Malcolm Allison

In the 70's and 80's, Malcolm Allison was regarded as one of the greatest characters the game of soccer in England has ever seen. Big Mal, as he was known, was one of the most flamboyant and creative soccer coaches of all time.

Tony Waiters writes of the legend of Malcolm Allison, who passed away last week.

In the 50's, the great Hungarian national soccer team gave the England team a tough lesson by beating them on home soil 6 to 3 for the first-ever home defeat for England. They added insult to injury a few month's later by defeating England again, this time 7:1, in Budapest.

In my formative years as a coach there were two books that became my coaching Bibles.

One was called: "Soccer for Thinkers" by Malcolm Allison. I must've read it a dozen times.

The other was called "Coaching Tactics and Techniques" by Arpad Csanadi, a Hungarian Master Coach, and a product of Hungary's soccer of the 1950's. His missive was in three volumes. Of course, I did not read those three volumes a dozen times, but continually returned to Csanadi's books for expert guidance.

As it happened, in the late 60's I was dispatched by the English Football Association to Hungary for a month to study their coaching and training methods. While I was there I was able to spend some time with Arpad, who by then was the Minister of Sport for his country.

Arpad and I played tennis at the National Stadium (the famous Nep Stadium) where I was able to win back some pride for England by defeating him in three sets. But the best part of the day came after we had played. We ate and drank wine that I was able to find out so much more about that great era of Hungarian soccer of the 50's.

On my return to England, one of my tasks was to address the professional trainers and coaches course at Lilleshall, the national soccer center, including a practical session on the field, to show the training and coaching methods that were presently being employed in Hungary. Malcolm Allison was an attendee.

After my session we had the rest of the afternoon off. It was a beautiful summer's day and Malcolm invited me to sit with him under a large oak tree within the hall's quadrangle. For two hours he interrogated me. He wanted to know everything I could tell him about what they were doing in Hungary.

Later that week, Alan Wade, the Director of Coaching for the Football Association, was called back to London. He should have been doing the afternoon training session. Instead, the staff were delegated the task of filling in. As we were all relatively inexperienced coaches among the crème-de-la-crème of the English pro soccer, we wisely invited Malcolm to join our team.

Malcolm said he would do a session based on attacking play down the flanks. As we sat there in the Lilleshall staff room, we all started scribbling furiously to work out our session plans.

Malcolm pulled over a napkin, scribbled three or four things down, put it in his pocket and that was it. 2-minutes - tops!

The rest of us were sweating it out because these were the top managers and coaches from the top English clubs and we were doing the presenting.

Among those present were the coaching staff of Liverpool Football Club, including the great Bill Shankly. As a result of the session I did, I was later offered a job at the Anfield. But that is for another Boot Room.

Fast forward two years and I had spent the best part of two seasons at Liverpool. as the Youth Coach. But I made the decision to leave the coaching staff at Liverpool FC - a very hard decision - to return to playing.

I could see life closing in if I was to continue on to become the manager coach of a pro club. I wasn't quite ready for that.

My first phone call was to Malcolm Allison. Would he consider me coming back to play for Manchester City where he was doing such an impressive coaching job in partnership with the great Joe Mercer?

We got close, but it was not to be and I ended up going to Burnley Football Club. Guess what was the very first game of the season? Liverpool FC. What else? And I was back in the top division again. Playing for Liverpool was Steve Heighway, who I had signed from amateur team, Skelmersdale United, a few months earlier (that will be another Boot Room).

I've written before about Joe Mercer. The Mercer/Allison coaching combination may well have been the most exciting era in successful attacking play in English soccer. Both Mercer and Allison were incredible brains in the game.

This year there is another book due to be published about the Joe Mercer/Malcolm Allison partnership that is to be called, "The Best of Enemies." It'll give a fascinating insight to that outstanding Manchester City team of the 70s.

So call this Boot Room, Malcolm Allison #1. There are many more stories, that I had the privilege of being close to, that highlight the larger-than-life, Big Mal.