Footballing legend ‘Baron’ who beat the Busby Babes
A new biography of Bristol Rovers legend Alfie Biggs, the man who scored two goals against the Busby Babes, is about to be launched. Eugene Byrne has been leafing through it and finds it’s a great story.
IS there are special Gashead in your life? If so, you can thank us now for sorting out your Christmas present for him/her.
Alfie Biggs: Bristol Rovers Eastville Baron by Ian Haddrell and Mike Jay is published this week, telling the story of one of the club’s most liked and likeable players.
Even if you’re too young to know much about him, this nicely written and meticulously researched biography will put you right back on the terraces at Eastville in the days when footballers had a couple of cigarettes at half-time and didn’t earn a great deal more than most of the fans.
Known as a natty dresser (hence “The Baron” or “The Baron of Eastville”) Biggs was the club’s second-highest scorer of all time when he passed away nine years ago. He terrorised defenders, scoring 199 goals in 473 (senior) games over two spells with Rovers.
But the thing that gets elderly Gasheads all watery-eyed was the famous occasion in the 1956 FA Cup when Rovers played at home against Manchester United.
This was not just any Manchester United team; this was the “Busby Babes” no less. Rovers thrashed them four goals to nil, with Biggs scoring two of them. (Barrie Meyer got the other one, and Geoff Bradford took a successful penalty.) What may seem more remarkable nowadays is that Biggs, aged 19, was still doing his National Service, though the Army could be reasonably indulgent towards the commitments of professional footballers, provided they played for Army sides as well. And the Army always came first, of course.
So as Lance-Corporal Biggs hammered home his attack, many in the 36,000-strong crowd were said to have yelled: “Make him a General!!”
Born in 1936, one of eight children, Biggs grew up in Knowle West, attending Ilminster Avenue and Connaught Road schools.
His talent was spotted early. He played for Bristol Boys and Eagle House Youth Club before signing for Rovers.
As was so often the way of things with Bristol footballers, he almost signed for the local opposition – he came from City’s heartlands,
after all. The legend goes that he was invited to Ashton Gate for a trial and duly turned up on time, but got so fed up at being kept waiting that he caught a couple of buses over to Eastville instead!
(Alas, Biggs himself denied the legend. “I went to Ashton Gate, but they had taken their full quota of Bristol players, so I joined Rovers,” was his matter-of-fact reply whenever the story came up.)
Rovers snapped up this big lad of 15 as his form had already been spotted playing in the junior leagues.
He made his first team debut for Rovers at a Division Two away game to Lincoln two days before his 18th birthday.
Rovers never regretted hiring him. Playing on the wings or as a forward, often in partnership with
Bradford, he was an exciting player, as stylish off the pitch as on it, spending much of his wages – which he later recalled rarely got above £20 a week – on clothes.
Much of the rest went on what passed for high living in the 1950s
and 60s and he was renowned for his ability to show up fresh and fit at training sessions the mornings after nights out which left other team members very queasy.
There is, though, another story about how manager Bert Tann, unimpressed with the team’s form, ordered them on a crosscountry run and was astonished to find Biggs coming in first. Until one of the club directors ratted him out, telling Tann he’d seen Biggs, in boots and kit, getting off a bus on the Muller Road.
In 1961, he moved to Preston North End, and scored 22 times in 49 games before re-signing for Rovers in 1962.
For all his style, he was a surprisingly modest man. Interviewed by the Post 20 years ago he said: “It doesn’t matter whether you are talking about modern players or ones from 30 or 40 years ago, the one thing you can say is that they are born with that skill and it’s not something that can be taught. If you have it, you are very lucky because it’s a gift.”
He was also philosophical about the money. His £20 a week was, he said, still about twice what other men in skilled jobs were being paid, so …
He left Rovers in 1968 and worked for some other teams before becoming a car salesman and, later, a security man at Bristol University before he and his wife Marion moved to Poole in Dorset. By then they had had three grownup children.
(The couple met at a dance at the Grand Hotel; he asked her if she liked football, and when she replied she didn’t he told her he was a dustman. By that point he was already a celebrity after the Manchester match and she wondered how he knew so many people…)
Alfie Biggs died in 2012 and several Rovers fans travelled to Poole for the funeral. The book has a wonderful story his daughter Juliet told at the service.
She had just moved into a new house in Watford not long after having a baby. She answered a knock on the door with the baby in her arms and a delivery man was there with a cupboard she had ordered. Bringing the box up the stairs for her he asked, in a very Bristolian accent, what the baby’s name was.
“Alfie,” she replied.
“Ah, my footballing hero was named Alfie, played for Bristol Rovers,” he said.
She then told him that the baby was Alfie’s grandson. He dropped the box and hugged them with tears in his eyes, saying: “The hours of pleasure your dad gave me!”
» Alfie Biggs: Bristol Rovers Eastville Baron by Ian Haddrell and Mike Jay will be launched at the Memorial Ground on Saturday, October 23, before the Newport County game. This will be in the supporters’ bar at the Blackthorn End of the ground between 12.30pm and 2.15pm. As well as the authors, members of Biggs’ family hope to be present as well.
If you can’t make the launch, the book should be available from the usual outlets, or by mail order, price £14 + £2.50 post and packing (within the UK). For details, email eastvillegas@live.co.uk