Drop ten, turn and face. Quilty’s Football Yarns 37 St Bernard’s in Bethnal Green, then Houston Texas.

Drop ten, turn and face.

Quilty’s Football Yarns 37

St Bernard’s in Bethnal Green, then Houston Texas.

As I related previously, St Bernard’s was a twin site Catholic Boys school, the lower school in Mansford Street and the upper being in Wood Street off Valance Road. This was the old manor and stamping ground of the Kray Twins. At this time in 1983, Bethnal Green was already undergoing change but in many ways St Bernard’s was still ‘old school’ in many senses. The upper school was run by a Headmaster who wasn’t actually a teacher. Mr A Hawkridge was a former Air Force officer. Apparently after the second world war many ex-forces officers were appointed to run schools as universal education expanded with a need to appoint people who could manage and lead. The school merged with Bishop Challoner in 1991, losing its individual identity.

I only worked at St Bernard’s for a year, it was my first permanent teaching job. I taught History and PE. The lower school was run by the deputy , Joe Webster, he was a teacher and more importantly a hard bastard. At this time corporal punishment was still in operation in London schools and Joe was the mostly likely person to dish it out. Unfortunately, some teachers would think it ok to physically belt kids. I discovered one day that the kids were wary of a clip round the ear. We were walking a big group of Year 9 kids over to the park when one jumped over a low fence. Conscious of this I just leaned across to call him back. In an instant the student had grabbed a stick and hit me across the arm! I was taken aback at this and asked him why he had done it. “I thought you were going to hit me”, was his response. 

At St Bernard’s I coached senior football and junior basketball. The latter was quite new for me but in Year 7 we could beat most sides in the area. Always up for competition we went down at the beginning of the year and beat Humph Long’s Raines side. The significance of this was that Raines were regional champions who trained every lunchtime living and breathing basketball. Just a few months later we took on the same school and they blew us away. My concentration on zone defence as a basis wasn’t going to take us very far!

At this time at St Bernard’s I was training for marathons. Fortunately, I persuaded a group of ten senior students that we should do running for PE. We used to run from Valance Road down to Vicky Park then make our way around the marshes in school time. Getting paid to train was great.

In football it was a different matter. We were below the radar hot. Being a school with a low socio-economic base, we got paid to take after school activities. Mine being football. It is the story of my teaching/ coaching life that my footballers often exist on the edge. Typically, I’d often hear my footballers in the classroom next door giving hell to supply teachers. Many a time I’d intervene by going into the room and making up a bullshit excuse to get them outside. Usually, once outside the conversation would consist of, 

Footballer student. “What’s the matter sir? Why are we out here?”

Me. ”Because you guys are giving that poor teacher aggravation! Do you know how difficult it is to get people to come?”

Footballer student. “ No sir, sorry sir”.

Me. “ I need you to go back and watch. Don’t take part in any mucking about. Imagine you are a fly on the way. I need you to do it for me.”

I can’t say it necessarily worked but behaviour adjustment for students has always been important for me as a coach and teacher.

St Bernard’s was struggling. We had rolling strikes and working to rule.  Absenteeism amongst staff was very high. I’ve always believed that in any school where there are more than 6 or 7 staff who just continually take time off, the school is in downward spiral. A staff which doesn’t care for the consequences of not turning up will have no cohesion. Mr Hawkridge often dealt with teacher shortages in a strange way. He’d get a whole class to sit on the stairs. One step each. His idea of supervising a class was to walk down the stairs once, counting the kids and then back to his office. That was it! At St Bernard’s I had multiple clashes with teachers who tried to use my football team as a way of controlling their students. One day I was getting the side on the bus when someone called Penna came out and told one of my boys he couldn’t go to football, because of a detention.  As you can imagine my answer was along the lines of shove your detention where the ‘sun don’t shine’.

In a great season we went all the way to the final of the London Cup which was played at East London Stadium. I have related this campaign else-where but it is worth reprinting our list of games played.

Round   Opponent  Score

1  Hackney Free & Parochial 3-2

2  Central Foundation             4-2

3  St Bonaventure’s                 5-3

4  Dagenham Priory                4-0

5  Carshalton School              2-1

Semi  George Monoux            3-2

Final  Sir Henry Thornton       1-3

This was an amazing effort from our boys to make a London Final but it hardly registered at the school. Most of our supporters on the day were bunking off school!

Looking back to 1983 I still struggle to believe that I was so disillusioned after just two years teaching that I decided to leave my job and go abroad. As unlikely as it sounds my destination was Houston, Texas to work for my mate Chuck as a building renovation foreman. I can hear people laughing at this minute but I was indeed going to supervise tradesmen on site. Chuck was a multiple skilled builder. He got regular repair contracts from his mate Johnny Johnson who worked for America’s biggest condominium firm, Johnstown USA, as referred to in the Bruce Springsteen song. 

One day he sent me to do a beginner’s ‘Air conditioning course’. I went but it wasn’t exactly my thing. After the theory session I had to go out with a qualified bloke for a practical. All fine as most A/C units were on the roof.  We got up on the roof and just sat down eating our lunch. I asked what needed to be done. He said nothing apart from this. Immediately he took out a hammer and started bashing the A/C unit. Then he stopped. “Why did you do that?” I asked. He replied with “Son, there is mystery in everything. You just heard the mystery of A/C and people will pay $400 call out charge, for it. They don’t know what we do but it has to be noisy!” Chuck took on a 'free' job one day involving doing a mate a favour. Only problem was, he needed quite of his friends to help him! There we were down at Houston University, 10 O'clock at night painting the ceiling of their student social hall. Not too bad a job but the colour was black and it had to be sprayed. Throwback memories of working for PYROCK came flooding back. Literally because the black paint was thrown skyward from a hopper. We all went home covered in it but Chuck was happy.

Depending on the work Chuck had many people he could call on but actually employed very few people. I lived onsite in one of the Condo’s. This could be awkward because his workers were paid daily while Johnstown paid Chuck monthly. A classic cashflow problem. Our workers were predominantly Mexican, Nicaraguan or Guatemalan. Great workers but always wanting their cash at the end of each day. Chuck often forgot to pay them or just told them to come to me. Being a business model with an eternal cash flow problem, Chuck’s solution was not the best.  This was actually the first time I ever heard of ‘Factor Finance’. Chuck used it to get cash against his Johnstown invoices. Always accepting $47,000 when you are owed $50,000 may be good for liquidity but is crap for profitability.

One day Chuck got a job to renovate 44 units in a fortnight. I stood with him as he assured Johnny Johnson that he had workers to do the job. He spent the rest of the day on the telephone getting workers to come work. Houston was very much an oil reliant city that followed the oil price. In this case it was booming and these 44 units had not been occupied for nine years but were now economically viable. If repaired. Turning up at the site next morning with Chuck, the place resembled a refugee camp. A hundred workers were sat in groups with their tools. Waiting for a ‘start’. For the next few hours we apportioned them to individual units where they would sleep and eat for the next two weeks, until the work was finished. My job was to oversee the work. These blokes were good at the work but you needed to keep on top of them when on day rates. Plaster-boarding, epoxy spraying work around kitchens and general making good. The places were often rotting through neglect but within a fortnight would be redone and rented out. One place was rife with bugs in the carpet, a heater had been left on in the unit for weeks. I stayed in Houston for five months. Found a football team to play for and generally got on well. My mate, Neville Sharpe from Hoxton, came out to work as a plasterer, which was well paid. On the way to pick him up from the airport in Chuck’s truck I decided to a ‘right on red’ which was allowed in Houston. Unfortunately, I rolled around, with the road clear, before actually coming to a stop. In second’s, the red and blue lights went off behind me and got me to pull over. The conversation went,

Policeman. “Young man you just ran a red light’

Me. “ I’m terribly sorry I thought it was allowed”.

Policeman. “No, you didn’t stop first. I need to take some details”.

Is this your car? No

Who owns It? My mate Chuck.

What is his address? I don’t know.

Do you know you have no back number-plate. No

Do you know you have a back light missing? No

Do you have a Texas driving licence? No

By this time the list he was writing was long one. Then he asked me where my accent was from

“ Oh, officer I’m on holiday here from London”

“London, England? Wow. It’s your lucky day.”

He was in the action of screwing up his paperwork as he told me I’d just saved myself $600 in traffic offences. He wished me “Good day, drive carefully”, as he turned to drive away.

I was in Houston five months in all before returning to England. Terrie and I took over the Fellows Court flat again. Old mate Kevin Wilson had been living there for six months. Going back to Hackney I had an idea. I was going to copy my mate Brain Beacom in Glasgow, who had started a free newspaper, but mine would be in East London. And I did. It was called the Hackney & Bethnal Green Link.