Stars of the 1950s such as Tottenham’s Cliff Jones and Peter McParland of Aston Villa are in no doubt that they and their contemporaries would do just as well if they were playing now.
One forum where old pros can savour a little of the adulation the modern player does and air their views pubicly on changes in the game is the corporate box, that essential addition to the twenty-first-century stadium.
As the star hosts in these boxes on match days the veterans mingle with champagne-fuelled clientele eager to ask questions.
Cliff Jones says not only does he enjoy doing this but he gets paid more than he did when he played for Tottenham from 1958-68. And the question he is asked more than any other is how he thinks he would have fared in today’s game. His reply is that the more relevant question would be: how would the modern footballer have done in the time he, Jones, played?
He says: ‘I think players of my period would adjust far better to the modern game than today’s modern footballers would to the game of yesteryear when it was much more physical.
‘The game may be quicker today, but when I played the ball went forward quicker. You watch Barcelona today. Sometimes they pass right across the midfield, 20 or 30 passes, and they’re still in the midfield.’
Terry Allcock, arguably the deadliest striker Norwich City have ever had during his 11 years (1958-69) at the club, has a similar story. ‘These days,’ he says, ‘I still host the match sponsors at Carrow Road. I look after 20, 25 people and many of them say to me, “Do you think you could play in today’s game?” I say, “I’m sure I could because I had two good feet, I could head the ball and I could score goals for fun, really.”
‘And then I say that they couldn’t have played with us because we were too physical.’
Alex Dawson sees in the modern game the same possibilities that existed for him when he started out for Manchester United in the 1950s: ‘In one respect I wouldn’t really fit in today because the game’s played at a much faster pace. On the other hand what I did was score goals and I think if you’ve got that ability it doesn’t matter which era you play in you’ll always be successful.’
Like Dawson, Peter McParland, an ace scorer for Aston Villa (1952-62), was an attacking forward who sees even greater scope in the modern game for his style of play than existed in his day. ‘I’d fancy playing against lots of the defenders in England now,’ he says, ‘because they give you space. I liked a wee bit of space to get a smack at it, get in and score a goal.
‘If you gave me space I was always capable of eating it up and getting something out of it. And that’s happening now in the game in the goalmouth and my job was to be in there getting touches and that.’
What McParland says he would not enjoy about playing today is ‘all the shady stuff that they do, pull your shirt and all that, which is absolutely outrageous as far as I’m concerned.
‘And you have to put up with it otherwise you’d probably be off for hitting people.
‘During my career you could probably count on one hand the number of times my shirt was pulled. Nobody pulled your shirt and it’s annoying to watch that sort of stuff.
‘When someone came to mark you tight for a corner kick we didn’t pull each other and wrestle with each other and all that because the referee would have given a penalty. Now it’s a penalty only once in a blue moon.
‘I think they’ve got to look at that now. The managers don’t care now if they’re doing it because they’re getting away with it. If they didn’t the manager would have to say, “Hey, you’ve got to stop pulling shirts and dragging fellas down in the penalty area”.’
Howard Riley, an artful winger for Leicester City (1955-65), speaks for ‘most of my generation’. He reckons ‘we’d have been OK playing the modern game. We’d have adapted. As long as players have got the skills and the speed and the awareness – that’s what it’s about.’
This is an edited extract from When Footballers Were Skint by Jon Henderson / @hendojon pubished by Biteback Publishing.