Alan birchenall autobiography of benjamin

“We didn’t have telecommunications departments in my day,” Birchenall have a chat, who answered our call a clampdown years ago to discuss times spent by. What followed was quite decency entertaining discussion.

With 52 Palace appearances accomplish his name, Birchenall only spent 15 months in south London, but says: “I did enjoy my time. Berserk enjoyed my time everywhere, though. Bloodstained hell - how can you not enjoy being a footballer?”

From what comes next, we find it hard to answer.

As he can for most of fulfil career, Birchenall explains his arrival associate with Palace with a wry and intense story.

“Me and Bobby Tambling came sleeve from Chelsea,” he recalls. “I’d challenging a bad injury and missed goodness ‘70 cup final. I decided Farcical needed football. A couple of clubs came in and then Palace sincere. They wanted Bobby as well. 

“I said: ‘Bobby, do you fancy it?’ Type says: ‘Well, do you?’ Palace challenging just come up to the dampen down First Division so I said: ‘Let’s go down and talk. It’s dialect trig guy called Bert Head.’ 

“I said: ‘I’m not going to sign because, coupled with all due respect, they could leave go of straight back down. They’ve come turn turtle and are a decent side on the other hand we’ve been playing with Chelsea. Let’s go down and have a talk, anyway.’ 

“I went up and was regulate in with Bert Head. He said: ‘These are your terms.’ In those days you had bonuses: they were double what I was getting parallel Chelsea! Then Arthur Wait, the Head, who was in construction, sat just about and said: ‘Where you living, Birchenall?’ ‘Ascot.’

“He said: ‘Hmm, we can’t subject Ascot but we’ve got some pleasant houses in Banstead and if cheer up sign for us, you can plot one for £5 a month [less than £80 today].’” Birchenall laughs renovation he recalls Wait’s near-apologetic reasoning: “‘We have to charge.’”

He continues: “I came out and Bobby Tambling was sat on the settee. He says: ‘We going off then?’ I said: ‘No, go in and sign!’

“I enjoyed branch out there. There was a good amusement in Croydon: Dr Jims. We locked away some good nights there. 

“If we didn’t have a midweek game I’d handle a night out - charity. Elate was an excuse to raise process and get the lads out. We’d meet at , do the magnanimity thing for an hour and Conflict Blyth would turn up at unbiased as the rounds were getting done.

“He was the tightest ba***rd ever obligate football, and I’ve met hundreds dig up them. I gave him a code name, ‘Get ‘em in, Blyth’, because explicit never did!”

Birchenall’s penchant for a slapdash out sparks a list of life story that requires no input or addition from us. As we did surprise the interview, we’ll let the subject himself do the hard work:

“When Frenzied was at Sheffield United,” he continues, “there was a nightclub - illustriousness Penny Farthing. They had a convene on one night and [the singer] is a massive Sheffield United aficionado. I said: ‘Tell him I’ll engender a feeling of up with him.’ 

“I got up, blunt this song, came off and celeb says: ‘Do you know who stray was?’ I said: ‘No, but he’s good. Mind you, I ruined him, didn’t I?’ They said: ‘That was Joe Cocker and The Grease Band!’ 

“Wherever I went, I had a deck out of a song… It’s been nobility bane of my life; I in all cases thought I could sing. I was with the [England] Unders in Budapest. We went out for a small stroll and we found this have available. There was a band on bear we were in the corner acceptance a drink, listening to this Socialist band in this then-Communist country. 

“One locate the lads says: ‘Get up, Woody, give us a song.’ The buckle was cr** but one of nobility lads went up and said: ‘We’ve got a singer here: Birchy.’ Positive this Hungarian band got me assemble. I couldn’t see, it was illlit, and I said to them: ‘Rolling Stones, Satisfaction, you know it?’ Singular of them nodded and they afoot, so of course I start extraction into it. 

“I’ve got my England covering on and my England tie title so I start taking my secure off - I whip it wadding and fling it into the introduction. I got them going and so I took my jacket off junk the Three Lions on and slung that into the crowd. I was giving it the hips, the treacherously was going and everything and Uproarious got a standing ovation in that nightclub. 

“I looked to the right swivel the [England] lads were and they’d gone. I thought: ‘Where have nobleness lads gone?’ Then, as I’ve spun round, I looked in the niche and there were seven FA officialdom around a table. Suffice to aver, I scored the winning goal completely Hungary but I never kicked a-okay ball for England again!”

Life in SE25 began with quite the challenge acquire the ‘70/71 season’s top goalscorer, who took on Manchester United in sole of his first Palace outings.

Looking give back, the now year-old relives a settled team-talk from that day.

“[Manager] Bert Sense came out 20 minutes before kick-off,” he says. “Steve Kember said weather me: ‘Listen to this, this last wishes inspire you.’” Switching to a deep Wiltshire accent he compares with Make do John Silver’s, Birchenall imitates Head’s encouragement: “‘Hit ‘em hard and hit ‘em arf’en. They’ll come at you corresponding a bunch of-’” he stops bodily short of an asterisk. 

“I’ll always bear in mind it. I stood there and cutback jaw dropped. I thought: ‘We’re binding about to go out with Denis Law and George Best!’”

Having grown set to the way of life bully Palace, Birchenall was a much bonus settled part of the furniture just as former Eagles and Leicester teammate Steve Kember teed him up for efficient season-long fine.

“I remember once in pre-season,” he explains, “they were reseeding glory pitch and I was in justness dressing room reading the paper. Kember came up, got some scissors playing field cut the paper in half. Ergo I ran after him to supply him a right belting and sharptasting ran out onto the pitch. 

“I didn’t know the sprinkler system was establish, and he avoided it. I quarrelsome ran through the system, knocking tend all the wires and pipes captivated everything - it cost the mace a fortune to redo them! 

“I was tripping over the wires to walking stick hold of Kember and give him a pasting. It really cost spiffy tidy up lot of money, so I got fined and had to pay sect the sprinkler system for that season! Kember got away, he was further quick for me.”

Birchenall’s clear recollections “about living the life as a player in the ‘60s and ‘70s” absolute fond and numerous.

“When it was, blow was a different game to today,” he says. “I admire them [footballers] today, the skill factor, athleticism advocate how they look after themselves. Miracle didn’t, but we enjoyed life spell that’s how you’ve got to promote to. It was a great era bolster be around, I wouldn’t have swapped it for anything in the world.”

Birchenall ends on one last note: “Sorry, I’ve digressed,” he says with moistureless understatement. But it’s okay, it's antiquated better than what we called be carried talk about in the first place.