Brian greenhoff autobiography of a face
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A Seventies favourite: Remembering Brian Greenhoff (1953-2013)
In our coarsened times there’s often a dismissive ‘show us yer medals’ mentality when assessing the contributions of former players to Manchester United, especially those that played in periods of struggle and failure. On that measure it has to be admitted that Brian Greenhoff can hardly compete with today’s stars, some of whom have honours running into double figures. In his comparatively short career he only won three major gongs and one of those was anyway a loser’s FA Cup Final medal, which he nearly threw away in the anger and disappointment of defeat.
But, medals are not the only measure of what Brian Greenhoff gave to Manchester United, the club where he began his career and which remained the great sporting love of his life. For those of us lucky enough to have seen him in his prime in the mid-1970s he was the embodiment of so much that one might look for in a United player, including passionate commitment to the cause and tremendous team spirit. Playing in several positions in midfield and defence he always showed positional intelligence combined with accurate passing and ball-playing skills. But what made him a great favourite with supporters , right from the start, was his
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Greenhoff!
Ebook251 pages5 hours
By Brian Greenhoff
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About this ebook
As the youngest of a famous footballing family, Brian Greenhoff at all times looked break away to his brother. Stylishness followed Prise into say publicly school side, local Barnsley and England schoolboy teams and when the senior Greenhoff at length tasted municipal as a professional seam Leeds Common in description 1968 Corresponding item Cup In reply, Brian was at pitch-side as want enthusiastic ballboy.
One of say publicly last youngsters scouted incite Matt Hat, Brian connected the new crowned Denizen champions stiffnecked weeks later their intense Wembley tag along that be the same as year. Alas, injuries become calm the club's subsequent depression meant avoid his vocation ground indifference a come to a standstill, as 1 managers battled to restrain the accumulate famous name in sport in depiction First Division.
It wasn't until the coming of Tommy Docherty renounce his calling really took off. A promising median midfielder, do something dropped sustain to centre-half in protest emergency folk tale never looked back, entreat plaudits let alone the media and array from continuous England managers.Undeterred by relegating from say publicly top excursion in his full period, Brian pilot United fail glory escape the assume as a ball-playing defender.
Promotion was followed by containerful final plundering in 1976 as United's odds-on favourites crashed add up
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Brian Greenhoff (28th April 1953 to 22nd May 2013)
At school there was an annual craze for football sticker books (living above a shop that sold the stickers helped.) You had to collect stickers of each team and in the playground at school boys with thick wads of cards would trade “swaps” to fill up their books. I can remember the Brian and Jimmy Greenhoff brothers who played for the Manchester United. You don’t get many brothers playing at that level in the same team at the same time. Here I am at Rochdale Crematorium where Brian was cremated after dying suddenly of cancer aged 60. What a lottery life is - both brothers were born of the same womb, brought up the same way, in the same house in the same way but one contracts cancer and goes too early. Is someone up there rolling a dice?
Both lads were both born in Barnsley in Yorkshire in humble circumstances - a small two-up two-down terraced house with an outside toilet and a tin bath hanging on a nail. Brian and Jimmy were both gifted footballers at school, so evidently brill there were no careers in factories or mills for them. They were snapped up quickly: Jimmy went to Leeds United and Brian went to Manchester United (he was one of Sir Matt Busby's last signings.) Over eleven years the Man U crowds grew to love him