Happy Birthday Waggy! Hull City’s ‘greatest’ player turns 80
MEMORIES: Ken Wagstaff, for many the finest player in Hull City history, with picture boards put together to celebrate his 80th birthday
EXCLUSIVE
By Phil Ascough
Happy birthday dear Waggy. Ken Wagstaff, the Hull City legend and to many fans the greatest ever to don the Black and Amber, turns 80 today.
His memory isn’t as sharp as his finishing – not many things are – and a conversation about his celebrated career throws up a few surprises. Not least is the nod to a few people outside football who clearly mean almost as much to Waggy as his former team mates Chris Chilton and Ken Houghton.
There’s Tom Courtenay – Sir Tom since 2001 – whose passion for City led to them becoming firm friends, even to the point of the actor presenting the player with a pair of boots. Not the football variety but the sort worn by Tom in the snow scenes of the 1965 film Dr Zhivago, winner of five Oscars.
Through Tom, Waggy met other celebrities including John Alderton. In later years he met Omar Sharif, who played the title role in Dr Zhivago and became a big fan of the Tigers. Waggy also went to prison.
“I had only ever been to London on the players’ bus but when I went to stay with Tom I went by car,” he recalled.
“On one trip he told me to bring my boots. I said I wasn’t allowed to play or the club would give me hell. Tom said we would be playing in a prison and I would be playing alongside him. I said I would get fined if the club found out, and he said if that happened he would pay it.
FRIENDS AND LEGENDS: Ken Wagstaff and Sir Tom Courtenay enjoying Hull City’s appearance in the 2014 FA Cup Final
“There were a lot of stars in our team. It was celebrities against prisoners. He was a lovely bloke and we had a lot of laughs. The other players used to say I’d end up getting a part in a film.”
We met at Waggy’s daughter Francesca’s house in Sutton to talk about his 80 years and to chat about the World Cup, inevitably making the connection with that Gordon Banks confrontation.
England’s 1966 World Cup-winning keeper was still the nation’s number one when he arrived at Boothferry Park with Stoke City in March 1971 to try to shut out the Tigers in the FA Cup Quarter-Final.
Waggy struck twice, with both goals perfect examples of the striker’s art. His close control and eye for a half-chance made First Division defenders appear flat-footed as he fired first to the keeper’s right and then the left, the second shot leaving Banks in despair and on his back. Stoke replied with three goals to progress to the Semi-Final but Gordon Banks knew he had met his match and apparently called him a bar steward, or something like that, which may have been prophetic given Waggy’s later role running Marlborough Cub in Hessle.
But what about the reports that Waggy had his eyes closed when he despatched those chances past the England legend?
“I always used to shut my eyes,” he confirmed.
PROUD: Ken Wagstaff with grandson Jacob
“I shut my eyes as I kicked the ball. It was habit. I can remember hundreds of times running through against the goalkeeper but I can’t remember the ball going into the net.”
So it’s perhaps not surprising that such an instinctive finisher was happy to hand Ken Houghton the responsibility for penalties.
“Goalkeepers never worried me,” he said
“If I got the ball I knew immediately what I was going to do. When I was running through with the ball I always knew what I was going to do – I sent Banks the wrong way twice. But I wouldn’t take penalties because I didn’t like it.
“I only took two. Scored one and missed one so said I wasn’t going to do it again. Raich Carter asked me but I wouldn’t take them. Everything had stopped, the game had stopped, the crowd was quiet and there’s just the goalkeeper and the ball on the spot and for some reason I couldn’t handle it. Ken was quiet and a marvellous penalty taker.”
Waggy won a few penalties though, most of them the fruits of an almost telepathic understanding with strike partner Chris Chilton, the legendary Chillo.
CELEBRATION: With actor Adrian Hood at Waggy’s 80th birthday party
“The players in your side help you through it and me and Chillo were good together because he was so good in the air.
“I just knew from playing with him what he was going to do. He got in a lot of fights and scrapes because we played against a lot of dirty buggers. The opposing managers saw us as the two main players they had to stop and they could only do that by injuring us.
“There were a lot of dirty tackles and in those days the refs didn’t do much about it but Chillo was hard enough to look after himself. He had a load of stitches during his career. Now you only have to touch someone and you’re off.
“I learnt how to fall properly if someone caught me. You only fell when you got kicked but I got Ken Houghton a lot of penalties. I couldn’t have fallen over that many times though because I was the leading goal scorer!”
His fondest memory was another FA Cup Quarter-Final, a 2–2 draw at Stamford Bridge in 1966 when he rescued the game for City – then a Third Division side – with two goals in the last ten minutes past England’s second-choice keeper Peter Bonetti after Chelsea had struck twice in the first-half. The replay attracted a crowd of more than 45,000 to Boothferry Park on General Election day but the First Division team won 3–1.
Waggy stayed with City until retirement in 1975. He was made aware by manager Cliff Britton of approaches by other clubs during the 1960s but it seems he was happy to claim his rewards in goals and glory.
FAMILY: With grandsons Edward and Jacob
He said: “Harold Needler wouldn’t sell me and the supporters were good with me. Cliff said another club wanted to sign me but Needler told them they had more chance of buying the town hall clock!”
His recent visits to watch City have been few and far between, the last one being the unveiling of the Chris Chilton stand earlier this year.
“I can’t be doing with all this passing back to the goalkeeper,” he said.
“Maybe it’s because I’ve played the game. People go to football to see their team win and to get excited about it. There’s got to be entertainment.”
But only to a point. He’s critical of nine-year-old Jacob, one of Francesca’s two boys, for tending towards showboating: “He will be all right if he sticks at it but he’s very flashy with the ball so he needs to stop that.”
Five-year-old Edward isn’t showing much interest in football yet, but he’s the same age as Waggy was when he first played the game.
Waggy said: “My grandad had a small farm. He said he had got me a football and it was a pig’s bladder so we played football with it in the street.”
Waggy worked down the pit in his home village of Langwith in Nottinghamshire and played for the miners’ welfare on a Saturday afternoon. Former City legend Raich Carter knew a good player when he saw one and snapped him up for Mansfield Town in 1960 before recommending him to Cliff Britton in 1963. On another day they might have got two for the price of one.
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Waggy said: “My brother Terry was a better player than me but he wanted to be with his mates and just play at weekends. When we were young we weren’t bothered about money. We just wanted to be in the team and I found that with a lot of clubs.
“Now it’s all about money. Carter said I was such a good player because I loved football. I just wanted to play and I had done since I was five years old. I’m only a miner’s son.”
Family and friends came together for an 80th birthday party a few weeks ago attended by other celebrities, including the actor Adrian Hood and Hull-born actor and director Barrie Rutter, who penned a poem to mark the occasion.
Today Waggy is planning a quiet celebration and a visit to see Jacob and Edward.
He said: “I can’t be going to all these parties. I’m not 22 again.”
Number 10, by Barrie Rutter
“Now then Ken” – said Carter coach – “Don’t rush to move,
“You owe the Mansfield fans an obligation!
“Hone your skills and in good time I will approve
“A handsome fee and transfer to an auspicious destination.”
The lad from Langwith’s ripening reputation
And skilful, soaring, silky scintillation,
Merging with the swelling aspiration
Expressed by Tiger fans in sweet anticipation,
Swiftly sped to blissful forward line creation –
With rapid, prompt, deserving veneration –
Guaranteed to fertilise frustration
In rival teams’ defence deliberation.
The Boothf’ry roar his musical, constant celebration.
Salute the Langwith boy!
Sing “Waggy, Waggy, Waggy,
Oy, Oy, Oy”.
One cloudy, cup-tie Saturday
He split the serried ranks
And sunk a pair of poacher’s strikes
Bamboozling Stoke’s and England’s Gordon Banks
Salute the Langwith boy!
Sing “Waggy, Waggy, Waggy,
Oy, Oy, Oy”.
Unique among the League Association,
Rewarded with a double dedication
Of soccer’s “greatest artist” salutation
Stag and Tiger accolades in glorious acclamation.