Phil Chisnall : “I’ve become the answer to a quiz question in recent years,”

Before Phil Chisnall loses his main claim to fame, here is a summary of his career.



(John) Philip Chisnall

Born: 27 October 1942 Park Hospital, Davyhulme, Manchester

Height: 5' 7" Weight: 11st 13lbs

Phil Chisnall took a traditional route to the United first team. As a boy he played for English Martyrs School in Urmston and St Mary's in Stretford, as well as a local team called Dover Park, before representing Stretford Boys, Lancashire Boys and England Boys (six caps).

He was 15 at the time of the Munich air-crash and remembers his mother coming out of the front-door to meet him, to give him the news. "I used to go and watch United one Saturday, City the next" says Chisnall, "but was always a United supporter because we lived so close. I watched Duncan Edwards and the rest of that great team, and the next minute they were gone. It was so sad."

Chisnall and his father had already been courted by United scout Joe Armstrong before Munich and Phil became a part of United's rebuilding. He left school in April, two months after the crash."I left school and went straight to Old Trafford, and at the end of that season I was in the club party which went down to Wembley for the FA Cup final, when we put out a scratch team, with the likes of Ernie Taylor, Bobby Charlton and Alex Dawson. I was straight out of school, but at that age you don't think about things too deeply."

He signed professional forms at 17, and made his first-team debut on December 2, 1961 at Goodison Park. "I remember it well - they had Alex Young and Roy Vernon, and we were hammered 5-1!" said Chisnall.

He is usually described as an inside-right, and mostly wore 8 for United (30 appearances at 8, 14 at 7 and 4 at 10). He insists he was "a midfielder" and was certainly never a major goalscorer.

Over the next three seasons Chisnall played 47 games for United, scoring 10 goals. His first goal was at Maine Road in United's 2-0 win over City in February 1962. He played 13 games that season, 5 in 1962-63 (including his first goal at Old Trafford, against Arsenal).

He was one of three young players who started the first game of the 1963-64 season in place of three members of the Cup-winning side of the previous season. Chisnall, Ian Moir and David Sadler, surprisingly replaced David Herd, Johnny Giles and Albert Quixall. Quixall and Giles left the club soon afterwards.

Chisnall played 28 times that season and scored 8 goals, including his first in Europe (against Willem II) and his first cup goal (in a 5-1 defeat of Sunderland). George Best, then also playing as an inside-forward, who made his debut that season, certainly saw himself as behind Chisnall in the scheme of things. "I couldn't see much hope", Best is quoted as saying by Eamon Dunphy. Perhaps it was Chisnall's part in the humiliating second-leg defeat by Sporting Lisbon in the European Cup quarter-final that changed things. United were 4-1 up from the first leg, but lost 5-0 in Portugal. "Two players, Maurice Setters and Phil Chisnall, a clever skilful inside-forward of whom Busby held a high opinion, were doomed by this dismal performance", is Dunphy's opinion.

In fact, Chisnall played just one more game for United after the Lisbon debacle. His last game was against Wolves at Old Trafford on 28 March 1964.

In 1964 he reckoned the highlight of his time at United was scoring against Real Madrid at Old Trafford in United’s 3-1 victory, but I'm at a loss to know when the game took place .

Certainly, although Chisnall also played four times for the England U-23 side, it seemed he couldn’t establish himself as a regular at Old Trafford.

Decision

“I played for England Under-23s against Germany at Anfield and we won 4-2. I’m not sure whether Shankly was there but it was just before Liverpool came in for me. I remember Matt Busby calling me into his office and saying Bill Shankly was putting in an offer for me. He told me I didn't have to go, but at the time Liverpool were top of the league, on their way to winning it, and United were second.

"The way I looked at it was that Liverpool was just down the road, they were top of the league and I was about to get married. There was a big rivalry in those days in football terms, but there was no battling in the streets. Liverpool had only been in the First Division for two years before they won the league in 1964. They were only just establishing themselves in the top division and the rivalry between United and Liverpool fans wasn’t as strong then as it is now. Liverpool’s real rivals were Everton, while United’s were Man City.

"In fact Matt and Shanks were good mates, or maybe more like father and son. Shanks used to come to Manchester every week for a chat with Matt. When the two teams played, (the players) would have a few pints together afterwards, with no ill will.

"Liverpool was a vibrant place with the Beatles making it big and Shankly reviving Liverpool FC, so I decided to go for it."

Chisnall’s wife suffered more disruption than he did. “The only person who was bothered was the missus,” he said. “I told her I was going to play for Liverpool and it meant she had to take all the curtains down, pack up and move down the East Lancs Road. She wasn’t too pleased.

“No one else said much, even though I was moving between two big teams. Back then it was just a footballer moving from one club to another. I was able to go to Old Trafford and play for Liverpool and get a good reception from the crowd."

Liverpool took 47 points from their last 30 games of the season, after a slow start, to secure their sixth championship title, on 57 points, and qualify for their first European Cup campaign. United were second, four points behind them.

Liverpool Career

Chisnall made his debut for Liverpool as a substitute in the Charity Shield against West Ham, played at Anfield on 15 August 1964.

Ian St John was missing after an appendix operation and his deputy Arrowsmith was carried off the field after ten minutes, with a twisted knee. Roger Hunt moved to centre-forward and Chisnall substituted for Arrowsmith but, according to a contemporary report, “on this display lacked the sharpness and guile to be creative". The match ended 2-2.

Chisnall kept his place for Liverpool’s next game, wearing the number 9 shirt in their first ever European Cup tie against KR Reykjavik in Iceland. A poor clearance of his shot led to Liverpool’s first goal and he then scored their third, in the 57th minute, tapping in after the keeper fumbled a cross from Callaghan. Liverpool won 5-0, Roger Hunt and Gordon Wallace getting two goals each.

In his League debut for Liverpool on 22 August 2004, against Arsenal, Chisnall became the answer to another quiz question when he kicked off the first game ever to be shown on Match of the Day. The programme was shown on BBC2 at 6.30 pm, with highlights of just the one game. As BBC2 at the time was only available to those with 625 line sets living in the London area, the estimated TV audience was 20,000, less than half the attendance at Anfield. The game was introduced by Kenneth Wolstenholme, standing on the side of the pitch, with “expert” comments before and after the game from former Wales international Walley Barnes. Liverpool won 3-2.

Chisnall’s next game for Liverpool was at Elland Road, against Don Revie’s newly-promoted Leeds side. The Leeds side contained Sprake, Reaney, Bremner, Charlton, Giles, the black winger Johanneson and their captain, Bobby Collins who, according to the Yorkshire Post, "made Milne, the current England right-half, look a plodder”. Chisnall was still wearing 9 and “taking St John’s customary deep-lying role”. This was the game when Leeds really announced themselves as a force, beating the champions 4-2. St John returning to fitness, Chisnall was dropped and never really established himself in the Liverpool side again.

He came back into the side only for the last 4 League games of the season, although these included a return to Old Trafford (“I can’t remember getting any stick – it wasn’t like that back then”) and a 2 - 0 win over Chelsea at Anfield (when he scored his only League goal for Liverpool, after 9 minutes ).

The following season, he played only once, although that was in the first leg against Celtic in the semi-final of the European Cup-Winners Cup. Chisnall replaced the injured Roger Hunt in Liverpool's 1-0 defeat at Parkhead.

“Things didn’t really work out for me but I didn’t regret joining Liverpool,” says Chisnall. “It was just circumstance really - I didn’t hit it off. It was a great side with players like Ian St John, Ian Callaghan, Peter Thompson, Roger Hunt, Willie Stevenson, Gordon Milne and Tommy Smith so it was always going to be tough to get into the side.”

Later Career

In August 1967 Chisnall was transferred to Southend United for £12,000. Over the next few seasons he played 161 games for Southend, scoring 32 goals. Southend spent all his time with them in Division 4, and quite a bit of it in the lower half of that Division.

Chisnall (extreme left of middle row) in his last season at Southend

He remained at Southend until September 1971, when he took the opportunity to return to the North-West and signed for Stockport County, thus missing the first promotion in Southend’s history at the end of the 1971-72 season. (County, on the other hand, had to apply for re-election).

Chisnall played 30 League games for County, scoring 2 goals, before retiring at the end of the season. "My knees weren't that clever - I still need a new kneecap now," he said in 2005.

Managers

“In the space of a year I played under Matt Busby, Bill Shankly and Alf Ramsey, who was manager of England Under-23s at the time. There was something about managers whose name ended in the letter `Y'. At United we had Busby, who was the quiet type, and Jimmy Murphy who was the passionate Welshman. At Liverpool it was the other way around, with Shankly the passionate one and Bob Paisley the calming influence. Ramsey was different again, quite prim and proper. He wouldn't be like Sven-Goran Eriksson, letting players tell you about this and that. He was a loner and everyone knew he was in charge. He was like a military man, all smart and talking posh, not like Busby, Shankly, Murphy and Paisley who came out of the shipyards or the coalmines."

And incidentally the manager at Southend at the end of the period when Chisnall was there was Arthur Rowley (see above). Also ending in Y, and the younger brother of United legend Jack Rowley.

Of course, it isn't true - as I've read - that Phil Chisnall was the only player ever managed by both Busby and Shankly, there was at least one other. Denis Law was managed by Shankly whilst he was at Huddersfield, and persuaded by him to sign his first professional contract with them when he was 17. Not bad company all the same.

After Football

"Football was a game to me," Chisnall says. "I played for fun and was given a few quid for it. It's a bit more intense today. We had no agents, apart from my wife, mind you, she used to take 80 per cent, not just ten!"

As was the norm in those days, he travelled to work on an ordinary service bus. "Fans would come up and say 'why did you do that and you should have done that'. I used to think 'bloody hell, a window cleaner's telling me my job' but you felt privileged to be a footballer and had to keep your mouth shut," he recalled. "There were a lot of nice people on the bus though; supporters and players were much closer then. It was fun."

He obviously didn't make a fortune. In the notes for fans produced at the start of the season after he signed for Liverpool, Chisnall listed his "hobbies" as "horse and dog racing, and playing or watching all kinds of sports". Not surprisingly, after retiring, he ran a couple of betting shops, but they didn't really work out: "After tax and overheads you were working for nowt". So he ended up back alongside some of his old school mates, working in Trafford Park. Rumour had it at one time that he was working at Asda, but in fact he worked on the production line at Soreen.

Soreen, makers of the sweet, sticky malt loaf "beloved of sports people", has been based in Trafford Park since 1958. The factory, hidden behind a giant supermarket, apparently employs over 110 people who produce 70% of the malt loaf sold in Britain.

Chisnall retired from there in about 2004, on steroids for rheumatoid arthritis and troubled by his knee and a mild heart attack.

“These days I live close to Old Trafford in Urmston and I like to see both United and Liverpool do well" he says diplomatically, and attends ex-players events at both clubs.

The Heinze saga has recently given Chisnall another little flurry of attention and interviews. However, when The Times contacted him about the Heinze saga, he admitted things had changed since his day. "It is so different now. If Heinze turns up at Old Trafford in a Liverpool shirt, there will be hell to pay.”

Adam Saville, one of his 11 grandchildren, is a winger in the United Academy. "He's a left-footer, so that might help," said Chisnall. Another grandson, Thomas Guest, was on Everton's books and then trained with Stockport.

If I was a Liverpool fan, I wouldn't put too much trust in his diplomacy.

Sources :

IV Stuart Brennan, Manchester Evening News, Sept 17 2005
IV James Pearce, Liverpool Echo, Jul 6 2007
IV Alex Murphy, The Times, Jul 25 2007
IV Louise Taylor, The Guardian, Jul 26 2007
Eamon Dunphy, A Strange Kind of Glory

Other info and stats nicked from various places, including Southend, Liverpool and Leeds web-sites. Sadly, I could find no decent info on any Manchester United or Stockport County websites.