Cup Winners Cup in the space of three years. This book gives us a nostalgic reminder as to how good they were.

Signing for Manchester City in 1965, Mike Summerbee was in the ideal position to write about the birth of a great team and also the break up of that team before he left to play for Burnley ten years later. It is fascinating stuff, particularly when you compare what went on then as to what football is like now. I think this is probably best illustrated by what Mike Summerbee calls the 'gymnasium treatment'. He tells us that if one of the opposition players had been 'sneaky or cowardly' they would be dragged into the Manchester City gynmasium to be given a slap or two to point out the error of their ways! It couldn't happen now, more's the pity.

It is also interesting to read about Summerbee's thoughts about his best friend in the sixties - George Best. This George Best is nothing like the sad figure he became prior to his death a few years ago. The George Best Mike Summerbee knows was a quiet man, a lovely man, happier just playing cards than drinking and womanising. Summerbee also tells us that he considers Best to have been a very lonely person, a great shame then that he never found what Summerbee had found - a strong, loving wife who held his life together and never allowed fame go to his head.

This is a good nostalgic book for all those who have loved football for what seems to be a long, long time. There is a quote in the book that made just how long hit home for me - "My grandson then asked for autographs from some of the other Chelsea players like John Terry and Ashley Cole, and they looked past me thinking I was just another autograph hunter".

Where did I put my pipe and slippers?

I remember Mike Summerbee as the Man City winger who had a big nose and who had George Best as his best-man. How cool was THAT?! (The George Best part, obviously.) Summerbee describes his life and career with great honesty and he was obviously deeply affected by his own father`s rather unhappy career. Although he does lapse into that old familiar trait of the sixties/seventies footballer,ie, we were all tough but fair, never dived and never tried to cripple anyone, even though he had one of the greatest divers of all time in his team, a certain Francis Lee, and admits to leaving his foot in on numerous occasions, this does not take away from what is a very good read. As well as Best, he mentions Bobby Moore, Ossie Ardilles, Michael Caine, Pele.....and Sly Stallone. His last memory of Moore is very sad and poignant. Summerbee admits to not being amongst the greatest players of all-time and actually does himself a dis-service. He did play for England and like just about every player who played under him, has nothing but praise for Alf. He is grateful for his family life and everything the game brought him. A modest superstar.

Okay, I'll come clean right from the off. I'm a lapsed supporter. I've only been to Eastlands once! Maine Road was my second home for a long, long time. Through the dark days before the sun came up, and for some time after it set once more. I've paid my dues. True, much of it
was in pounds, shillings and pence. We all know though that once the Sky Blue is in yer blood there's no going back...the club always attract ones attention and I willingly doff my cap to anyone who has stuck by them faithfully all these years. Nowadays I listen to Cheeseman & Eyre, on Radio Manchester. Fred is a treasure, and I remember his chortle inducing books only too well.

I started supporting City when I was nine years old, despite the best efforts of whoever bought me a red and white shirt in which to watch the 1958 Cup Final a year earlier...it might have been an act of Remembrance, given the events of the time. City were really poor and the sixties stuttered before they swung. I attended games regularly from the age of ten - usually on my own.

After the trauma of relegation in `63...and the false dawn offered by free scoring Alex Harley, Matt Gray and others the highlight of my junior years was Bert Trautman's testimonial and seeing Stan Matthews weave his fifty year old legs to bamboozle Bert`s benefactors.!

A season or two later, at the ripe old age of thirteen...sporting bob hat and rattle I took my place in the Platt Lane End one leaden afternoon. I perched myself on the hard wooden benches about seven rows from the front and wondered what the afternoon was going to throw at us this time. My view of the proceedings on the pitch was unhindered despite my diminutive stature. The few rows in front were empty. Splashed wet through with the steady, drifting drizzle of a Mancunian winter. Opposite, a couple of dozen die-hards gathered in the gloom, and sheltered under black umbrellas, there was something almost funereal about the scene. The Scoreboard end , which offered no shelter of course in those days had decamped en-masse (all two hundred of 'em) to the Kippax stand. Though the `Kippax' had yet to establish itself as a collective noun for the chanting hordes who would find their voices so strongly in the coming years. The attraction was, it had a roof...and it was chucking it down. The gate for the game was to be a long lasting nadir, only 8,015 fans turned up. Still City's most meagre attendance for a league game, it's attained a level of notoriety since.

On the field there was little for them to cheer. City were being undone once more. A terrier like Swindon Town side went home with the points. One of their players registered with me. Their number nine Summerbee. An unusual name I'd thought, completely at odds with the afternoon, yes! I had such thoughts as a teenager. I'd spotted Mike's moniker on perusing my somewhat soggy programme, and the player had been featured in one of my monthly `Football Star; magazines, which tended to concentrate on the lower divisions. The game ended: we'd been beaten again and I trudged back up Broadfield Road to board any one of two dozen busses to trundle me homeward down Princess Parkway, sat on the long seat at the back the Conductor no doubt consoled me.

Events a few months later saw Summerbee sign for City. The arrival of the avuncular Joe Mercer - which I welcomed for no other reason than he was a famous name and looked a bit like my Dad - and his flamboyant sidekick big Mal. The combination meant the blues were at last on the up...about time, and perhaps in the nick of time too....a kid can only take so much. I'd been flirting with Stockport County!

With hair cropped unfashionably short , a high forehead and prominent nose, the young Mike Summerbee had an aerodynamic head! He was built for speed , short bursts of intimidating power and electrifying pace. Swift might be the adjective of choice. For a year or two I'd bemoaned the departure of a previous stalwart, Dave Wagstaffe. Out on the left wing , gripping his shirt cuffs tight `Waggy' was a jinking dribbler. As a left flanker myself... of modest ability his place in my affections was guaranteed. But 'Waggy' went to Wolves and nobody blamed him for that. He'd been the star in a mediocre sky. Only the magnificent new, floodlights shone brighter than Dave Wagstaffe....his transfer fee almost paid for them!

`Buzzer' as he soon became known , was something different. He could dribble, but he had a weapon up his long sleeve. Pace. He had purposeful thrust, and within weeks of the start of the 65-66 season his presence on the ball brought an anticipatory response from City's success starved supporters. Even the `Main Stand' seasoned-ticketers seemed to abandon their torpor. As jeers became cheers.

He was hard too, often getting his retaliation in first and he was always out to assert his authority on the flank. Float like a butterfly , sting like a Summerbee.

I'd ditched the rattle by now, it had flown off the handle after a Derek Kevan goal. Anyway, they had become a little passé. Annoyingly, the die-hard behind me , an elderly man in a plastic `Packamac' (whatever the weather) and flat cap had taken to shouting `come on Summerfield' He was obviously impressed with the new arrival but I longed to put him right on the name. Sadly, I was somewhat lacking in confidence back then.

A few more new arrivals and the emergence of some real quality home grown talent like Mike Doyle, Dave Connor and Alan Oakes meant the blues were on the march. Gates approached thirty thousand now ! The visits of fellow promotion contenders Norwich one cold night, and first division Blackpool , who were sent back to the seaside as we knocked `em out of the F.A. Cup in a replay at Maine Road. I was only mildly resentful at this emergence from the woodwork of the new throng, too swept up in the resurgence to worry about fickle fans.

Forty years and more later these memories are still vivid. I waited a long time for `Buzzer's' autobiography. It's really well written and embellishes them, enhancing them from black and white to Technicolor and unlocking the behind the scenes details of the time when City were consuming my mind, and my entire outlook. Much to the chagrin of my school-teachers!

Mike Summerbee is a popular man, he'd forged a friendship with Bobby Moore before his arrival at Maine Road and soon he was the toast of the town with his best mate, Best Man in fact.... George Best. A couple of years down the road Mike married his own life's love...George stayed single and look what happened.

If he'd hitched up with one of his `lookers' the fifth Beatle's life might have been very different.

The text is laced with generous praise of team mates and opponents alike. Some household names, and some more obscure. Mike takes time to express gratitude and acknowledgement to those who helped shape his life, and his career. Sometimes these acquaintances were fleeting yet they have clearly registered to produce a fund of fondness. He's loyal, yet forthright when people didn't cut the mustard with him.

The tome would make a handsome addition to the book shelves of any discerning football reader. Both those of a certain vintage, and younger fans curious to discover another age, when Championship winning footballers were paid £45 a week basic and didn't retreat behind gated mansions after the match.

Just like in his playing days Summerbee doesn't shirk a written tackle when it's needed, or hide behind dull statistics which might turn off a younger reader with some blow by blow account of his four hundred plus appearances in a City shirt. Incidentally , shirts are important to `the Bee' he fondly describes each of his teams colours and was a big fan, like myself, of the claret and blue of Burnley (whom he eventually joined) and Aston Villa., perhaps his first football love. He'd visit Villa Park on a day excursion from his childhood home in Cheltenham. Indeed, shirts have also provided his living for a lot of years now and he's a purveyor of some repute to various film stars and high rollers.

The book starts with his career highlight. The first international cap against Scotland at Hampden Park. Uppity `Jocks' were intent on giving him a shower before the game started! My own interpretation of this vile act was they were so used to English players taking the piss at that time they wanted to give some back.

I've been waiting for this book for a long time and hope you have too. Having devoured Colin Schindler's `Fathers, Sons, and Football' in no time at all, we now have the Mike Summerbee story from the horses mouth. If `Buzzer' had been born a horse , he'd have been a thoroughbred Derby winner.
He'd run full-backs ragged , Donkeys left trailing in his wake as he surged past them on his touchline hugging raids. Later, when he moved inside, he was a revelation for a long, long time. The King of the lay-off, orchestrating a five cylinder forward line,. Colin Bell provided the fine tuning and Francis Lee the directness & power. Add Neil Young's delicate finesse , Tony Coleman's adept, surefooted urgency and for a season or three City had `no fear' . Behind them a rock solid half back line and two of the best full backs England never capped! I'm not wearing rose tinted specs here, of course there were some dull matches but there was always commitment and the result usually went our way.

Buzzer's book is reveals a man with family values, decency and not a little humour. There are several laugh out loud moments, like the time little Albert Alexander, the chairman brought his winning F.A. Cup semi-finalists down to earth with a crashing bump! Read more ›