Sport Jim White
A TWO-HIT WONDER
I had an unexpected encounter in prison just before Christmas. No, this isn’t a Wilfred De’ath tribute column. I was there to support my wife, who runs a charity that produces original works of drama with prisoners.
Her latest extravaganza was a pantomime at HMP Spring Hill, an open prison in Buckinghamshire. Before curtain up, when I was sitting among the lags in the audience, I felt a tap on the shoulder. Turning, I was confronted by a prisoner considerably older than the rest. ‘I know you,’ he said. I replied that I didn’t think so. But he persisted, ‘Yes we have, you once interviewed me.’ I was wearing a suit and tie, having been to an awards lunch earlier, and assumed that was the source of confusion. ‘I’m not a policeman,’ I said. To which he replied: ‘I know you’re not, you’re a journalist, you once interviewed me for the Telegraph.’
It turned out this was Ricky George, who scored one of the greatest ever FA Cup giant-killing goals: the winner for Hereford United against Newcastle in 1972 (Ronnie Radford scored Hereford’s first, a scorcher). The victory has become a staple of television coverage, the glorious exemplar of the Cup’s expectation-defying possibilities. But I interviewed him because, in 1998, he was co-owner of Earth Summit, the Grand National winner. Like his Hereford goal, it was an isolated moment of sporting triumph. His autobiography, released in 2003, summed up his career. It was called One Goal, One Horse.
Once he had told me who he was I recalled our encounter at Aintree, a moment of unalloyed joy completely at odds with his hangdog expression as he sat in his prison fatigues.
After the performance, we had a chat. He asked me what brought me there. I felt like replying, ‘Never mind what brings me, what about you?’ But, aware of my wife’s insistence that prison etiquette means visitors shouldn’t ask an inmate his offence, I skirted the elephant in the room. He did, however, tell me that his old friend John Motson, who cut his commentary teeth getting excited about that Hereford victory, had been to visit him, which had clearly cheered him up.
I asked him if he was going to get involved with the prison football team. He said his knees were shot these days, but he might do a bit of coaching. As we spoke it was clear the young prisoners around him had no idea who this
72-year-old was or what he had achieved, nor did they have any clue of the significance of that wonderful Hereford victory. Which was how he liked it. He had kept his head down, he said.
As I left the prison, and was reunited with my phone, I googled what he had done. He had been sentenced last September to two years for money laundering. His son had fraudulently sold a property that didn’t belong to him, then parked £250,000 in Ricky’s account. So traumatic had the scam been that the poor victim had a heart attack. It was, in short, a pretty shabby offence.
Nevertheless I couldn’t help but think of Ricky when I saw the coverage of this year’s FA Cup, and the giant-killing feats of Barnet as they beat Sheffield United, and Newport in seeing off Leicester. I thought of the magnificent memories those involved were banking, ready to be withdrawn in times of need. And right now, for Ricky they must be memories he returns to as he sits in his cell, wondering how on earth he ended up where he is.