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My Favourite Photograph: Billy Bingham

Sun, 21/06/2020 - 02:26

This is the fourth in a series of interviews with former Glentoran players and managers where they talk about a photograph that means a lot to them. Some will be reproduced from a series written by Brian McClelland for the Glentoran Gazette in the mid-1990s with other, newer stories we will be writing over the next few weeks. This one was published in the Gazette when legendary Northern Ireland and Everton Manager Billy Bingham spoke to Brian about his Glentoran days.

It was only when the question was posed to me that I realized just how difficult it would be to select my favourite photograph.  I looked at some pictorial memories of my days with Sunderland, Luton Town and Everton, of three World Cup Finals as a player and manager of Northern Ireland, and of my international games before opting for this photograph taken at the Oval in the spring of 1949.

In case there’s any doubt, that’s me on the left enjoying a laugh with Glentoran trainer, Johnny Belshaw.  Johnny, for rather obvious reasons known as “Schnozzle Durante” after the famous American singer/pianist, was a larger than life character, good humoured and worldly wise.

Let’s put the picture in an historical context by turning the clock back to an era when local football was emerging from the dark shadows of the war years.  In this post-war period a football club, its home devastated by German bombers in May 1941, began to rebuild, not just materially, but its human resources as well.

I recollect my father taking me to Portadown to see the Glens play when I was a youngster.  I remember also going to the Oval and peering through the railings to see a family of swans on a water-filled crater that once was the pitch.

I was just sixteen when I signed amateur forms for Glentoran in 1947, full of hope and optimism.  And why not?  I was serving my time as an apprentice electrician and was to sign for the club I had always supported.  The future looked rosy indeed.

Alongside me on Glentoran’s third team, known as the Co-Op Rec, was my pal and neighbour in Bloomfield, Jackie Blanchflower.  His brother, Danny, was by this time a Glentoran professional.  Also in the Co-Op team was a Lambeg lad by the name of Jimmy McIlroy.  All four of us were destined to join famous English clubs and play for our country in the not too distant future.

Glens manager, Frank Grice, signed me as a part-time professional on my seventeenth birthday for a wage of six pounds a week.  By this stage I had won several youth caps to add to my schoolboy tally, and was playing centre-forward for the Seconds, my schoolboy position.  My inside-forward partners were Jimmy McIlroy and another future international and Glasgow Celtic favourite, Bertie Peacock.

Bingy in his Sunderland days

I made my first team debut on 12 March, 1949 against Ballymena at the Showgrounds but not as a centre-forward.  Though I had been rattling in the goals for the Seconds, Manager Grice realized that I did not have the physique to play up the middle against more mature and robust defenders so he switched me to the right wing.

The photograph of me with Johnny Belshaw was taken around the time of my breakthrough to the first team.  It was given to me by a supporter many years ago and I believe it captures quite uniquely, not only the present, but elements of the past and future.  (I have since discovered that the photograph was taken by David McWilliams, Glentoran’s secretary, a few months before Glentoran returned to the Oval.)

Superficially, I suppose, the picture shows me as a confident youth, enjoying a bit of banter with Johnny.  He appears to be saying to me, “see this round piece of leather, it is called a football, get it into the middle and Jimmy McFarlane will do the rest.”

Looking at the photograph again after so many years, I find that it is the almost natural juxtaposition of youth and experience mixed with innocence and maturity, which is so appealing.  There I am, full of exuberance, sleeves rolled above the elbow, socks down round the ankles, raring’ to go, while Johnny, in shirt and tie, bicycle clips and all, imparts the wisdom of age.  What a wonderful portrait!

The photograph’s echo of a not too distant past, however, has a rather more sinister connotation.  Up on the hill sits a fuel-box with its perfect view across to the shipyard and aircraft factory.  The concrete emplacement is a war relic.  Standing defiant in all its futility, it is redolent of the Blitz which wrought slaughter and destruction on Belfast and resulted in my evacuation to my father’s relations in Cookstown and Banbridge.

Much brighter, however, is the picture of the future.  The bomb crater has been filled in, the grass is growing and in the background of the picture piles of earth are indicative of the rebuilding programme, the regeneration of Glentoran in Ballymacarrett.

I played for the Seconds in the first game back at the Oval against Carrick Rangers in the Intermediate Cup.  The ground was officially reopened on 26 August, 1949 with a City Cup game against Linfield. We lost 2-3, but never mind, we were back home, and East Belfast celebrated.

That season brought me my first senior medal when we defeated Linfield 2-0 in the Co. Antrim Shield at Solitude on 20 May, 1950.  I had missed out on a medal the previous season, opting to travel with the Northern Ireland youth squad to an international tournament in Holland, instead of playing in the Irish Cup Final against Derry City which we lost 1-3.  Sammy Nimmick took my place on the wing and I took a little bit of stick, but in truth I wasn’t exactly a regular on the side at the time.

To round off our first season back at the Oval, we finished runners-up in the Irish League and played against FA Cup winners, Arsenal, on 19 May, 1950.  I was up against Lionel Smith, England’s left-back, but managed to score both our goals in a 2-4 defeat before a crowd of nearly 18,000.  Danny Blanchflower, then with Barnsley, guested for us at left-half with Billy Neill, another product of Co-Op Rec. in his usual right-half position.

My last game for Glentoran was against Coleraine at the Oval on 14 October, 1950.  We won 4-0 and I scored to bring my total to 21 goals in 60 games – not bad for a winger!  After an inter-league game against the Football League I signed for Sunderland for around £10,000.  I never thought it would be anything else but the same old roses, roses all the way.  An elated teenager was on his way to England with the world at his feet.

Shortly afterwards Jimmy McIlroy was transferred to Burnley.  The combined transfer fees of McIlroy and me, about £18,000, was spent by Glentoran on building a new reserved stand.

I find it rather ironic talking about this old photograph, with its promise of a return to the Oval, at a period in Glentoran’s history when it is suggested there are plans afoot to leave the ancestral home.  Clearly, I am in no position to offer advice on the options of removal or refurbishment, but I am saddened at the prospect of Glentoran playing anywhere else but the Oval. 

In consequence, the photograph now takes on a particular poignancy; it is very special to me and this is why I chose it.

Two of Northern Irish football's most iconic figures - Pat Jennings and Billy Bingham