Team-mates in jail, fights and rock ’n’ roll hairdos... we were a Rowdie gang!
ER . . . IT WAS ALL SO DIFFERENT IN THE 1970s
JOE COLE has electrified the place here in Tampa — I cannot begin to tell you the impact he has had. It’s been pretty dead here in a football sense for a few years, but everyone is talking about Joe — he’s all over the newspapers and the television. He is not here for a holiday either. His work-rate and performances have been outstanding. He has so much skill, the crowd love him. It’s like the second coming of Rodney Marsh . . . with a crew-cut! When I came here in 1976, I gave a press conference at the airport when they asked me what it was like to be ‘the white Pele’. I responded by telling them they should ask Pele: ‘What’s it like to be the black Rodney Marsh?’ It caused a bit of a storm. Everyone was coming to the US then. Bobby Moore, Franz Beckenbauer, Johan Cruyff, Eusebio, George Best. George was 28, I was 31. I had hair like Robert Plant, blond and 20 inches long and I used to rub lemon in it every morning. The owner told me: ‘We are the Rowdies, we have a rowdy reputation and we want you to be rowdy!’ I did my best to oblige. The first day I arrived, two of my new team-mates were in prison and another in the hospital after a fight. But we finished top of the league, hammering the New York Cosmos 5-1 at our place in front of 42,000 fans. We lost the return 5-4 in New York. In that game, Pele scythed me down (I’m sure it was a reaction to my comment). The English referee saw the tackle and when I challenged him, he said: ‘Look around you, do you really think I am going to send off Pele?’ Pele and the Cosmos finished second to the Rowdies that season. Now Joe is playing in the equivalent of the second tier here but he is certainly putting bums on seats and is provoking memories of the past. I love watching him play — long may his impact continue.