, WALTER S WAY
JOHN LYONS looks at Graham Morse’s book on the career of the pioneering Sir Walter Winterbottom
Winterbottom and his vision
IF YOU are wondering why England have had so little success on the international stage – one World Cup aside – then the biography of Sir Walter Winterbottom sheds some light.
Graham Morse’s fascinating book on his late father-in-law is an incredibly detailed account of Winterbottom’s life and his emphasis on the importance of coaching.
As the founders of football, the feeling back in the day was that we were the best.Yet while other countries took the game on, advanced it, added tactics and strategy, we were stuck in our ways. Until the Hungarians came and put us in our place in 1953.
Winterbottom had been appointed the first England manager in 1946 at the age of 34. He remained in his post until 1962, winning 78, drawing 33 and losing 28 of his 139 games in charge and taking England to the World Cup quarter-finals twice.
Perhaps he would have achieved more if he hadn’t had to put up with a selection committee picking the team!
When he first took over, scepticism abounded from the leading players.Wilf Mannion (in his biography Golden Boy) talked about a prematch training session before a match against Northern Ireland.
“It was a bitterly cold day and there we were practicing a flaming throw in, having to do it the way he wanted. Stan (Matthews) was saying ‘flipping this and flipping that. This is stupid. It’s absolutely mad’ but we had to do it. It was never even thought of until then.You just played… what a waste of time that practice was.We’re still waiting to use it now!”
Winterbottom had seen what other countries were doing, how they were developing the skills of their players and studying the game.Yet in England, a big part of training invariably included doing laps of the pitch and there was the feeling that depriving players of the ball made them hungrier for it on a Saturday.
As Winterbottom cleverly put it,“A billiards player does not train by walking round the table; nor will a footballer better his football skill by running around the field.”
Winterbottom had a dual role at the FA – England team manager and director of coaching. With a teaching background, he enjoyed the scope of the coaching role, taking courses and writing coaching manuals that became must-reads.
His idea was to spread the gospel, to make coaching in England as important as it was in other countries. He liked to encourage his players to think about a coaching career after their playing days
For example,Winterbottom spoke to Bobby Robson and Don Howe after an England training session in 1959.
“What are you going to do when you pack up playing, Bobby?” he said.
“I don’t know,” replied Robson,“I don’t think cleaning windows is an option!”
“Why don’t you both come on one of the senior professional players’ coaching courses at Lilleshall?” said Walter. “You might want to begin a new career as a coach: opportunities are opening up now for people like you.”
Robson, of course, went on to manage England while Howe became one of the finest coaches this country has ever produced.
As England boss,Winterbottom, who had played for Manchester United, had his low moments such as the shock 1-0 defeat to the USA in the 1950 World Cup and those 6-3 and 7-1 defeats against the talented Hungarians in 1953 and 1954 respectively.
Reflecting on the USA defeat,Winterbottom later reflected:“We so dominated the game it was impossible to believe that we could lose, and it was said that in all we hit the bar and posts 11 times.”
The hefty defeats against the fluid, bewitching Hungary led people to realise that there was a need for tac
tics, coaching and strategy, promoting Winterbottom’s beliefs.
“The truth was that football is a test of skill by eleven men against eleven,” said Winterbottom. “If the players in team A are much better than those in team B, then A will be the better team, even though occasionally luck, injuries or a dip in form may mean that they will not always win.
“It is only when players have roughly the same degree of technical excellence and physical fitness that well rehearsed tactics bring results.”
The sub-heading of Morse’s book states that Sir Walter Winterbottom was ‘The Father of Modern English Football’, but he left the FA in 1962 after being surprisingly overlooked for the role of FA secretary. Of course, England went on to win the World Cup four years later under Alf Ramsey, but the cupboard has remained bare since then. Perhaps we should have paid heed to Winterbottom’s zeal for coach
ing all those years ago.