I’d share a cup of tea with all the Monty Python boys then head back just before kick-off
CHELSEA GREAT DAVE WEBB AND HIS SON DANNY TALK MANSIONS IN MAYFAIR, THE KING’S ROAD AND TRYING TO GET ORIENT TO WEMBLEY
The granite features of Chelsea legend Dave Webb soften as he starts listing the qualities of his son, Daniel. Good-looking, popular, tolerant, wellspoken, well-dressed.
‘I like fashion to be fair but I go on a budget,’ interjects Danny. ‘Dad was into his clothes at Chelsea, went shopping down the King’s Road. I’ve got Billericay high Street.’
The pair crack up, not for the only time in a joint interview at Leyton Orient’s training ground in Chigwell.
Danny, the club’s first-team coach, has just finished a training session, hence the tracksuit. Dave is visiting from home in Norfolk to wish his boy luck for tomorrow’s FA Trophy semi-final second leg against Telford.
Orient hold a 1-0 lead so Danny is within touching distance of Wembley where his dad played for Chelsea in the infamous 1970 FA Cup Final against Leeds.
‘That first game was a nightmare. I got mullered at full back by eddie Gray,’ recalls Dave. ‘Ron harris wasn’t any help next to me. he’d only just passed a fitness test which consisted of 10 knees to the chest and nothing else. We were lucky to get a draw and when the Leeds coach pulled up next to us outside Wembley, Jackie Charlton gave the two fingers through the window.
‘The only person who had a nice word afterwards was the actor Michael Crawford who told me he’d never seen a player with more bottle. Michael was a big Chelsea fan, he became a good mucker and later on I read through the scripts for Some
Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em with him.’ Chelsea put their bovver boots on for the replay at Old Trafford in one of the dirtiest FA Cup finals and Webb scored the winner as Chelsea triumphed 2-1.
That team came to represent the glamour of Swinging London and Webb wasn’t averse to schmoozing with the celebs who flocked to Stamford Bridge.
‘All the Monty Python boys went to San Fredianos restaurant on the Fulham Road before games,’ he recalls. ‘eric Idle, John Cleese, Marty Feldman, Ian La Frenais (who wrote The
Likely Lads). I’d pop over after our team meal and they’d make me a cup of tea. Then I’d go back 20 minutes before kick- off. I didn’t like to hang around the dressing room too long.’
Dave grew up in east London, a stone’s throw from the current Olympic Stadium.
‘The stadium itself used to be the old tip where my dad dropped all the rubbish for his lorry business,’ he says. ‘I was an extrovert and fighting my way up was in my nature. You had to be a footballer, boxer or villain to get out of that environment. I started at Orient where Daniel is now. They had money troubles and the other players used to say in training, “Don’t kick Webby, he’s our summer wages”.
‘Southampton bought me and then I moved to Chelsea (in 1968). I’d drive into the car park and sell stuff from my boot; clothes, records, anything. They saw me as a proper Cockney.’
Danny was born in Bournemouth
in 1983, where Dave was playing for his last professional club.
Danny had a less exalted playing career with 16 different clubs in lower and non-league football but at 35 could yet develop into the best manager in his family.
‘i didn’t grow up in a council estate, far from it. i was lucky to be in nice houses, good schools,’ says Danny. ‘My toughening up came from football. i remember fans coming to our house to protest when Dad was involved at Brentford. it was horrible. i also played for him as a teenager at Southend. if results went wrong, my name was booed when it was read out before kick-off.
‘it wasn’t nice for a sensitive young player, but looking back, it hardened me. i definitely enjoy being a coach more than playing. i just feel comfortable.’
Danny has been at Orient for seven years, coaching at every level from Under 14s to the first team during the most turbulent times in the club’s history. in 2017, their 112-year stay in the Football League ended with relegation under notorious owner Francesco Becchetti, who subsequently sold the club to local businessman Nigel Travis. Orient are on the up again, top of the National League with Webb supporting manager Justin Edinburgh.
Briefly in 2017, Webb became one of Becchetti’s nine bosses in three crazy years, but resigned after 61 days. ‘He’d turn up at the training ground out of the blue with a driver, bodyguard and four or five gofers behind him, laughing at his jokes,’ says Danny.
‘i heard from other managers that he put on presentations where the players would gather round and he’d lay into them: “You’re s***, how did you miss that goal, why am i paying you for this?”
‘He had presence and i remember him once paying for a meal where the bill came to £12,000.
‘Sometimes, i’d get the call to go to his eight-floor house in Mayfair which must have been worth £60million. it was intimidating because you were on your own and he had all his cronies. in the end i chose to resign on principle.’
Webb Jnr quit after receiving a written warning about criticism he had made following a defeat at Crawley. ‘i am proud i stood up to him,’ he says. ‘The highlight was winning at Plymouth when we took 150 fans all that way. it’s for them i want to get promotion and go to Wembley.’
Dave is nearly 73 but still ducking and diving. He is currently doing up a property near Yarmouth, renting a house from the parents of Oscar-winning actress Olivia Colman nearby. He has dropped into the Houses of Parliament to have coffee with Jacob Rees-Mogg, the local MP in Somerset where Webb owns a coal mine.
‘At first i thought he’d be too posh but once you get past the accent you realise he talks straight just like i do,’ says Dave.
in contrast, he rarely returns to Chelsea, though he was introduced on the pitch for a game against Arsenal in 2014. ‘The away fans started chanting “Who the f***ing hell are you” — i had to laugh, i wouldn’t have known either at their age,’ laughs Dave.
He’s being modest of course. Danny says he’s taken aback by how many fans of all generations still recognise his old man.
Danny’s first trip to Wembley, was as a six-year- old to see the 1990 FA Cup final between Manchester United and Crystal Palace. Now he’s 90 minutes away from sitting in the dugout. His old man will be as proud as punch.
‘When Daniel was a youth-team player at Southampton, i always regret taking him with us to Essex when i got the Southend job. in retrospect it wasn’t fair to his career,’ admits Dave.
‘But i think he will become an excellent manager. He’s more open-minded than i was. When Dave Sexton (his Chelsea boss) gave me a dossier on the opposition, i’d throw it in the bin.’