and more - The Process
This is the story, in two parts, Process and Consequences, of young men and fate, three young men in all, all Scots. All were born within two years of each other, footballing prodigies each. One would fulfil his potential and if not all then most of his aspirations. Two through serendipity, indeed through un-luck, would not. And certainly one, perhaps both, might well have been able to change Scotland's footballing history had the Gods not been so unkind to him, indeed, in differing ways, to them, and ultimately to us.
The first laddie was, is an Aberdonian. For his fifty-five international and three 'B' game as an inside- sometime centre-forward over sixteen years and thirty-one goals he has been lauded, and rightly so. His name is, after all, Denis Law. The two others were Wishaw-men. I say Wishaw because both would grow up, stay and die there although it would not be the birth-place of either. Joe would arrived, it is said at the age of six weeks, which would make Gerry two and half at the time. Of the two one, a centre- sometime inside-forward cum winger would win eight senior and six under-23 caps over seven years but actually and critically at senior level in two short bursts, scoring seven times. The other, definitely an inside-forward, would be awarded seven caps, all senior, netting twice over seven months in what was a single and ultimately failed World Cup campaign. They were Joe and Gerry, the Baker-boys, and their shared story, particularly that of Joe's part in it, must be one of the saddest, in terms of timing and what-might-have-been, of far too great a number of the Scots, footballing Diaspora.
Born just just before the Second World War and just as it started, Gerry, the elder in 1938, Joe in 1940 both Bakers showed talents, which after the war was recognised, developed and to significant degree honed in the footballing hot-spot of north-east Lanarkshire. Joe, in view of what was to come, was a even Scottish school-boy international, twice over, scoring thrice in a win and a draw. And it became clear that both were destined for the professional game. Gerry was the first to step up, after a single game at Chelsea and not wanting to stay, signing for the local team, Motherwell, at the age of eighteen in 1956. Joe soon followed and also took the first, if short, step away. In 1957, aged seventeen, he was signed by Hibernian.
Over two seasons the young Gerry Baker would play eleven times for The Well in the Scottish First Division, netting four times. Not bad for a teenager. He would then maturing and aged twenty move to St. Mirren in the same division, hit an impressive forty-two goals in sixty three league outings between 1958 and 1960 and be noted. Manchester City in the English First Division came in for him, he transferred and in thirty-seven appearances at Maine Road at inside-forward scored fourteen. It meant at three clubs in one hundred and eleven appearances his goal tally was a more than acceptable sixty, so better than one in two and not quite two in three, yet, at twenty-two and also perhaps a little homesick he was to remain with City just a single, if highly significant, season.
Meanwhile in Edinburgh at Easter Road brother Joe was creating quite a stir. In four seasons he had hit the target one hundred and two times at a rate of a fraction under one a game, including 46 in 42 starts in 1959-60 and 44 more in 1960-61. He had also played his first, senior international game; 18th November 1959 in a 2-1 home victory over Northern Ireland. Baker scored in the 16th minute, "a strike from 12 yards", Sammy McIlroy missed a penalty, Billy Bingham equalised with three minutes to go and the winner was hit from a pass by Baker, clearly still right at it, with a minute to go. With a goal and an assist it seemed a job well done. His manager seemed to agree as it was then followed by four more caps in a row. The first was an away win where Baker dislocated his shoulder and in the era of no substitutes played the whole game handicapped by the injury, The second was a home draw with Baker crashing the ball against the bar in the 90th minute and the rebound being tucked in for the equaliser and then from the restart Baker heading the ball against the bar with no-one there to follow-up this time, such are the margins. The third was away on summer tour with a very young team that in heavy rain fell behind just before half-time, tired and conceded two more in the last ten minutes, whilst the last was on that same tour so also away with a number of chances lost through "poor finishing" resulting in a 2-0 defeat.
However, back at club level the word on Joe Baker must have been spreading for at the end of the 1960-61 season there was interest from outwith Scotland. In fact it was Italy that came a-calling and Torino that left with not just a single, young Scots player but a pair. Joe Baker was one. The other was, of course, Denis Law. Now Law's career had taken quite a different path. A gawky, youngster with bad eye-sight he had nevertheless been recruited aged sixteen directly from the junior game, and by Andy Beattie, Scotland's first, if still part-time manager. Beattie divided his time between country and club. Law had joined him at that club, Huddersfield, but soon found himself under the tutelage of Beattie's successor, a certain Bill Shankly, the man said to have arranged for the relatively new arrival's squint to be corrected, the first step to what would be considerable fame and some fortune.
However, it started slowly. By 1961, although Law had played eighty-one times for his club over the previous four years, he had scored just sixteen times, which on the face of it was, shall we say, underwhelming. Yet by the end of the 1960-61 season he had caps; eleven in all but never alongside either Baker. It was the year when Huddersfield, having finished third in the English Second Division in 1959 under Shankly as he left for Liverpool and fallen to one place above relegation in 1960 but, had then recovered to seventh with in the team a Law, who was still only twenty but blossoming. It had therefore come as no surprise when the Aberdonian too attracted First Division interest and moved across the Pennines. However, it was not as might have been expected to Liverpool, promoted that season from Division Two. Rather once more it was Manchester City that had come in and where with twenty-one goals in forty-four starts in a single season Law started to show his truer potential, enough clearly to catch foreign eyes and, coincidentally or not, playing with none other than Gerry Baker at his side. Together they, a twenty-year old and a twenty-two year old, provided thirty-five of the teams seventy-nine goals that season.
Even today it is difficult to work out whether Torino ended up with Joe Baker or Denis Law by expediency, i.e. one was wanted more than the other, the other came as a make-weight, or was it by design, as a pairing, Baker at centre- and Law at inside-forward. After all, it seemed a good fit short- and long-term. Both had international experience. Both were still just twenty-one. The knew each other but more than that they were united in a friendship, forged not just by their sporting abilities and ages but also a shared Scottishness that on the face of it provided an opportunity to create a significant footballing partnership. It seemed neat and was to seem neater still when Gerry got something out the move that might have pleased him too. As Joe and Denis headed to the Piemontese capital so Gerry went back to Scotland's and essentially to fill his brother's Hibs shoes.
For Gerry for two seasons the return home was a success. He scored at his normal rate, a goal every other game, twenty seven in fifty-nine. Yet for Joe and Denis it didn't work out at all. In the year in Italy Joe made a mere nineteen appearances, in a thirty-four fixture season, and scored just seven times, a quarter of his previous rate, and Denis did little better with ten in a more contributive twenty-seven. It is said they simply did not settle, in spite of Torino finishing a respectable seventh having been twelfth the previous year. And the following season both were back, not home but in England. Law returned to Manchester, but United not City, and footballing immortality. Joe went to London, to Arsenal and normal service at club level seemed resumed. Both would return to form, netting freely once more with Joe, perhaps surprisingly for us today with short memories, not just being the Highbury club's top marksman in each of his four seasons there, but, as before, at one and a half times the rate of his pal.
But there was still a problem, an insurmountable problem that as the fates intervened would have repercussions would for Scotland that would as yet in 1962 have seemed unimaginable. At international level, just as before, their paths would still not cross. In fact, just as they never had they never would. The reason was simple. Whilst the caps Aberdeen's Law had been for the country, in which he had grown up, Wishaw Joe's and Gerry's were not and would not be. Under a Scottish FA ruling that dated from 1882, but seems never to have been officially ratified, a least not according to SFA minutes, and the International Board ruling of 1886 to be Scottish was either to be born north of the border or outwith the Home Nations and in the Empire to a Scottish father. Neither Joe or Gerry Baker complied on either count.
Now much has been written about Joe and Gerry Baker's ancestry. Much too is at best only half true and this article is an opportunity to establish the facts and put the story to bed once and for all. The Baker-boys' mother was Elizabeth "Lizzie" McShane. We know that she was tiny, just 4ft 7ins, had fair skin, brown hair and hazel eyes. We know it from her American documentation. It exists because in 1929, aged eighteen and with her twin sister, Sarah, she emigrated to the USA. She went as a "confectionery worker", she worked as a "domestic", she settled in Larchmont a north-eastern suburb of New York City but she was born and raised in Motherwell. Her father was Arthur, born in Ireland. Her mother was also Elizabeth, nee Docherty, born in Scotland but again of Irish stock. Notably when asked about their nationality and race on US documentation both Lizzie and Sarah put Scottish for the former and Irish for the latter.
Moreover George Baker was also in America. He had arrived there again in 1929, registered as a gardener, to join and live with with older brother, John, who had emigrated in 1927. He, John, was in the motor trade, variously listed as working in a garage and as a chauffeur, and was living in Marmaroneck, the suburb just to the north of Larchmont, with both in the larger district of New Rochelle. And George and John had seemingly migrated from England. They had an English father, born in Margate. He was a seaman. He worked on dredgers, which not doubt took him to many ports, including Liverpool, where he and his wife by 1901 finally settled, and it seems in 1910 George was born. However, it also seems Liverpool had not been the only port-of-call of Mr Baker Snr. Dundee might have been another because the boy's mother was Scots. Her name was Mary, nee Mary Welsh, once more with an Irish father and a Scots mother, and she had been born in Lochee, just to the west of Jute City.
Somehow George Baker and Lizzie McShane met. It was hardly surprising. After all they lived in neighbouring suburbs and in terms of background had much in common. And between 1933 and 1937 they married, apparently still in America . In 1933 she with her sister travelled home to Scotland still as Miss McShane, she did so again in early 1937 as Mrs Baker and then she and George were to cross the Atlantic once more in August 1938 to stay, arriving in Liverpool and probably living with George's parents. It was their address they gave as their UK destination. However, in the meantime Lizzie Baker had twice found herself pregnant, which brings us to the crux. The first time was in the summer of 1937 on her return to America. Gerry was after all born in April 1938. And the second time was towards the end of 1939 as the day of Joe's birth was 17th July 1940.
It is clear that by today's rules Gerry and Joe Baker, footballers, would through their parents qualify internationally for England and Scotland and in addition through their grandparents Ireland, whether Eire or Northern Ireland or both is unclear. It might today mean a difficult choice but a choice nevertheless. But here comes the problem. In their era Joe and Gerry were not under today's rules but those of 1882 and 1886-7 and, although where George and Lizzie Baker were between August 1938 and July 1940 is unknown, perhaps in Motherwell, probably on Merseyside, where Lizzie was in April 1938 and July 1940 is not. For the former it was New Rochelle, New York and the latter definitely Liverpool for that is where Gerry's and Joe's births respectively are recorded for posterity. Gerry was born the USA and Joe in England. It meant that in terms of international football and since neither America or Liverpool were in the British Empire at the time, for both of them there was just one choice and Scotland, the country they clearly regarded as home, could play no role. Either could decide on no caps, i.e. not to play international football at all, or Gerry could represent the USA and did, whilst Joe could turn out for England and in 1959 already had, the first player of Scots background and raised in Scotland since Jock Simpson fifty years earlier to have had to make the choice. There had in the interim been others, Charlie Buchan, Syd Bishop and David Jack, who been born in England of Scots parents but none, who had lived from childhood, Simpson returned aged 3, and received their footballing north of the border.
I never met Joe or Gerry Baker. Joe died in 2003 and Gerry in 2013. But even as a Scots Diasporan kid twice-removed, born in London, brought up for most of my childhood in an English new town with a father born of Scots parents but in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, to have pulled on the blue shirt of Scotland just once would have meant I would die happy. For me what such a choice as the Baker-boys had had to make would have done for my sanity is hard to assess. Jock Simpson seems simply to have been able to brush it off. As with the Bakers at the end of his career he simply to have returned to his hometown, Falkirk, to spend the rest of his days there. However, his contribution to England, eight caps and one goal, although it might have been better placed with Scotland when the two countries were evenly matched, was never doubted. However, for Gerry Baker and Joe it was more complicated, with regard to Scotland a case of what could have been, and in Joe's case doubly so, the same Scottish what-if plus an unpleasant slur on what he actually did.
Joe, having first been, shall we say, dropped in 1960 after a gap of five years was in late 1965 once again called on for the England squad. He then played three more games and as before not without success. The first was as chance would have it against Northern Ireland once more and would be almost a carbon-copy of the 1959 encounter. England would again win 2-1 at home and Baker would score not in the 16th but the 19th minute with "a powerful shot", Willy Irvine would equalise a minute later and Alan Peacock would find a winner in the 73rd minute. And the parallels continued. The next match was against Spain again and away. This time Baker scored in 8 minutes on a pitch that was once more soaked, on this occasion with melting snow, limped off after thirty-five minutes but set up what was eventually to be a comfortable 0-2 victory. It was the match the England manager Alf Ramsey
"gave full rein to his 4-3-3 formation for the first time"
with Baker and Charlton up front either side of Roger Hunt. It was also probably the game that effectively marked the start of the elimination of Jimmy Greaves from Ramsey's thinking in the deciding games of the World Cup Finals were he used the same formation, if somewhat tweaked.
Baker was then selected for England's next game four weeks later and why not? Had he not been instrumental in victory in the Spanish game. The match itself was on 5th January 1966 against Poland again using 4-3-3, a 1-1 home draw with none of the forwards firing. Bobby Moore had to come to the rescue with a seventy-third minute equaliser on a Wembley pitch again turned into a bog by heavy rain. How fit Joe Baker was must be questioned yet for him that was it for a second time. In the following match Geoff Hurst was selected to lead the line. Joe Baker was sidelined. He did not even make it into the England squad for the pre-World Cup tour of Scandinavia never mind the World Cup squad itself, one of only three forwards used in the previous eight preparatory games that years not to be included. The others were Bobby Tambling and Gordon Harris, both comparative newcomers.
Now it has been said that one of the reason's Joe Baker was dropped by Alf Ramsey was that firstly he did not consider Joe English, or at least not English enough and, secondly, his commitment was doubted. True it was also said that Joe's accent was so thick some of the other England players did not understand him but then football is not played with the tongue and the same question of nationality could be levelled at Alan Ball. By today's rules he might have played for Wales and he didn't exactly speak the Queen's English either. And as for commitment, playing up to the last minute of a game, setting up two chances, or continuing with a dislocated shoulder surely and literally scotches that as a suggestion. Joe Baker was a goal-scoring machine. He would score goals for anyone anywhere, over many years and at a rate significantly better than, for example, Geoff Hurst's. Over his league career Hurst's was 0.4. Joe Baker's was 0.6. In addition Alf Ramsey was a pragmatist, and a driven one at that. There was a man, who himself had suffered two huge international humiliations in his playing career. He had been in the England teams that had lost in the 1950 World Cup in Brazil to the USA. He had also been at Wembley in 1953 on the day Hungary had run circles not just round him but all the others yet they had survived and he, although slotting a penalty, never played for England again. He didn't want a third humiliation and was prepared to be ruthless as he, not without some desperation, struggled to find the right not player- but system-based formula. Even at the last moment members of England's Final Squad found themselves, if not discarded, then changed and even chopped. Norman Hunter, who had replaced Baker when injured against Spain was in and then out. Greaves picked up an injury, recovered but did not get a further look-in.
In fact, if prejudice was a factor it probably had its source a little earlier, with unpleasant Press talk and Walter Winterbottom. Comment is cheap and no-one can pretend that papers do not use it to fill column inches, at times with an unpleasant agenda, at others without thinking it through. They do now, they did then and people are swayed accordingly. Under Winterbottom Joe Baker had had an impressive run. He had faced Northern Ireland at Wembley, Spain away, Yugoslavia away, the same Yugoslavia, which two years later would reach the semi-final of the World Cup with England knocked out in the quarters, the still powerful Hungarians and a game at Hampden. It was three away including Scotland in his second game, a 1-1 draw, with a shoulder dislocated in the game to boot, and just one at home, a win, a loss and two away draws. Yet on the pitch had he been replaced by Bobby Smith for a subsequent series of fixtures, which were far easier in terms of quality of opposition and venue, just two away, one each against Northern Ireland and Luxembourg, and three at home. Smith was therefore more prolific in front of goal. Moreover off the pitch there had also been murmurings about Baker's Scots background. It was suggested that just as Bobby Smith was properly English Joe Baker was demonstrably not, the insinuation being that whilst his body might fill an England shirt his heart did not with then the possibility that Winterbottom might have believed it or decided choosing the one over the other was in the face of Press criticism more "politic".
Walter Winterbottom ceased to be England manager as a result of his perceived failure at the 1962 World Cup, for which both Baker and Smith were omitted. Alf Ramsey replaced him, was eliminated from the European Nations Cup in his first game and was then faced with trying to find a winning formula for a 1966 World Cup, for which England as host did not need to qualify. At first he tried the conventional route, basically 2-3-5. He recalled Bobby Smith with some success. After his second game, a home defeat to Scotland, he did not lose another until the beginning of 1964. But yet he was clearly still not entirely happy and decided on experimentation. Smith was dropped once more, Johnny Byrne, incidentally English-born with two Irish parents, came in, more an inside- than a centre-forward and the England team played essentially no centre-forward so no Baker in that role in a 2-4-4 for another two years. Once more it was a success with all wins apart from a draw with Wales and loss at Wembley to Sweden but in November 1965 with the World Cup just six months away found Ramsey again faced something of a quandary. Through lack of goals he then had a run of poor results. His defence was settled but his attack was still far from it and Greaves was injured. His response was firstly to go back; to a five up front with an affirmative, re-called Baker leading the line. It led to a return to winning ways but clearly with residual, personal dissatisfaction, which he attempted to resolve by going bold, be it by luck or judgement never to look back. Against Spain he finally adopted a full-4-3-3 with a retained and clearly positive Baker in and asked by joining Hunt and Charlton, a centre-forward, an inside-forward and a winger. In a sense Baker could even be said to have made it all possible and successfully for the limited time he was on the pitch. Certainly he was retained for the following game by when Ramsey seems to have made up his mind. The formation was retained, the personnel re-worked of necessity. Charlton was unavailable. Harris stepped in. And that would the case in the next game too. The only problem for Baker was that as Charlton returned Hurst came in and never left.
For the second part of this article "Bakers and Law and More - The Consequences"
click here