CosmicHotspur
Better a wag than a WAG
- Aug 14, 2006
- 51,069
- 22,383
I posted this a year ago on 21 July and rather than writing about such a painful memory and paying tribute again, I have revived it. I will be thinking about John and that fateful day all day tomorrow, not that I don't think of him regularly all through every year:
Please excuse this being such a long read, I hope you will think it worth it whether you remember John White or not.
It was 21 July 1964, I was 16, had left school and was enjoying the last long summer holidays before starting my first job in Fleet Street. My friend and I were spending as much time as we could in Cheshunt and at the Lane, watching Spurs train and mingling with them during their breaks and after training. We babysat for some of the players so knew them well and we hung out a lot with some of the youth team players of our own age.
On that day we went to the Lane as the players came out from the ground after some pitch training and stood around chatting with some of the players in the sun on what was an airless and sultry day.
One of the players for whom we babysat, Cliff Jones, still a great friend, drove out in his white mini. He was well known to be a notorious prankster and he pulled up and grinned at us and dangled a pair of trousers out of the car window.
"They're John's," he explained. "He'll be looking everywhere for them." He and John White were best mates, always sharing a hotel room when the team travelled.
John had stayed behind after training for a one-on-one session with Terry Medwin who was making what eventually proved to be an unsuccessful attempt to get back to fitness after a dreadful multiple leg fracture. We were still there when John drove out from the car park. He stopped to chat too and we couldn't help laughing.
"Missing something?" we asked.
"Yes, I am," he said. "What do you know about it?"
"Going home in your shorts?"
He shook his head, grinning at us. "Cliff!
We feigned innocence and ignorance but he knew we knew that he knew!
"I'm off to play a round," he told us. "I'll get him later!"
"See you tomorrow," we said. But of course, we never saw him again.
He nodded, grinned and waved goodbye to us as he drove home to his wife Sandra and baby son and toddler daughter.
We hung around with some of the youth team and eventually sat on the library bench opposite the ground with cold drinks bought from George's Cafe (now long gone). It was too hot to do anything other than laze around and it just got hotter and stickier.
There was a sudden flash of lightning and a tremendous crash of thunder and the ground literally shook beneath our feet. Torrential rain followed and we fled across the road to the cafe for shelter and made our respective ways home when the rain stopped.
It wasn't until the 6 pm news that I knew that John had been killed by lightning on Crews Hill Golf Course where he had sheltered from that sudden storm beneath a tree, holding his golf umbrella. I got on a bus to my friend's house immediately, holding back tears and hearing people on the bus discussing what had happened - everyone was shocked and no-one more so than I was, numbed with a feeling of disbelief. My friend and I cried in each other's arms.
The next morning at the Lane, players and supporters huddled in small groups tearful and talking in whispers about what had happened. Cars going by in the High Road slowed down or stopped in respect. The youth team players agreed with us that the thunder and lightning we had experienced would very likely have been the one that killed John as the timing was right and we learned from other players that Sandra had not wanted John to play golf but to go shopping with her and that other players who had been invited to play golf with him that day were unable or unwilling to do so. Had someone been there at the time, he might have been saved but he was alone and it was some hours before he was found.
Danny Blanchflower, in his newspaper column that weekend, mentioned that my friend and I had been there at the WHL gates on the following day, saddened and shocked along with the players.
Cliff was utterly heartbroken when he got the news. Joan hid John's trousers in a wardrobe where I believe they stayed for some time.
I paid my last respects at John's funeral but the 21st July is a day etched in my memory and as clear now as it was then and I think of John often, not just on this date. He was a wonderful, talented footballer as well as a lovely man with a grin that lit up his face and a cheeky and bright personality.
For Sandra, it was a double tragedy as her father and John's father-in-law Harry Evans, who was Bill Nicholson's assistant manager, had died from throat cancer only six months or so earlier.
I keep in touch with Rob White, a babe in arms when John died, and had a mention in the supplemental book he co-wrote about his father with Julie Welch.
I have wonderful memories of John on and off pitch. If there were kids around when he came out of the ground, he would do tricks with a half-crown or a golfball demonstrating his fantastic ball control. He would pull out his shirt breast pocket as his finale and the coin or ball would drop into it with ease. Sandra must have had a regular job sewing up the ripped pockets.
John had so much more to do and was close to reaching his peak as a footballer, more seasons with Spurs, more games for Scotland and bringing up his two children who were too young to remember him. For those of us privileged enough to have seen him play, we know just how good he was. He looked frail and fragile and there were those who doubted he would be strong enough to make the grade, but they were wrong. He had an amazing ability to read a game and disappear and pop up somewhere else (hence his nickname) finding spaces, both assisting and scoring goals himself and was certainly one of the best inside-forwards of his time.
When I first met Cliff Jones when I was about 12 years old, he asked me who my favourite player was, no doubt expecting me to say "You."
Without hesitation, I said it was John White which he grudgingly accepted as a good choice. I still miss John and always will and it's hard to believe it happened 50 years ago. To me, he will always be The Ghost of White Hart Lane.
Please excuse this being such a long read, I hope you will think it worth it whether you remember John White or not.
It was 21 July 1964, I was 16, had left school and was enjoying the last long summer holidays before starting my first job in Fleet Street. My friend and I were spending as much time as we could in Cheshunt and at the Lane, watching Spurs train and mingling with them during their breaks and after training. We babysat for some of the players so knew them well and we hung out a lot with some of the youth team players of our own age.
On that day we went to the Lane as the players came out from the ground after some pitch training and stood around chatting with some of the players in the sun on what was an airless and sultry day.
One of the players for whom we babysat, Cliff Jones, still a great friend, drove out in his white mini. He was well known to be a notorious prankster and he pulled up and grinned at us and dangled a pair of trousers out of the car window.
"They're John's," he explained. "He'll be looking everywhere for them." He and John White were best mates, always sharing a hotel room when the team travelled.
John had stayed behind after training for a one-on-one session with Terry Medwin who was making what eventually proved to be an unsuccessful attempt to get back to fitness after a dreadful multiple leg fracture. We were still there when John drove out from the car park. He stopped to chat too and we couldn't help laughing.
"Missing something?" we asked.
"Yes, I am," he said. "What do you know about it?"
"Going home in your shorts?"
He shook his head, grinning at us. "Cliff!
We feigned innocence and ignorance but he knew we knew that he knew!
"I'm off to play a round," he told us. "I'll get him later!"
"See you tomorrow," we said. But of course, we never saw him again.
He nodded, grinned and waved goodbye to us as he drove home to his wife Sandra and baby son and toddler daughter.
We hung around with some of the youth team and eventually sat on the library bench opposite the ground with cold drinks bought from George's Cafe (now long gone). It was too hot to do anything other than laze around and it just got hotter and stickier.
There was a sudden flash of lightning and a tremendous crash of thunder and the ground literally shook beneath our feet. Torrential rain followed and we fled across the road to the cafe for shelter and made our respective ways home when the rain stopped.
It wasn't until the 6 pm news that I knew that John had been killed by lightning on Crews Hill Golf Course where he had sheltered from that sudden storm beneath a tree, holding his golf umbrella. I got on a bus to my friend's house immediately, holding back tears and hearing people on the bus discussing what had happened - everyone was shocked and no-one more so than I was, numbed with a feeling of disbelief. My friend and I cried in each other's arms.
The next morning at the Lane, players and supporters huddled in small groups tearful and talking in whispers about what had happened. Cars going by in the High Road slowed down or stopped in respect. The youth team players agreed with us that the thunder and lightning we had experienced would very likely have been the one that killed John as the timing was right and we learned from other players that Sandra had not wanted John to play golf but to go shopping with her and that other players who had been invited to play golf with him that day were unable or unwilling to do so. Had someone been there at the time, he might have been saved but he was alone and it was some hours before he was found.
Danny Blanchflower, in his newspaper column that weekend, mentioned that my friend and I had been there at the WHL gates on the following day, saddened and shocked along with the players.
Cliff was utterly heartbroken when he got the news. Joan hid John's trousers in a wardrobe where I believe they stayed for some time.
I paid my last respects at John's funeral but the 21st July is a day etched in my memory and as clear now as it was then and I think of John often, not just on this date. He was a wonderful, talented footballer as well as a lovely man with a grin that lit up his face and a cheeky and bright personality.
For Sandra, it was a double tragedy as her father and John's father-in-law Harry Evans, who was Bill Nicholson's assistant manager, had died from throat cancer only six months or so earlier.
I keep in touch with Rob White, a babe in arms when John died, and had a mention in the supplemental book he co-wrote about his father with Julie Welch.
I have wonderful memories of John on and off pitch. If there were kids around when he came out of the ground, he would do tricks with a half-crown or a golfball demonstrating his fantastic ball control. He would pull out his shirt breast pocket as his finale and the coin or ball would drop into it with ease. Sandra must have had a regular job sewing up the ripped pockets.
John had so much more to do and was close to reaching his peak as a footballer, more seasons with Spurs, more games for Scotland and bringing up his two children who were too young to remember him. For those of us privileged enough to have seen him play, we know just how good he was. He looked frail and fragile and there were those who doubted he would be strong enough to make the grade, but they were wrong. He had an amazing ability to read a game and disappear and pop up somewhere else (hence his nickname) finding spaces, both assisting and scoring goals himself and was certainly one of the best inside-forwards of his time.
When I first met Cliff Jones when I was about 12 years old, he asked me who my favourite player was, no doubt expecting me to say "You."
Without hesitation, I said it was John White which he grudgingly accepted as a good choice. I still miss John and always will and it's hard to believe it happened 50 years ago. To me, he will always be The Ghost of White Hart Lane.
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