‘I survived Ali only to get a cup beating!’
TERRY HOWARD is trying to decide who stood more chance: him against Muhammad Ali when he offered to take him outside for a few rounds at the 1960 Olympics or Sutton United versus Leeds United when they met 10 years later in the FA Cup.
The 79-year-old is under 5ft 5ins, weighed less than nine stones back then and Ali, on the verge of Olympic gold, was a fresh-faced 18-year-old, almost a foot taller and weighing nearly 13 stones. Compare that to Howard’s Isthmian League Sutton coming up against the footballing heavyweight champions of England, Leeds, in the FA Cup fourth round and it is a close contest of unlikely contests.
‘At the Rome Olympics they had a big hall with music and the athletes used to congregate in there,’ Howard, who was part of the Great Britain football team, tells The Mail on Sunday. ‘Ali was in there one evening so I went up to him. I felt about two-foot-eight compared to him. I said, “Any time you want it, I’m outside, let’s have a couple of rounds”. He laughed — but I made sure I got away from him fast! I fancy my chances, though, I was very quick in those days.’
Howard was selected to represent Great Britain after scoring the winner at Wembley for Hendon against Kingstonian in the FA Amateur Cup Final. A decade later, though, he faced the second against-all-odds match of his career after joining Sutton and drawing Leeds in the FA Cup.
Sutton’s side included a schoolmaster, engineers and a panel-beater and fishmonger Howard who worked at Billingsgate. Yet not even an afternoon against Jack Charlton and Billy Bremner and with Don Revie on the touchline warranted the whole day off work and, having been up since 2am, he almost didn’t make it to the game.
‘My governor wouldn’t let me,’ Howard says. ‘They all knew I was playing. He let me knock off early but once I got across the water, near to Sutton’s ground, it was stop-start-stopstart traffic.’
He had driven to work with his gear in his little Ford, helped set up the stall, made sure that the king prawns, winkles, whelks, muscles and oysters were in the right place and spent the morning selling. When he left he was sure he had plenty of time.
‘I got caught on the motorway that leads to the ground,’ he says. ‘Fortunately I saw a copper and asked if he could help and he cleared the traffic for me. We had a full house [of 14,000] and everyone was trying to get to the game.’
Howard made it in time for the 6-0 drubbing, but Sutton were put out when Leeds parked the coach outside and left without even showering. ‘They didn’t stop,’ Howard says. ‘I don’t think they even got changed. They just chucked their things in the coach and went off. The club had put on something to eat and drink after the game. It was disappointing, although after being beaten 6-0 I was glad to see them go.’
The two heavyweight showdowns were not Howard’s only brush with the stars. In 1966, he lived around the corner from the Redknapps in Stepney and would drop off fish once a week to a young Harry for his dad Henry. Howard wanted to move to Hornchurch and a friend at the market, who worked at West Ham, told him Geoff Hurst was selling his place on Gloucester Avenue. A few months after Hurst had scored a hat-trick to win the World Cup, Howard bought it.