In the early 1970s the PFA was increasingly keen to promote a more sophisticated image of the professional player, as well as seize some of new commercial opportunities then occurring.
In 1970, the Management Committee had provided the impetus behind a Football Hall of Fame then being established by various keen football-mad business entrepreneurs in Londons Oxford Street. The Hall ultimately failed, but the PFA retained one key element of it – the concept of the players themselves voting for their own Player of the Year.
In 1974, this idea would become the centre piece of a televised black-tie dinner when the PFA Awards were born. A key mover in making the event a success was PFA Chairman Derek Dougan who, along with Aston Villa director Eric Woodward and PFA secretary Cliff Llloyd turned a pipe-dream into reality.
The Awards dinner served a practical purpose, providing players at all levels an opportunity to mix socially while the awards themselves were thoroughly democratic: every PFA member had a vote so the eventual winners would, according to Dougan, 'draw attention to the qualities which players regard most highly in their colleagues'. It was a controversial statement!
At a time when pro-football was coming under increasing criticism because of its dour, defensive, not to say violent tendencies, the player selected to receive the first-ever Players' Player Award was that arch exponent of the crunching tackle, Norman 'Bite Yer Legs' Hunter!
Dougan was unrepentant. "Anyone who doubts the social progress of the modern footballer has only to switch on the Player of the Year Awards on TV, without doubt the best night on the sporting calendar."
The White (or was it Grey?) Horse Final: Hail Billy
Wembley Stadium has rightfully been dubbed the Venue of Legends but its first true hero was a Metropolitan Police horse!
Although Wembley was originally constructed to hold 125,000 people, the first Cup Final of 1923 saw between 200,000 and 300,000 fans flock to watch Bolton Wanderers versus West Ham and, with crowd control negligible, thousands quickly poured into the new ground.
The doors were already shut by 1:45pm with 126,047 – the number the authorities claimed Wembley could hold - crammed inside. The official figure didn't include another 65,000 or so who'd climbing railings, scaling walls and jumped turnstiles, however.
By 2:00pm, police stations from miles around had been mobilised, but by the time they arrived at the stadium, there was little they could do about the chaos with hundreds of people coverering the playing area. Enter a 13-year-old horse called Billy ridden by PC George Scorey.
Interviewed many years later, George recalled: "As my horse picked his way onto the field, I saw nothing but a sea of heads. I thought 'we can't do it'. However, I told them to join hands and heave and they went back step by step until we reached the line. Billy was wonderful, gently easing folk back with his nose and tail until we had pushed the crowd over one of the goallines."
The game was eventually started 40 minutes later Thereafter, both horse and rider were famous, their presence requested at many events.
Billy died in 1930, when the head of the Mounted Branch presented Scorey with one of his hooves, polished and mounted. In 2005, the new footbridge near the rebuilt Wembley Stadium was named the White Horse Bridge, in honour of Billy – who was in fact, grey, but who appeared white in the primitive black and white newsreel footage of the era!
