Why £71m Kepa should doff his cap to £30 Harry
HARRY GREGG became the world’s most expensive goalkeeper when Manchester United paid Doncaster £25,700 for him in December 1957.
His cut of the deal was £30. Gregg – now aged 85 but still as sharp as a tack – shows no bitterness when asked about Liverpool spending £67million to buy Alisson from Roma, or Chelsea breaking the record again by signing Atletico Madrid’s Kepa Arrizabalaga for £71.6m.
In fact, the Northern Irishman chuckles as he recalls a story about how the players of yesteryear broke from the shackles of the maximum wage. “I went to a meeting at White City when we were fighting for the maximum wage to be abolished,” said Gregg (above).
“The players knew that clubs weren’t paying them properly. The great Stanley Matthews stood up at the meeting and told it like it was. Stan said: ‘We’ve all been treated no better than serfs. You must do whatever it takes to change things for future players’. We all stood and clapped Stan, a great, great player.
“But then a young lad from Bury got up and said he felt Matthews was wrong. His dad worked all week down a coal mine and was paid a pittance and he wanted to know what made footballers so special. It all went quiet.
“Then Tommy Banks, the Bolton full-back who was one of the hardest men to ever play the game, stood up and gave the young man the perfect answer.
“Tommy said, ‘Tell your ******* dad that next time I’m playing against Brother Matthews I’ll do his shift down the pit and he can come and do my job. Let’s see how he gets on’.
“That brought the house down – and that’s why things eventually changed.”
Frank Swift, the former Manchester City keeper, and ex-blackpool skipper Jimmy Armfield, were remembered with murals at their former school in the seaside resort. Two plaques, paid for by the PFA, were also unveiled – Armfield’s at the Revoe Learning Academy that both men attended as children and Swift’s at the nearby library.
Swift became a journalist after he retired and was killed in the plane crash at Munich that killed eight of United’s Busby Babes. Gregg, who bravely went back into the wreckage to look for other survivors, said: “One of the things that is not well known about the crash is that the players weren’t insured.
“At the time, players weren’t regarded by the men who owned the clubs as being anything special.
“United had Duncan Edwards, Roger Byrne and Eddie Colman, and had bought Ray Wood, Digger (Johnny) Berry and Tommy Taylor and me. But the club said they couldn’t afford to pay insurance premiums.
“That’s how football was back then. I’m sure Alisson and Kepa won’t have that problem!” MATTHEWS