Independent Rs Messageboard

Interview With Ron Springett – Part One

I had met Ron Springett briefly at a Youth Team Kit Sponsors Evening and through his daughter Terry,
an interview was then arranged prior to the Millwall game a few years ago. Mark Jamieson kindly
agreed to come along and help out with the recording etc.

We all sat down in Bobby Ross’s office and the first part of the interview follows:-

SR: Ron, you were born in Fulham and your first team was Victoria United. Who were they and
did you support anyone as a boy?

RS: They were a local Sunday league team. I didn’t follow anyone as a kid but me and a mate used
to bunk in down at Chelsea.

SR: You joined the Rangers in February, 1953 and played over 140 league and Cup games in two spells,
do you remember your first match for the R’s?

RS: I remember there was Stan Gullan, Harry Brown, Alan Silver, who was an England Schoolboy I
international, and me. I was fourth choice. When I left school, I went to work as an apprentice as
a motor mechanic.

We used to play football outside during our lunch hour and I used to dive around on the concrete!
My mate said to me: “You should take this up” and he wrote off for a trial for me.

He wrote to Fulham and QPR. Fulham were the first to reply. It wasn’t a fair trial really as they stuck
two of us in goal and they had Johnny Haynes shooting in.
He was putting the ball in between us, so I was going for it and so was he.

We looked like fools! They said that I was too small and could I come back in a couple of years.

The Rangers then wrote back and said that they were having their trials. I sat down in the old Stand and
there were hundreds of us. With about 20 minutes to go, Alf Ridyard and Jack Taylor, the Manager, said:
“Has everyone been?” I was too shy, but I ended up going in goal. I made two or three good saves and after
the match, he said that he wanted those chaps to come back next week. My name was there, so I came back
the following week to play a whole match and done pretty well. He said: “We’ll be in touch.”

I didn’t hear anything for weeks and weeks. I was off sick from work with tonsillitis and went to the doctors
to get off the register to get back to work. Rangers then phoned me up and asked if I could play at Watford in
a Youth Cup game. I said that I was supposed to be back at work, so I went back to my doctors to get a
certificate for another week off work.

I played at Watford but broke my finger after 5 minutes.
I carried on playing and done alright. We beat them 1-0 I think? It went from there and I signed
professional the following day.

SR: You played under three different QPR Managers, Jack Taylor, Alec Stock and Tommy Docherty.
What are your memories and thoughts about them?

RS: Alec Stock was a quiet man. He wasn’t like the Bolton Manager, effing and blinding. He would pull you to
one side and say this or that. If you weren’t doing that properly, he would show us how to do it.
He was a very, very, nice fatherly figure, a bit like Alan Brown from Sheffield Wednesday when I was there.

Jack Taylor was also quiet. I thought that his tactical sense of the game was very good, but other than that
he was ordinary day-to-day Manager.

Tommy Docherty was bad news! Alan Harris, Bobby Keetch and that lot were there. Someone had written to
the Press about his tactics and they weren’t right, so he put us in the Reserves. One of the players said that if
the Manager’s 1st team want to play us, we’d give them a game and that annoyed him even more.

After that I had one year left on my contract. I said: “No, I’ve finished, I’ve been here long enough.”
So I packed up.

SR: When you returned to the club, there were characters like Bobby Keetch and Mark Lazarus.
Any funny stories, who were the characters around in the 50’s?

RS: Pat Kerrins was the winger, he was supposed to be the Best Man at my wedding but he got dropped.

SR: Wasn’t he from your area?

RS: Yes, Fulham, Lilley Road. Peter Angell turned out to be the Best Man at my wedding in the end.
They were all good people and we had a good laugh. Always phoning up players pretending to be top Reporters!
Yes, Bobby Keetch and Mark Lazarus were right characters as well.

SR: Bernard Lambert would like to know if you really did live in Galloway Road?

RS: That’s right. I think it was number 15. All the kids lived in digs back then. I think the club were paying
a fiver a week. I was living with a nice couple, Mr and Mrs Beard who had twin daughters.
I was there for two or three years.

SR: Stan Sykes, who lives in Australia, told me that he bumped into Bobby Cameron a few years ago.

RS: He was a star man when he was here and he said to me when I got into the 1st team: “Ron, I bet within
two years when you leave this club, you will be playing in the England side.”

SR: Somebody else would like to know what Alec Stock’s team talks and training methods were like?

RS: His team talks were a bit like Alf Ramsey’s really, very interesting. He went right into the basics of football,
stuff we should of known but after he’d done the talk, we found out we were doing the wrong things at the
wrong times. Training wise, he was very mad on running, up and down the terraces, which was the fashion then.

SR: Do you have any memories of your relationship with the fans, funny stories?

RS: They always cheered you on. I had a bad game at the end and they really slated me. I think it was
against West Brom, everything went wrong that day.

SR: Do you know of any ex-players that still come to games?

RS: Gordon Quinn comes down every other match.

SR: Who were your own heroes?

RS: My favourite goalkeeper was Bert Trautmann. I played in his Testimonial match which I thought was
a privilege. I used to enjoy throwing the ball out quite accurately and he taught me how to do that.

SR: I know that Reg Allen was before your time at Rangers, but did you ever come across him?

RS: I saw him once when I was doing some training. He had left by then but he walked into the
dressing room, dressed immaculately and said: “Can someone give me a football?” It was pouring down,
we were ankle deep in mud and he said that he was going in goal. A few apprentices were there and they
were shooting at him. He was diving all over the place, it amazed me.

Steve Russell

And Part 2.....

This is the second and final part of a very interesting interview that took place.
ago. Once again, thanks to Terry Springett and Mark Jamieson for their help.

SR: Do you remember any memorable games at the Rangers?

RS: Not really, I obviously remember the League Cup Final at Wembley when they beat West Brom.
I wasn’t here as a player, but my brother was.

SR: Ron, you have never decided to do a book.

RS: No, I’ve never done a book. There was a book that a lot of players contributed too though.
An old BBC Commentator wrote 8/10 pages on me. I used to meet him on the train a lot.

SR: Going back to Hillsborough, you were a guest of the club and travelled up on the Youth team coach.
What are your memories and emotions of that day?

RS: It was out of this world. We left here at 8.30am, stopped off halfway up the motorway and
there was blue and white everywhere. I think it made it better because we were playing Sheffield Wednesday…
because it involved my past. Many of the Sheffield Wednesday players that I played with were there
and they all supported the Rangers as well, so that was great.

They treated us really well and coming back and seeing all that blue and white, the coaches and everything.

SR: You owned a Sports shop on the Uxbridge Road. What happened with that?

RS: I had the sports business about three years before I packed up. I went there part-time and then in the
end it got a bit naughty with people stealing things. I couldn’t leave my wife in there alone at times, so
I decided to sell it. During my football career I did an interior decorating course at the local Poly and
passed all the tests. At first, I worked for a firm called ‘B.C. Gray’, just in the afternoons for five years.
Then the chap died and I opened up my own business and I had that for about twelve years.

SR: We (England) used to have the best keepers in the world. What are your thoughts about that now?

RS: I still think that we have the best in the world. I think that we command our area a lot better than the
continental keepers, although they have improved a hell of a lot.

You will now find that one or two of them catch the ball from corners and crosses!!!
They used to punch everything.

SR: Your first game for England was against Northern Ireland at Wembley and you saved a penalty
from Jimmy McIlroy.

RS: I used to keep a book on where they put their penalties. I used to leave that side open a bit.

SR: The next game was against Scotland at Hampden. The match ended 1-1 but there were 55 free kicks
and 3 penalties and two of them were missed. Ray Wilson played with a broken nose and Joe Baker
dislocated his shoulder!

RS: I broke my finger in that game. After the match, I got a taxi to take me to the Royal Infirmary.
The driver found out who I was and he didn’t charge me. I had quite a good game you see and he said:
“I should charge you double because you stopped us from winning.” I think there were 129,000 there
that day and not any ounce of trouble,

SR: You received 33 caps and played under two England Managers, Walter Winterbottom and Alf Ramsey.
What are your memories of them?

RS: Walter would sit us down for hours in a room doing tactics. It was fine but when we got out on the
pitch he couldn’t realise that they wouldn’t work. Someone would be marking someone, you can’t do
anything about that and it used to drag on for hours. Alf Ramsey was entirely different.

He would know if you closed your eyes ! A very good trainer and he had Les Cocker and Harold Shepherdson.
They were both keen trainers.

SR: How did you receive the news of your call-up?

RS: I can’t even remember ? I remember when I got my first cap. I was indoors …you think about this nice
velvety blue cap and that it’s presented to you. I got up one morning and I heard this rattle at the door
and this parcel tried to come through the letter box. When I opened it, it was my first cap. I mean,
what a way to get your first cap!!!

SR: The World Cup in Chile. Apparently you were put up somewhere in a remote part of the country.

RS: We even took our own chefs. You walked down the steps of the building and we had the training pitch
in front of us. There was a funny story there. Johnny Haynes was my room mate and we were warned to
be wary of the poisonous spiders around.

We went to a trick shop and the first night we were there, lying
in bed, Johnny Haynes said: “How the bloody hell did that (a spider) get up there ?”
He thought that it was a joke one but then it moved and Johnny jumped out of bed, ran down on to
the training pitch and a dog bit him!!!

SR: You played against Brazil, no Pele, but what was it like facing their banana shots ?

RS: Well, one goal was my fault. It was very difficult when you place a wall, to know if it’s going
over or round it.

SR: The 5-2 defeat against France in Paris and Alf Ramsey’s first game in charge. Were you troubled
by the floodlights?

RS: They blamed me for three of the goals. I said no way as one of them was a back pass and I didn’t
have a chance with the other two. I could have been at fault with one, possibly two of them.

SR: What about the 9-3 win over Scotland?

RS: Well everything we touched went in. It Was 3-0 at half-time and Alf said to keep playing football,
within a few minutes it was 3-2!

SR: Were there any characters in the England team?

RS: Bobby Smith was always up to his tricks. I remember playing in Luxembourg and he came back with
all these toys and in the middle were 500 cigarettes. This was at Customs and he wasn’t allowed them!

SR: In 1961, there was the 3-2 victory in Rome and Johnny Haynes led the team in a lap of honour with
the Italians throwing things at you.

RS: That was the best game I ever had out there. At the end of the match, they threw everything.
As soon as the final whistle went, they started. I’ve got a funny story about Alf Ramsey.
When we trained at Roehampton, I used to live round the corner.

We had been away on a tour of
Finland and Norway. When we arrived back at the training ground, I said to Alf:
“Can I pop home to see the wife ?” He said yeah, fine but be back by 2 o’clock. I went home and
returned for a practice match.

One of the shots went right through my legs.
Alf came up to me and said: “That’s the last time you go home !” It was wonderful to take part in a
World Cup and then play a part in 1966. The only disappointment was that I didn’t get a medal.
Terry Paine didn’t get one either and he played a couple of games. I had a wonderful career, to play
for my country was wonderful.

SR: Thanks very much Ron.

(The good news was that Ron did eventually get his medal. FIFA finally agreed to honour the eleven
players that missed out as well as Harold Shepherdson, Les Cocker and Sir Alf Ramsey.

A year ago, there was an awards ceremony at No. 10 Downing Street and they were guests of honour at
the World Cup qualifier between England and Andorra at Wembley. Ron was quoted as saying:
“If they’d waited any longer they would have had to dig me up and chuck it in the coffin.”)

Steve Russell