Page 39 - 368603 LP250721 AWY AWY AWY Book (238pp A5)

my brother” I replied and the lad looked a bit mortified. Anyway, the team was coached by two brothers, Eric and Dennis Lidell who were relatives of Billy Liddell who’d been top scorer for Liverpool for many seasons in the Forties and Fifties. They were planning to start a junior team and this was the chance for me to join in the training sessions.
We did lots of exercises in the gym and would often go out into the deserted stadium and run around the perimeter track. One night I jogged around with one of the Liddell brothers and the whole place was completely silent and blanketed in snow. It was a magical moment. Another night Sunderland’s manager, Ian McColl, came down to the gym and put us through our paces for a while. He threw the ball to each of us and we had to head it back to him but when my big moment came, I duffed my header and McColl said, “You’ll have to do better than that, laddie.” On a positive note, one of the Liddells once said, “Graham, I’ll tell you one thing Ian can do that you can’t do – and that’s, head the ball.” This partly made up for my earlier mistake. I never did get to play for any Roker Meths junior side. I’m pretty sure I stopped going after one too many thumps and bollockings from Graham. I vaguely recall later being in the company of one of the Liddells and him criticizing me for not continuing with something that I’d started but I didn’t explain to them why I’d stopped coming. Graham was regularly in the Roker Meths team and, as I mentioned earlier, the best thing that happened for him and some of the others was that they worked as ball-boys and photographers assistants at the
31