THE GREATEST
English colossus and Ipswich’s best-ever player dies at 64
KEVIN BEATTIE appeared in classic war movie Escape To Victory as Michael Caine’s body double. Not a lot of people know that.
Between filming scenes, Beattie beat Sylvester Stallone in an armwrestling match. Dear old Sly was so miffed he refused to talk to the Ipswich defender again.
Stallone later raked in millions from his Rocky and Rambo franchises as a Hollywood icon; Beattie’s audience was more local as a pundit on BBC Radio Suffolk.
But in his prime as a player, Beattie was a mighty defender – dynamic, athletic, deceptively quick and impossibly brave. His opinions on the wireless were no less fearless. He died suddenly, from a suspected heart attack, aged 64 early yesterday. It seems inconceivable that a giant of the Old Farm rivalry has been consigned to celestial broad acres.
Born in Carlisle, Beattie turned up for his trial with Ipswich with his boots wrapped in a brown paper parcel and his pocket money.
His value to the club, as they went on to win the FA Cup and UEFA Cup during his 296 games, became incalculable and he regularly topped supporters’ polls as Ipswich’s greatest player of all time.
England’s World Cup-winning manager Sir Alf Ramsey once tipped him to win 100 caps, while Sir Bobby Robson – his mentor at Portman Road – called him the best English player he had ever seen. From Bill Shankly to Don Revie, Beattie was on the wish-list of nearly every top manager with serious money to spend in the transfer market.
A personal recollection is of the rampaging bull who charged 70 yards to meet Kevin Keegan’s cross and head England 2-0 in front, as hapless Scotland keeper Stewart Kennedy wrapped himself around the post like a Morris dancer, in the 5-1 demolition of the auld enemy at Wembley in 1975. Even now, looking at the footage, the mystery remains unsolved: How did Beattie get up there so fast?
It remains a travesty that a player of such extravagant gifts won only nine England caps.
When the music stopped, and a severe knee injury forced him to retire at the age of 28, Beattie became a lost soul.
Down on his luck, and with no pension to break the fall, by his own admission – in his poignanr autobiography The Greatest Footballer England Never Had, published in 2006 – he was reduced to picking up cigarette ends off the street and contemplating suicide.
But the ‘Beat’ was not just a top player: As the man who defeated Rambo at arm-wrestling, he deserves our eternal admiration.