GARRY'S GLORY DAYS

JOHN LYONS TALKS TO FORMER NOTTINGHAM FOREST STRIKER GARRY BIRTLES ABOUT HIS RAPID RISE TO FOOTBALL STARDOM IN THE LATE 20S

FOR someone who wondered at one point if he’d get the chance to be a professional footballer, Garry Birtles didn’t do too badly in the end!

There were two European Cups and a League Cup with Nottingham Forest under the legendary Brian Clough, a big money move to Manchester United and England honours.

That was all a distant dream when Birtles was a mere teenager.

“I thought my chance had gone,” he recalled. “I was on schoolboy forms for Aston Villa and went for trials when I was 15 for a month, I was in digs in Birmingham.

“I got turned down, came back to Nottingham and had no job. I went down the labour exchange and there was a job for a floor layer, which was the job my dad did. I did that and thought my opportunity had gone.”

While his pro hopes had been dashed – for a while at least – Birtles’ enthusiasm for football hadn’t waned. He was playing Non-League football for Long Eaton United on Saturdays and for Long Eaton Rovers on Sundays. “I really enjoyed it, it was brilliant,” he said. “A lot of the lads played for both teams. My house backed on to the pitch where I used to play for Long Eaton Rovers on a Sunday afternoon and I lived very close to Long Eaton United, too.

“United played in the Midland League, which was a very good league. It went as far as Lincolnshire and there was a lot of travelling around. We won the Derbyshire Senior Cup (in 1976), I remember us beating Matlock Town over two legs.

“I’d switched to playing as a striker by then. It was a very tough league and it gave you a great grounding, it was a good learning curve. It was just what I needed.”

Again, the course of history could easily have been different.