More memories from Albert

In previous issues of North West Side Stories, former Mirror and Sun photographer Albert Cooper has been sharing some pictures and memories from his career, and he has given us some more to enjoy in this issue. Click on the small image to enlarge it.

Picture 1 - Bobby Charlton’s testimonial

This picture was taken during Bobby Charlton’s testimonial match against Celtic at Old Trafford.

I did a lot of pictures with Bobby, but he was a very shy, reserved type of person. He was difficult to deal with in a way, as he didn’t like to push himself into the limelight or be seen to looking for publicity, and because of that he could sometimes be hard work. He was such a personality at the time though, there was always a demand for pictures of him.

He wouldn’t have enjoyed the publicity of being under the spotlight for his testimonial, but he would have enjoyed the football against a team like Celtic, and the camaraderie of the players at an event like that. I’m quite surprised he has taken on a role as an ambassador now, when I knew him he would have avoided that sort of thing. He was a great guy though, a genuinely nice person.

One of the best pictures I took of Bobby is one that unfortunately I don’t have a copy of. After Manchester United won the European Cup, they played Estudiantes of Argentina in the World Club Championship. The first leg was in Argentina and there was a guy playing for them called Carlos Oscar Pachame, who went over the top on Bobby, and nearly broke his leg.

When Estudiantes came over for the return leg, they stayed at a hotel in Lymm in Cheshire. They were a marvellous set of lads, and when the press went down on the days they were there they used to invite us for dinner. They had brought over their own chefs and even their own steaks, and they had barbecues for the press guys. Anyway, Bobby lived half a mile up the road and I thought to myself “There’s a good picture here”.

So Sun sportswriter Frank Clough and me got our heads together, and the upshot was Frank went round to Bobby’s house, and suggested to him it would take the heat out of the situation if we got a picture of him and Pachame together. Bobby took a bit of convincing but agreed in the end, so we ended up sneaking Pachame out of the hotel into a car and up to Bobby’s house.

When we got there, Bobby’s wife and daughters were there too, and after the introductions were made we ended up in the garden with a cup of tea. Anyway, what happened next was just one of those moments when a picture opportunity just happens. Pachame was a family man with children of his own, and he had picked up one of Bobby’s daughters and had her in his arms.

Bobby picked the other girl up and the two were talking as Pachame could speak a bit of English. Suddenly, Pachame asked Bobby “How’s the leg?” Bobby leant down and pulled his trouser leg up to show him the injury! It was a great picture, the two players together discussing the injury. You’ve got to be ready for these things and luckily I was.

Going back to the picture, the Celtic defender on the left of the picture is Billy McNeill. I knew Billy well too, even before he came to Manchester to manage Manchester City. I used to be involved in the Sports Photographers Association and I joined the Scottish Sports Photographers Association too. Every year they had a “Personality of the Year” dinner up in Glasgow and I used to go up for that.

Funnily enough, I always seemed to sit next to Billy at the dinner, and got to know him because of that. Of course when he came down to manage Manchester City I was delighted as he knew me as a familiar face straight away, so I was in there right from the start and I got on tremendously well with him.

Picture 2 – Paul Parker, Ryan Giggs and Eric Cantona

This photo is from the early 90’s. By this time the agents were getting involved and players were becoming less accessible, although I knew Paul Parker quite well, who is on the left of this picture along with Ryan Giggs and Eric Cantona. It started to get harder because more people were after the players than before and let’s face it, some of the people chasing them were out for the headline grabbing story.

I had a certain amount of success at Old Trafford in getting pictures no one else could get as Alex Ferguson knew me from his time in Scotland and knew what I was about, so he trusted me more than he trusted certain others.

Even then, by this time the feeling at Manchester United was they were appearing in the papers almost too much, and especially when they were attracting he wrong kind of publicity. If there was a bad story in the Mirror for example, and I went down a few days later to take pictures for the Mirror, through no fault of my own I might experience a problem.

I built up trust with the well known names in football, as I always tried when I could to avoid controversy. I feel so sorry for photographers today because controversial pictures are what the papers want. In my day my role was to take fun pictures, and players would accept that and would be happy to co-operate.

Picture 3 - George Best in his dinner jacket

I was covering a charity boxing match at the Piccadilly Hotel in Manchester, and during a break, George come up to me, and asked if I would take this photograph of him, and let him have a print. He told me that he wanted to send it to his mum in Belfast, as he said she had "never seen him dressed up".

The photograph was taken towards the end of 1968, the same year United won the European Cup and I think it was around the time George had just won the European Player of the Year award. I took hundreds of photographs of George, lots of them exclusive. He was a most approachable and likeable person, and very cooperative. Although I knew him well, I never really got close to him but I don't think anyone ever did.

My only criticism of him was - punctual he was not. I would hang around for hours to photograph him, but he seemed to always understand what I was about. My memories of George are good ones. He was way ahead of his time, the first sports star that had pop star type appeal, and at the time everyone used to say he was the fifth Beatle.

Pictures 4 & 5 - Colin Bell

I always enjoyed going to Manchester City in the 60’s. They were a great side and they had some great guys in the team. Mike Summerbee was terrific, and Colin Bell was another of my favourites.

These two shots came about when I went down to take some pictures of Colin with our reporter, the late Alec Johnson, as Colin was returning from injury. We decided that I would lie down in the back of the net with my camera while Colin was taking shots at Joe Corrigan in goal.

The first picture is one I was looking for, with Colin’s shot heading for goal. Unfortunately for me, what happened was that the shot beat Joe, and hit my camera knocking it into my face and making a deep cut. Tony Book was there and rushed over with a towel, but I told him to wait while I got Alec to take a picture of me getting treatment. The second picture is the one Alec took, showing Colin and Tony with me, and giving me a favourite pic for the Cooper family album.

Picture 6 – 1966 FA Cup Final

The first FA Cup Final I covered was in 1966 when Everton played Sheffield Wednesday. As far as I’m aware this was the first time that anyone ever ran on to the pitch at Wembley, apart from the first final back in the 1920’s when most of the crowd was on there!

I believe the guy’s name was Cavanagh, and I was sitting at the side of the goal when he suddenly appeared and started running towards me. He was chased by three coppers, one took his hat off and dived and missed him, but the second one collared him and took him out and everybody felt sorry for him. It happened in the first half and I remember being told that he got back into the ground later in the game.

Albert Cooper

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