Western Daily Press (Saturday)
TALENTED ROVERS WINGER WHO WAS REPLACED BY PELE
Harold Jarman can celebrate his 80th birthday later this year secure in the knowledge that he will forever remain an icon of Bristol sport.
WHO else can claim to have played first-class cricket for Gloucestershire, while being such a crowd-pleaser as a professional footballer that the mere mention of his first name among Bristol Rovers fans brings to mind only one person?
The chants of “Ha-rold, Ha-rold” that rang around Eastville in the mid to late 1960s were inspired by a fraillooking winger, who could look disinterested at one moment and the next cut through an opposing defence like a knife through melting butter.
A dip of the shoulder and sudden turn of pace would leave defenders floundering. Add a finishing ability that brought 143 goals for Rovers, and it is no wonder Harold Jarman remains to this day one of the most popular players ever to have donned the blue and white quarters.
Five decades later, he grins sheepishly when reminded of the adulation that led to his christian name being adopted as a chant and talks of it with more than a trace of embarrassment.
“It started during a match against Queens Park Rangers and Rodney Marsh was playing for them,” he told me when we met up at his Westburyon-Trym home.
“Their supporters started singing ‘Rod-ney, Rod-ney’, so our fans responded by chanting my name.
“It stuck after that and I only had to take up my position on the wing at Eastville for the chant of ‘Ha-rold’ to break out. I don’t know what the other players thought because I could be playing like a dipstick!
“In fact, the backing from the supporters did me a lot of good because the one thing I really lacked as a player was confidence.”
Still a keen golfer, Jarman can look back on a life in sport that also saw him play football for New York Cosmos, manage his beloved Rovers and play in 45 first-class cricket matches for Gloucestershire.
He also featured in 13 one-day games for the county, including the famous Gillette Cup semi-final against Lancashire at Old Trafford in 1971, which finished in near darkness with a David Hughes assault on the bowling of John Mortimore that took the hosts to an unlikely victory.
“I bumped into Mike Procter a year ago and reminded him that when the game finished he still had an over left to bowl,” recalled Harold. “We couldn’t put a bowler of his pace on because it was too dark.
“A lot of people watched the end of the match on television, but that
Backing from the suppoorters did me a lot of good because the one thing I really lacked as a player was confidence HAROLD JARMAN
gave a false impression. The pictures made it look a lot lighter than was the case.”
Harold was recruited by Gloucestershire before he joined Rovers, his talent at cricket having surfaced as a young boy.
“Fortunately, I had a very good schoolmaster, who recognised I had some talent at cricket,” he said. “When I was nine he actually paid for me to attend coaching lessons run by the Bristol Evening Post.
“I didn’t prefer cricket to football or the other way around. In those days at school you played football until April when it stopped completely and you switched to cricket.
“Gloucestershire spotted me before Bristol Rovers. I had played cricket from Bristol Boys when I was 12 and around that time I was invited to the County Ground to have coaching lessons from George Emmett and George Lambert.
“At 14 I received an award as the best young cricketer in Bristol. I made my debut for Gloucestershire second XI away to Hampshire on a grey day and their first team opening bowler, Butch White, was playing. He ripped through us to such an extent that we were bowled out for 28. I top scored with eight - four twos down to fine leg, trying to defend myself!”
Sonny Avery, who coached at Gloucestershire after a long playing career with Essex, captained the second XI that day and Harold vividly remembers his response to the rout.
“He got very cross and told us he would show us how to bat,” he said. “In our second innings he made 164 not out and came in saying ‘that’s the way to play’.
“I was 17. By that time I was playing football in the Downs League with my brothers and absolutely loving it. The team finished runners-up three times while I was involved.”
After his years on the Downs, Harold, a Bristol City fan as a boy, moved to play for Victoria Athletic in the park across the road from Ashton Gate.
“We used to get good crowds for the first half hour of our game,” he laughed. “It was people on the way to watch the City play.
“Brought up in Hotwells, I was a supporter myself. I was in the crowd when they played Blackpool in the FA Cup and Stan Matthews was in the visiting team.
“I used to go training with City on Wednesday nights. But the manager of the time, Peter Doherty, signed a
lot of players from up north and wasn’t interested in Bristol boys.”
City’s loss proved to be their archrivals’ gain.
Rovers stepped in with an offer and Harold made his League debut against Swansea City as a 20-yearold on Boxing Day 1959. Over the next 14 years he became a club legend.
It quickly became apparent which of his two favourite sports would provide the better living.
“I was paid £6 a week to play for Gloucestershire and £14 a week in the reserves at Rovers,” he recalled.
By the 1961-62 season Harold was established in the Rovers first team, scoring in Second Division games at Newcastle United, where the attendance was 23,180 and against Sunderland at Roker Park in front of 32,650 spectators.
Rovers were heavily defeated in both games, but Harold also featured in some big wins, notably a 7-0 thrashing of Shrewsbury Town in March 1964 when he scored two of the goals.
The 1966-67 season saw him net 19 times from the wing, only four less than top scorer Alfie Biggs, with whom he formed a formidable alliance.
No one was surprised when a Jarman cross was thumped home by the head of centre-forward Biggs.
“Alfie was First Division quality,” said Harold. “He had a knack of being able to drift into the right places in the box to meet crosses. As a winger, you can’t ask for more.
“I played in a forward line along side Alfie, Geoff Bradford, Dai Ward and Peter Hooper, who all scored more than 100 League goals.
“Bradford was amazing. He once said quietly to me ‘If you are in any doubt about what to do with ball just put it in the back of the net and we will start again’.
“That’s what he used to do. No hesitation. Just bang and the net was bulging.”
One of Harold’s favourite memories of his playing days with Rovers is a League Cup tie against West Ham United in the 1965-66 season. The teams drew 3-3 at Eastville before the Hammers won the replay 3-2.
“Their team included Bobby Moore, Martin Peters and Geoff Hurst, who were soon to help England win the World Cup,” he said. “I scored the equaliser in the drawn match, when they all played. Bobby Moore was an outstanding player, but he wasn’t the quickest and Bobby Jones, who could do the 100 yards in 11 seconds, gave him a lot of problems during the match at Eastville.”
By December 1972, Harold was reaching the end of his illustrious spell with Rovers, but still had the ability to score twice in a 2-1 home win over Charlton Athletic. The following April his final League appearance against Swansea City ensured bookends to his time at Eastville. Rovers won 3-1, just as they had done against the same opposition on his debut.
Harold’s last games as a professional in the Football League were for Newport County, the club he joined for the 1973-74 season. Then came an opportunity out of the blue that added a new and exciting final chapter to his career.
“I was finishing off at Newport and one day I visited my old Rovers teammate Doug Hillard, who by then was running a sports shop in Bristol.
“A chap came in talking with an American accent, but he turned out to be Bristolian. We got chatting and he suddenly asked me if I was interested in going to New York.
“I had barely been abroad, but I said yes and he told me he would tell Gordon Bradley, who was coach at New York Cosmos.
“Gordon had played for Carlisle United and in 1961 came to Rovers for a trial. He was with us for a fortnight and I had happened to make good friends with him.
“The next thing I know he has come over from America to watch me playing for Newport. I met him and took him home for tea. We talked for a while and it turned out I could earn three times as much play- ing as a part-timer for New York as I was being paid full-time at Newport.
“I had never known as much money. After Gordon had watched me a couple of times we agreed a deal and I went over.
“There weren’t many well known names in the Cosmos team at the time, although they did return to England to sign Geoff Vowden, who had been scoring goals for Aston Villa.”
It was the early days of a second attempt to launch professional soccer in America. The first had failed, but now Warner Brothers owned the Cosmos and there was a lot of money flying around.
Harold added: “The club had an office on Fifth Avenue and everywhere we went to play we travelled by plane. There were a few early AstroTurf pitches, on which if you made a slide tackle you got burn marks all up your side.
“We played at a lot of baseball stadiums, in places like Philadelphia and Baltimore, or grounds inside of a university.
“I remember playing at San Jose on an American Football pitch that was only 50 yards wide. I scored two goals that day and had two more disallowed for offside even though the cross was pulled back to me both times.
“The officials didn’t seem to know the laws of the game. It’s a lot different now, with the game really having taken off in the States.”
Harold made 18 appearances for Cosmos in 1974. To this day he proudly points out that the player the club signed to replace him was Pele, who arrived for the 1975 season.
Still keen to play, Harold donned the shirts of Mangotsfield United and Portway-Bristol where he had a first taste of being a manager.
Soon it was back to his beloved Rovers. Appointed youth coach in 1978, he nurtured the talents of Gary Mabbutt and Geraint Williams among a host of talented youngsters.
He was made first team manager for a short spell in the 1979-80 season, in succession to Bobby Campbell, before changes in the boardroom led to Terry Cooper’s appointment. Later Harold returned to the club for a second stint as youth coach.
“I loved working with young players,” he said. “As many as ten of the first youth squad I worked with went on to play for the first team. When I became caretaker-manager at Rovers I only did one thing different to Bobby Campbell, who I loved and was a real football man.
“The team had been struggling and I asked the players what formation they felt most comfortable in. The answer was they liked manmarking and playing with a sweeper in front of the back-four. That’s what we did and we won the first two games. Then we lost two, but we eventually took enough points to stay up. I’d have loved to keep the job
“Unfortunately, there was a lot of politics going on at the club and that period is probably best forgotten. Terry Cooper had very little experience as a manager and the following season Rovers were down by Christmas.”
Harold is not one to harbour regrets and acknowledges that he was very lucky to play two sports he loved at professional level.
How does he feel about his 80th birthday on May 4? “I wish it was my 30th,” he said, with a trademark modest smile.