THEY DON’T MAKE THEM LIKE IVOR BROADIS ANY MORE!
He flew on Lancaster bombers in the war and sold himself to Sunderland while player-manager at Carlisle
IT FEELS almost like time travel. Ivor Broadis, England’s oldest surviving international at 95 years, pulls on the navy blazer he wore during the 1954 World Cup, proudly embroidered with the Three Lions.
In his lap are his England caps, with a glorious blue velvet and gold tassel. A black-and-white picture of Walter Winterbottom’s squad boarding their flight to the finals in Switzerland rests nearby. Broadis traces the faces with his finger and reels off the names; Stanley Matthews, Tom Finney, Billy Wright.
Still, though, we are not quite back in that summer of 64 years ago. Not yet. Now for the time machine. Broadis’s daughter Gillian hands her dad an iPad and YouTube provides us with British Pathe News coverage of England versus Belgium.
Only now, from the surrounds of the Cumbrian countryside, are we taken back to that June afternoon and the St Jakob Stadium in Basle. The footage is jumpy and there is no sound, but this is all Broadis needs. He draws breath as Matthews skips through the middle and splits the Belgian defence with a pass for a team-mate to chase. The picture cuts to a closer angle. The team-mate is Broadis. One touch to beat the defender, another to nick it past the keeper. Goal.
‘I was the first England player to score twice at a World Cup,’ announces the former inside-left, who is soon reminded of his second on the screen in his grasp — a low shot after a burst into the penalty area. ‘Not bad,’ he adds.
The game — the first of two group matches — finished 4-4. England beat their Swiss hosts 2-0 three days later before losing 4-2 to Uruguay in the quarter-final.
‘We were better than them,’ says Broadis, then of Newcastle United. ‘But we were at the final as spectators, the Battle of Berne they called it, and we wouldn’t have beaten Hungary or West Germany (the winners). Hungary were the best team in the world, as we knew only too well.’
BrOAdIS does not need visual aids to relive this particular memory, a lingering humiliation coupled with admiration of his opponents ensures that.
It was in Budapest in front of 92,000 only three weeks before the World Cup that a Hungary side including Ferenc Puskas inflicted a 7-1 defeat which still ranks as England’s heaviest.
Among the memorabilia in front of us is a picture of the scoreboard, the name of Broadis the lone Englishman. It is the cap from that game which he later tries on, saying: ‘I haven’t worn this since I was a player. It still fits, so at least I haven’t got big-headed.
‘But Hungary were brilliant, we couldn’t get near them. It’s the only time I’ve come off a pitch with a sunburnt tongue!
‘I remember my goal, left-footed from just inside the box. But I didn’t have the best left foot that day, Puskas was just wonderful, the best I’ve ever seen.’
In 1967 Broadis and Puskas were reunited at Newcastle’s St James’ Park for Jackie Milburn’s testimonial, a match initiated by then Daily Mail journalist doug Weatherall, who, now 85, joins us for lunch in the village of Linstock where Broadis lives with his daughter and son-in-law.
‘Puskas had this huge gut by then but his left foot was still magic,’ recalls Broadis. ‘I remember afterwards and there he was, taking off a corset, everything just fell out!’
during the afternoon Broadis shares tales from a storied life; from the rAF during the Second World War and through his playing days to 45 years as a football reporter.
But talk of 1954 prompts Gillian to interrupt.
‘I was born on May 8 that year,’ she begins. ‘And you know why? My mum was induced so dad could go to the World Cup!’
‘That’s right,’ says Broadis, who also has a son, . ‘You were born in Newcastle. do you remember the doctor?’.
‘How would I remember the bleeding doctor?’ returns Gillian.
‘I remember it like yesterday,’ says Broadis.
‘He was football mad. Your mum didn’t want to do it early and he used to drive her potty, “Ivor can’t miss a chance like this, Mrs Broadis”. So you were born and off I went to the World Cup.’
Had his late wife, Joan, won the argument and waited, would Broadis still have gone to the finals? ‘Possibly,’ he says with a smile. Gillian corrects him: ‘Yeah, right. He would have gone, no doubt.’ IVAN ArTHUr BrOAdIS was born on december 18, 1922 on the Isle of dogs, London.
He became known as ‘Ivor’ after an administrative error while playing as an amateur for Tottenham Hotspur during the war and later he could have signed for them professionally. So why did Broadis, whose Cockney accent endures to this day, join Carlisle instead?
‘I was just 17 and travelling all the way through London to White Hart Lane, getting a trolley bus up the Seven Sisters road,’ he recalls. ‘But after one game they said to me, “We paid you half-a-crown too much last week, we’ve docked it off this week”. I came out and thought, “That’s one bloody club I won’t be joining”.’ Broadis laughs, but the wartime memories soon fade to sorrow.
‘When the German bombers came over, our family went in the Anderson shelter out the back. You’d be in there overnight,’ says Broadis, who has survived his four brothers and two sisters.
‘One morning we came out and the house was in ruins, gone. No compensation, you just start again. I joined the rAF as a navigator and did my training in America, upstate from New York, where I lived with family. I felt lost.’
Flight Lieutenant Broadis completed 500 flying hours on Lancasters and Wellingtons and he was in Italy when news broke that the war was over. He returned British troops to these shores and remembers the emotion of flying back over the white cliffs of dover.
He was posted to Crosby- onEden, near Carlisle, where he met his future wife — a woman Weatherall describes as ‘one of the most beautiful I’ve ever met’ — and word soon spread of the talented southerner new in town.
‘The chairman of Carlisle asked me if I wanted to manage the team,
Spurs docked my money when I was on trial there. I thought ‘I’m not bloody joining them’
I was only 23!’ starts Broadis, still the youngest player-manager in Football League history.
‘But I had some problems. I signed one player and sorted a house for him, all brand new appliances. Next thing, the club secretary has swapped all of them for his old stuff. Bloody crook, I couldn’t work with him.’
ANd so, in 1949, Broadis became the only manager in Football League history to sell himself, joining Sunderland for £18,000.
Had Broadis the manager been impressed with Broadis the player? ‘Well, I was always first name on the team-sheet,’ he returns.
We mention that Bill Shankly succeeded him at Carlisle. Broadis needs no reminding.
‘We became great mates,’ he says. ‘I was still living in Carlisle and Bill used to say, “do you fancy coming back after training in the afternoons?” So it was me and him, playing one-a- side against two chimney pots. And we would play all day, or at least until Bill won.’
At Sunderland — who were nicknamed the Bank of England Club because of their lavish spending — Broadis came within one match of winning the league title only to lose to already relegated Manchester City, who he would later join. One morning, while at City in 1951, there was a knock on the door of his bungalow in Carlisle.
‘It was a policeman,’ says Broadis. ‘You don’t know what to think. “What’s wrong?” I asked. He told me, “You must travel to London. You have been picked to play for England”. What a thrill.’
And so began an international career which would bring 14 caps and eight goals. His favourite?
‘Scotland versus England at Hampden Park — 130,000 — big game,’ he says of a 4-2 victory which took them to the World Cup. ‘Edge of the box, first time, straight in.’ He relives the moment with a flick of his hand.
As we reflect, we determine that he is the only living footballer to have shared a pitch with Finney, Matthews, Puskas, Bobby Charlton and duncan Edwards.
Talk of the latter turns our conversation to the Munich air disaster, which claimed the lives of 23 people including Edwards, as well as Roger Byrne and Tommy Taylor, team-mates of Broadis at the ’54 World Cup. ‘I was back playing for Carlisle in 1958 and was at Gretna Hall at a dinner-dance when the news came through,’ says Broadis. He pauses. ‘God, unbelievable.’
A grieving Broadis sent a poem to a local newspaper. To this day he is upset that it never saw print. Until now. He recites it, perfectly. ‘We mourn them all, a nation’s pride. Oft took the goal, in glorious stride. Safe passage, across the great divide. God’s welcome, on the other side.’ EVERY Sunday afternoon, Broadis and his daughter watch the football on television.
His favourite player is City’s Kevin de Bruyne but he does not care for much of the modern game, especially ‘millionaires with no hunger’.
Broadis reveals that he wore the same boots throughout his career.
‘I got lucky,’ he says. ‘Boots in those days were like clogs, bloody awful. I got a parcel one day with a pair which were soft and light with rubber studs.
‘We went to Old Trafford with Sunderland on Boxing day, ice all over the pitch. They couldn’t catch me. I hit three in no time at all. The door of the dressing room swung open afterwards (Sunderland won 5-3), Tom Curry (the United trainer who died in Munich) came in and said, “Hey, Ivor, our lads reckon you were wearing special boots?”
‘I picked up one of my teammate’s boots and threw it to him, “Take that through and show them”. I wasn’t letting anyone in on my secret!’
Broadis was wearing the same pair when he finished his career at Queen of the South in 1960, where he came up against a teenage striker named Alex Ferguson, then of Queen’s Park. ‘Years later, I heard Sir Alex call my dad “The great Ivor Broadis”,’ says Gillian. ‘But remember, dad, when Southampton beat Man United 6-3 (in 1996) and he said it was the worst defeat of his career?’
Broadis does remember. ‘I know,’ he says, ‘I thought “Hold on, I played against you and beat you 7-1!”’
Now needing a frame to help him walk, Broadis may have lost weight, but not wit. ‘ My legs are getting stronger,’ he declares. There are three dogs in the kitchen. Is he ever tempted to test his old left foot with one of the toy balls? ‘No. Kick the dog, perhaps,’ he says.
‘He always had a lovely turn of phrase,’ remarks Weatherall, before the pair recall the night in Budapest when they were reporters as Newcastle won the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in 1969.
So why did Broadis not return to management? ‘I could always write,’ he says, his scrapbooks revealing the newspaper columns he penned while still a player, including dispatches from an England tour of South America. ‘And you had far less to worry about in the press box than the dugout!’
No regrets, then? ‘Not really,’ he says, ‘I’d do it all again.’
Over a few hours and with the help of his family, an old friend, a blazer and some caps, it feels like he just has.
At Ivor’s request, Sportsmail has made a donation to the Tony Hopper fund, a campaign which supports the former Carlisle player who is battling motor neurone disease.
One day we came out of the bomb shelter and found that our house was in ruins . . . gone