Derek Ufton never did get around to the book he often thought of writing but a couple of hours in conversation offers a glimpse of the breathless adventure it would surely be.
With faultless recall and wonderful eloquence, 92-year-old Ufton skips through the decades when he played post-War football for Charlton and kept wicket for Kent.
He springs from his friendship with football pioneers such as Malcolm Allison and Jimmy Hill to his time spent as back-up to Godfrey Evans and throws in delightful cameos from Harold Macmillan and Mick Jagger, who once asked for his autograph.
It is impossible to know where to begin, but as the death of Gordon Astall at 93 in October leaves Ufton as the oldest England international footballer, we should start with his solitary cap.
He was 25 when selected at centre half against the Rest of the World in 1953, a match to celebrate the FA's 90th anniversary, before a sell-out Wembley crowd.
England, still unbeaten on home soil, were soon trailing 3-1 with two goals by Giampiero Boniperti of Juventus and a penalty from Barcelona's Laszlo Kubala.
'They pulverised us in the first half,' says Ufton, who had been marking AC Milan's Gunnar Nordahl.
'Walter Winterbottom, the manager, a nice, honourable man, came over at half-time and said, "I'm sorry, I know you mark man-to-man at Charlton but you're the odd one out here because the others play zonal marking at their clubs. Can you sacrifice your normal game to help the team?" I said I'd do whatever he wanted.'
England, with 38-year-old Stanley Matthews on the wing, fought back to draw 4-4, equalising in the last minute with a penalty, generously awarded by Welsh referee Mervyn Griffiths for a foul on Stan Mortensen and converted by Alf Ramsey.
'It wasn't a foul,' says Ufton. 'If anything it was the other way, and time was up. I think the ref was out to get his own back. They had a Yugoslav called Zlatko Cajkovski and he went to crack a long pass and caught the ref full in the face.
'He went down but said he was all right and gave them the ball to kick off and Cajkovski kicked it straight in his face again, knocked him down again!'
When Cajkovski and Mortensen collided on the edge of the box, Griffiths pointed to the spot and England preserved their unbeaten Wembley record until Hungary arrived a month later.
Back at Charlton the next day, manager Jimmy Seed could not understand what happened in the second half. 'I told him I'd done what I was asked,' says Ufton. 'I told him Winterbottom said that we would never have got back into it had I not sacrificed my game, and that I would definitely play against Northern Ireland in the next game.
'But Charlton lost 5-1 to Arsenal and 5-0 at Cardiff and I never heard another word. Winterbottom didn't pick the players. It was a 12-man selection committee. That was the beginning and end of my England career.'
Ufton's first love was cricket. His boyhood hero was Kent and England wicketkeeper-batsman Les Ames and he joined Kent in 1946 in the same role. 'My only problem was Godfrey Evans,' he smiles, remembering the man who played 91 England Tests and Wisden called 'arguably the best wicketkeeper the game has seen'.
'I never knew how good I was because I was the understudy for the best,' Ufton adds. 'Godfrey was unique. Some of his catches and stumpings were remarkable.
'He wasn't always as good for Kent as Kent would have hoped. Once, I was in the team as a batsman, at short leg on the first day of Canterbury Cricket Week, when Godfrey said, "Is it right we're on TV today?" There wasn't a lot of cricket on TV in the Fifties but we were on from 12.30 to one.
'He was keeping badly, but when he found out we were on TV he pulled off two marvellous catches. After one o'clock, he was terrible again. That was Godfrey. '
Ufton served later on the committee at Kent, where he became chairman and president. He was instrumental in the emergence of the Lord's Taverners charity (chairman 1990-91) which saw him meet celebrities such as Harry Secombe and Eric Sykes. Macmillan turned up at an early Taverners game in Maidstone when he was Prime Minister.
He was also friends with Joe Jagger, Mick's dad. Ufton had attended Dartford Grammar School, where Joe would teach PE. Joe followed Kent, as did his sons Chris and Mick.
'My claim to fame is the Jagger boys asked for my autograph before I asked for theirs,' says Ufton. 'Some players like Alan Knott became friendly with him, and they would leave him Test tickets at the Savoy under the pseudonym 'Mr Vincent' and Mick would reciprocate with tickets for his shows.'
Ufton was playing amateur football when he joined the army. His talent was recognised and he was moved to barracks in Farnborough, Hampshire, to train with a team soon to include Jimmy Hill.
'Jimmy had such an ego,' says Ufton. 'Not a bad ego but he was never wrong. People could tell him his ideas were hopeless but Jimmy would not be beaten. He brought in three points for a win. He was too clever for the people running the game. They disliked him and out of envy tried to lock him out.'
After Hill and Ufton were demobbed, they shared a London flat. Hill joined Reading on trial and Ufton was considering a trial at Cardiff when he bumped into Malcolm Allison, then a defender at Charlton, in a dance hall.
Allison promised to fix a trial at the Valley, where Ufton signed for £7 a week and would play 263 times for the club, combining that with cricket in the summer. He later returned to serve for 26 years on the Charlton board.
He and Allison teamed up in a coaching capacity when the latter was Plymouth manager. Ufton was his assistant before taking over when Allison joined Joe Mercer at Manchester City in 1965.
'He was probably the best coach in England for a long time,' says Ufton. 'He'd been posted to eastern Europe in the army and came back saying how they controlled the ball and passed to each other when all we did was kick and run. And how he lived his life! He loved the gee-gees and champagne. I couldn't keep up!'
All this without Ufton dwelling on a modelling career, which included billboards and TV commercials, and posing as the father in a family picture for the Conservative Party election campaign in 1964.
Nor the Charlton game against Bill Shankly's Huddersfield, in 1957, when Ufton dislocated a shoulder at 0-0 and was taken to hospital at Greenwich.
He was about to have surgery when he learned his team were 4-1 down, and tried to discharge himself and return to the Valley. When he came round from the anaesthetic, the 10 men had recovered to win 7-6. Ufton was central to the narrative but missed all 13 goals.
So, Derek, about that book...
Comments
He and my dad knew each other at Dartford Grammar School and played football together. We often saw him at Charlton and he'd always stop and have a chat with us. I last saw him at my Dad's funeral three years ago.