Editing issues

11/11/2008 by Jacko Jones.

What you’ll see on this site are some early extracts from Jacko Jones diary.

Since we started putting these up other documents have become available, including a diary kept by Mr Jones girlfriend - later his wife - from this period.   This has helped us reshape the diary - of which some parts are missing and other pages are damaged.

What we are therefore now doing is gradually withdrawing the pages already presented, and they will soon be replaced with a completely new interpretation of the  life of Jacko Jones and his attempts to follow the purchase of Woolwich Arsenal by Henry Norris.

The whole of the 1910 diary should be available shortly.

Meanwhile the daily commentary on the Arsenal continues at www.blog.emiratesstadium.info 

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Wednesday 9 Feb 1910

02/08/2008 by Jacko Jones.

Wednesday 9 February 1910

If I am going to make something of this Norris story I think I am going to have to calm down on the street life. Too much drinking, too many nights out with the gang in the streets. I’m not stopping the Monkey Parade, but maybe if I cut the drink a bit. There was an amusing situation though at the White Hart in White Hart Lane where a fight broke out as usual about 8 o’clock. Five doors down at the Green Dragon there was also a punch-up going on, and by chance something blew up between some women in the Red Lion across the road.

Without warning all three exploded at once and the whole of the Lane exploded as a single fight. It just spread outwards. A few of us got up onto the railings in Empire Parade and you could see the whole thing just flow up and down the road.

Eventually the peelers turned up – late as always – and took a look at it, and blew their whistles a bit. One of them climbed up next to us, and turned out to be a character I’d met when covering a game or two at Tottenham. Amazingly he was a decent bloke with a sense of humour, and enjoyed the spectacle as much as I did. About midnight we went to the Dog and Duck for a nightcap, and I told him I was covering Woolwich Arsenal and Norris.

He said he thought Woolwich would close down – especially with the rise of a club at Stamford Bridge – and he didn’t hold out much hope for Fulham. He thought the Ironsides over at West Ham stood a better chance than either of the clubs I was interested in.

By the time we left there was still fighting going on up and down the Lane and I had to take a detour to get back home. Late again.

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Sunday 6 February 1910

02/08/2008 by Jacko Jones.

Sunday 6 February.

I wrote the piece up and included a bit about why northerners were doing so much better than southerners at football. Was it because southerners are softies? The only winners of the Cup from the south was Tottenham and no one in London had won a championship. Or were we all more refined, going to the theatre and what-not.

I didn’t think it very funny, but it got a few laughs so the editor put it in.

Then I carried on with Norris. As my head cleared through yesterday I had tried to make notes on him, but in the end all it came down to was…

• He gets closely involved with organisations – maybe does something financial for them, or pulls a few strings. Then he calls in the favour so he can get what he wants. With Norris it is never going to be deserved success – it will be success through calling in favours.
• He did this with Fulham getting into Southern League I
• He did it again with Fulham getting into Football League II
• He did it even with the Ecclesiastical Commissioners – having settled on renting Craven Cottage from them he calls in the favour when he is embarrassed having not picked up the issue about the oil base BP wanted – right where he is Mayor. He must have hated that.
• But it doesn’t always work – see for example with Chelsea. He rowed with them, they pushed on anyway, and voted against Fulham getting into League II. So some people stand up to him – although most take the money.

So that’s the key – it is money and organisations – organisations such as football clubs, councils, the church… If he does it to the church he’ll do it to anyone.

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Sat 5 February 1910

02/08/2008 by Jacko Jones.

Cup day.  I suppose they make so much fuss about it because they keep hoping one of the London old timer teams like Corinthians will win again.   (I went to see the Cors a few times, and in one game they got a penalty and just tapped it back to the goalie.  I asked the club secretary why and he said Corinthians would never believe that the opposition would deliberately commit a foul.  No wonder they don’t beat Liverpool any more.)

The fact is that since they moved the final to the Palace it’s just been Midlands and Northern teams in the final.  And Bristol City – they got there last year.  Which self-respecting Londoner is going to go down to the Palace and see Manchester beat Bristol 1-0?

But it’s the Cup so we have to write it up. 

I got the train to Liverpool at something like 5 in the morning – I prefer not to think when and fell straight asleep.  Much ribald laughter in the journalists’ carriage that I had certain signs of what I’d been doing in Kings Cross before getting the train.

Watched the locals get really excited by Everton 5 Woolwich 0 – and it’s not as if Everton are a semi-decent team.  True they were second last year, but so far behind Newcastle it hardly counts.  Sometimes I wonder why we have a national league – certainly not for my health.

Got back to find that Newcastle had beaten Fulham 4-0 but according to reports Norris had not been there.  Probably got lost once he got out of Fulham.  God I’m tired.

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Friday 4 February 1910

01/08/2008 by Jacko Jones.

It may not be enough for the boss but I think I am onto something here.  There’s a lot of evidence that Norris spent time getting himself in with the top dogs in football.  The 1907 charity shield was played at Fulham, there was the England Wales game there too, and he was involved in setting up a professional club in Croydon – although I guess this venture failed, because I don’t know where that club went.  And all that in the run up to Fulham applying for  place in the Football League that year. 

They got in, as we know, - although I’ve just found that Chelsea voted against Fulham. 

I also had a laugh looked at their first football league games – hull City 1 Fulham 0, followed by Fulham 0 Lincoln 0.

After that there was nothing I could pin on him, even with a long stretch of the imagination – except for one little event.   In 1903 Fulham got its land from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.  OK nothing in that.  But in December 1909 the LCC gave BP the rights to put a set of oil tanks in Fulham – Stevenage Road in fact, and no one objected.  But then suddenly all of Fulham was in arms about it and Norris must have felt a berk being Mayor and everything and not even knowing this was going on.   Then within 10 days the Ecclesiastical Commissioners who own the site decided not to grant a lease after all.

So who got at the Commissioners?   Someone who had done a deal earlier with them?  Over a football ground?

xxx

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Thursday 3 February 1910

01/08/2008 by Jacko Jones.

Thursday 3 February 1910

The boss is not impressed with my work.  Called it half-baked.  “You give me facts – Norris will eat you for breakfast if you start following any of those lines he said.  I pushed as hard as I dare without result.  The stuff about Fulham is coincidences, nothing more.  For my reward, I’m being sent to Liverpool to cover Woolwich.

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Sunday 30 January 1910

01/08/2008 by Jacko Jones.

Sunday 30 January 1910

Sunday was quiet – the stories done, and no one dying, nothing needing re-writing. I carried on reading up on Norris from 1903.

There was one big thing in our files on Norris that was nothing to do with football. On 31 Jan 1903 he had left the Fulham Lodge of the masons. Now why had he done that. I couldn’t see when he joined, but he wasn’t there long. Did they kick him out? For what?

Back to the football here’s the score:

6 June 1903 he became chairman of Fulham FC in Southern League I – and was negotiating with Archibald Leitch to build a new grandstand. Which is interesting because Leitch built the stand at Woolwich. I checked with the financial guys – Woolwich had never paid Leitch. I can’t quite see how this fits.

July 1903 Norris negotiates with Ecclesiastical Commissioners to get lease on Craven Cottage.

1903/4 was a poor season – lots of Fulham 0 and poor attendances – and – here’s a thing – Norris makes all sorts of comments about Fulham leaving CC – in fact the minutes of the first Fulham Ltd AGM have him saying he’s off. There’s a note in the summer of 1903 that he is trying to get a deal to play at Stamford Bridge – because of course Chelsea weren’t there in 1903.

From September 1904 Fulham started getting much better write ups in the Fulham local. The boss popped out and I asked if he remembered that. He looked at the page I had from the archive copy and laughed. “Crock is the club secretary,” he said. I checked back – it didn’t say that anywhere.

But then it hots up because in September 1904 – the LCC started proceedings against Fulham over the Leitch stand – seems it was supposed to be a temporary structure and should have come down a year ago. What was Norris doing – just ignoring the rules? Or something else?

December 1904 – first news of a new professional club to play at Stamford Bridge – and Norris’ goes mad raving about it.

At that point it all goes quiet, until in September 1905 the Fulham Chron starts attacking Norris wholesale. Now what made them do that?

I had no idea. I went out on the town, and picked up a nice skirt who seemed quite happy with the graveyard at St Peters.

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Saturday 29th January 1910

01/08/2008 by Jacko Jones.

Saturday 29^th January 1910

Spent the morning in the archives working on Norris’ background, looking for the dirt.

Here’s a story: In May 1903 Fulham got elected to the Southern League Division I – despite having lost 7-2 to Brentford in the Test Match for a place in Division I. If you want a strange start that is it. It was at this point that Norris appears on the scene – and for the first time ever there was a row about who was going up into the Southern League I.

According to our notes in the office the ballot was held twice, and even after the second ballot there was a row and a half – and according to some notes in our file a fight broke out. Then they gave the verdict to Fulham, despite them not winning the Test Match and guess who got up to make a vote of thanks: Norris. I can just imagine the toffs in their bowlers having a punch up. Nice idea.

And by June he was club chairman.

So how had he done that, from a standing start? And was it just coincidence that the odd unexplained developments for little Fulham just happened to start at the very moment that Norris got involved.

In the afternoon I dutifully did Fulham against Birmingham – and would you believe it, it was 0-0 – how I wanted to remind the boss of my “Fulham 0” story – but I didn’t. I just wrote it into my match report.

I had my press seat in the stand and the game was so totally awful that I was able to watch Norris. Interestingly he left before the end of the game with a couple of henchmen on either side.

The Fulham crowd is not particularly happy – the way they boo their own players tends to give it away. To me it’s a bit unfair

George did a very formal piece on charity work going on in Woolwich to raise money for the Gunners. Jim did the financials. My article on Norris was in the approval copy getting the editors final look-over and there with hardly a change, and so was my factual Fulham 0 piece. The editor cut my suggestion that the club should be renamed.

Woolwich beat Bolton 2-0. Maybe they are on the way up and won’t need Norris after all.

But that business of Norris arriving just as everything at Fulham gets crooked. That is just too much to let go. I need something else.

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Friday 28th January 1910

31/07/2008 by Jacko Jones.

I spent the morning thinking about Norris. My suspicion is that the boss is putting me up against Norris because he thinks

a) I’ll have a go and get a few laughs, which will get everyone who is anti-Norris on my side

b) When Norris eats me for dinner and spits me out, it will just be a junior whippersnapper that is lost, not anyone he really cares about.

So if that’s true, what do I do? I go with it that’s what. I throw everything I can at Norris and see what comes out the other end.

Thus, Norris.

1. He’s even less educated than I, which is interesting since it was the Tories who supported the Education Act. According to the notes in the office he left school at 14, which is interesting.

2. But he thinks himself king.

3. There’s lots of stories about his working for orphans and suchlike. Is it true?

4. There’s also lots of stories about him helping the little man against the might of the local authority where “vested interests” stop the ordinary man in the street from developing his little house with an extension. My guess: he’s buying favours.

5. Has friends in high places

6. He has friends in low places, and that’s because despite point five he hates authority, wants to give his point of view, can’t rely on the old boys club because he is not part of it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had his hand in protection rackets.

7. My guess is that most of his friends are also afraid of him. He is clearly a bully, but at our meeting he was trying to persuade me and impress me. He’s big, and that helps him.

8. Like all bullies he must live on assumptions. So the only way to play it is to not let him work me out – let him make assumptions that I am a little player, someone from the same background as him who never made it big – little young reporter. A cub.

9. In that case I must never let on that I know anything he doesn’t want me to know.

10. When I do something I am going to have to act fast

I re-read the list.

And gulped.

What I had not written down, but guessed was right, was that Norris had friends everywhere. He was in Fulham and I was in Wood Green, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have agents in my part of the town.

Part eight is my only hope. He must not work me out. Let him think me a dolt. A kid from the streets. A little boy gawping at the big man.

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Thursday 27 January 1910

30/07/2008 by Jacko Jones.

By the time I got into the door the boss had a copy of the West London and threw it at me. “Your conversation?” he asked. I read Norris’ piece in the paper.

“And yours,” I replied – meaning we’d both gone over the same ground. Norris worried about the senior London club going down was about as sincere as the girls in the Monkey, and he was spreading his version of events in ever newspaper that was silly enough to allow him to write for them.

“Of course I have no particular interest in Woolwich Arsenal, my hands are completely full in my push to get Fulham into Division I,” he said. “But as a director of a London team, and as Mayor of Fulham, I am sad to see our senior professional team in difficulty.”

To me it was drivel – the guy can’t even write very well. I looked at my boss. It was drivel to him as well.

I offered to write a piece about Norris’ club, but every time I mentioned them I would call them “Fulham Nil”, in reflection of the way they played, but the boss would have none of it. “You’re in there boy,” he said. “Play him on a long lead. See if you can talk to him again. Find out what he is up to. Norris saying that he has no interest in something translates as ‘I am in it up to my neck’. But just remember anything you give him he’ll use in one of his own wretched articles.”

Norris is, apart from being a pig in pig’s clothing, a jumped up working class lad like me. The difference is, he owns a football club and I can write.

So the events for tomorrow were reassigned and I got Fulham against Birmingham City under the new “The Highwayman” moniker, while I had a brief to produce a detailed piece about the finances of Woolwich A as Gatekeeper – which is how I spent the rest of the day.

It was at this moment that I began to see what the boss had in store for me. For the first time ever (at least since I had been on the paper) a job was chopped in half. Jim Steeles got the brief to write the serious analysis, and so I dutifully handed him the financials I had removed from the shareholders meeting.

But I had to write my commentary which would, according to the boss, “keep the readers who for reasons that are completely beyond my comprehensive like your style, in a happy frame of mind.”

First thing I did was to get Jim to translate the figures to me. He said, “At this rate they might just last the season, but they’ll need to raise more than having a quick whip round in the pub.

“But even if they survive, and if Woolwich stay away from relegation, they’ll probably disintegrate in the summer. There’s nothing in the club but debts.”

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