Did you hear the one about Bobby Charlton playing for East Fife? No, honestly!
The year, 1975. The event, the John Martis Testimonial Match. Even patriotic Methilites warmed to the rare skills, shooting power and will to win of England’s 1966 hero
This article first appeared in issue 30 of Nutmeg in December 2023, just after Sir Bobby Charlton passed away. It is free, but most of our content is paid. Don’t miss out… get a Nutmeg season ticket. Sign up and get 12 months of access PLUS a year’s subscription to the beautiful, 200-page print quarterly — delivered straight to your door.
By Donald Walker. Illustration by James Yuill
It feels disloyal to admit it. Unfaithful. A shameful betrayal. But I don’t think it is anything other than honest to suggest that Methil, where both sides of my family hailed from, is no beauty spot.
Nor did the town’s name feature on any of the 400-plus pages of Pete Irvine’s excellent Scotland the Best guidebook, on last inspection. Best for deprivation, perhaps, after the demise of heavy industry resulted in high levels of unemployment and the scourge of associated social problems. Legend has it that Prince Philip referred to Methil as a “dump” when Royal Navy duty took him to the docks during wartime. Funnily enough, the good folk of the Fife coast mining town did not appreciate judgment from someone who was born a Prince into two royal families, then married into a third for good measure. Never the most gifted diplomat, Philip tasked an equerry with issuing a denial of the “dump” remark — 50 years later.
It is often said that the town’s best days are behind it, but there are fresh grounds for hope in this part of the Kingdom. The area is to be reconnected to the national rail network next year, after the line to Leven was closed in 1969. With a population of 33,000, Levenmouth has been described as the largest settlement in Scotland without a direct rail link. There is further encouragement offered by the Fife Coastal Path, established in 2002, an increasingly popular route which has put Methil back on to the beaten track, literally.
And yet through the wilderness years of the post-Beeching era, and despite the lack of the charm and sophistication offered just up the road in the East Neuk, there have been moments when plain old monochrome Methil has attracted some of the world’s most celebrated footballers. In 1995, Alex Ferguson brought Manchester United to Bayview Park to provide the opposition for the Jimmy Bonthrone Testimonial, and the United team list seems scarcely believable, even to those who were witness among the 5,000 in attendance that sunny afternoon. Roy Keane, Paul Scholes, Denis Irwin, Steve Bruce, Phil Neville, Gary Neville, Lee Sharpe, Brian McClair, Paul Parker… and famously, David Beckham, who scored two spectacular goals from 20 and 25 yards in an individual performance from a future global superstar that is unlikely to be seen again in Methil anytime soon. Or at least, you would think that.
In fact, the town had witnessed a similar virtuoso performance 20 years previously, in 1975, by an even bigger Manchester United legend than Beckham. At that time, no one who witnessed World Cup winner Bobby Charlton grace Bayview Park — lashing home a trademark goal from 25 yards — would have thought such a feat would ever be repeated. Where the two performances differ significantly is that Charlton was not playing for United at the time, or indeed with Preston North End, where he wound down his senior playing career in the UK. Instead, he was wearing the black and gold colours of East Fife — with the letters ‘EFFC’ emblazoned across his chest — as a guest player in the John Martis Testimonial Match, in honour of the veteran East Fife centre-half.
As unlikely sights in football go, this must be right up there with George Best playing for Scone Thistle (accompanied by a Miss World winner), or Princess Grace of Monaco turning up at Tannadice one night (perched next to the Taylor Brothers Coal advertising hoarding). Or perhaps the time Charlton himself, an icon of English football’s most famous hour, wore the dark blue of Scotland in a 1981 testimonial fixture against an England XI — and scored.
Charlton’s unlikely appearance in the Martis Testimonial on January 14, 1975 made only 10 paragraphs in the East Fife Mail, with no accompanying match photograph. Maybe the presence of a World Cup winner at Bayview was old hat locally, with Gordon Banks having kept goal for Stoke City at Bayview in 1970, just five months after his mythologised save from Pele at the World Cup finals in Mexico.
However, the daily newspapers were all over this curiosity item. Picture desks lapped up photos of Martis helping Charlton to pull on an East Fife shirt in the Bayview dressing room, flanked by additional guest players Pat Stanton of Hibernian and Dixie Deans of Celtic. The John Martis XI was a composite select, with half the players from East Fife and the other half special guests. As well as Charlton, Stanton and Deans, the Martis XI included Tommy Gemmell (Dundee), Kenny Aird (Hearts) and Willie Mathieson (Rangers). Like Charlton, Gemmell was also a European Cup winner. The sight of two such players running out at Bayview wearing East Fife jerseys is astonishing even to think about.
The opposition was a Fife Select, with a pool of players from Dunfermline, Cowdenbeath and Raith Rovers. “Bobby Charlton headed a glitter of top-name stars who entertained a 3,000 Bayview crowd,” reported the local newspaper. “The former Manchester United and England idol delighted the fans by showing flashes of the style, imagination and shooting power that made him a worldwide soccer name, and climaxed his performance with a 25-yard second-half special that left goalkeeper Geir Karlsen helpless.”
And on a night of surprises, the Fife Select served up another by running riot against the star-studded team captained by Charlton. “After Kenny Aird had headed the Martis XI into the lead, the Fife Select took full advantage of the strong, chilly breeze to ease into a 5-1 half-time lead with high-powered goals from captain Kinninmonth, Conn (2), Mackie and Laing,” the East Fife Mail reported. “Charlton reduced the leeway on 50 minutes, but ‘Jock’ [Ken] Mackie grabbed a second goal soon afterwards to put the Select four in front again.” Charlton had impressed, despite his team losing 6-2. The Dundee Courier reported that he was “spraying passes all over the place” and showed “lightning reflexes”. When Charlton was replaced by Drew Rutherford after 70 minutes, he was given an ovation as he returned to the dressing room.
But how did this all happen? What had persuaded Charlton to make an eight-hour round trip to Methil, on a cold and wet Tuesday in January? Martis was a player of great ability and strong reputation, having been part of Motherwell’s Ancell Babes team of the late 1950s and early 1960s, and had been capped once for Scotland in 1960, but he was not well known in England. One theory is that Charlton remembered him from a Scotland v England under-23 international played at Ibrox, where he went head-to-head with young Martis at centre-half in a 4-4 draw.
“It’s true, I did play against Bobby when we were younger,” said Martis, now 83, when the Charlton connection was recalled in the days after the recent death of Sir Bobby. “Maybe he remembered me, I don’t know. But it was actually Bill Baxter, our coach, who persuaded Bobby to play in my match.”
Baxter was from Leven, but his football career had been as a wing half with Wolves and Aston Villa in the 1940s and 1950s, later becoming first team coach at Villa. He had returned to Fife in the late 1960s to take over from Bonthrone when the East Fife manager headed north to Aberdeen. Baxter’s sons Stuart and Michael — yes, that Stuart Baxter, perennial management vacancy contender — both attended Buckhaven High School but like their father, made their way in football south of the border. They signed for Preston North End in the early 1970s, where Charlton was player/manager. By this stage, Baxter senior had returned to East Fife as a coach, presumably forgiven for walking out on the club to go to Raith Rovers in 1971. A Christmas visit to Preston to see his boys gave him the chance to convince their famous manager to “pop up to Methil” for the Martis testimonial.
Nobby Stiles, another England World Cup winner who was also completing his playing days at Preston, joined his former Manchester United team-mate on the long drive north to Bayview but could not play in the match because of injury. Legend has it that Charlton’s only expense for his appearance was his petrol money.
“Bobby came all the way up to Methil for me, and I could not have been honoured by a nicer person or a better player,” Martis recalled. “He was a gentleman, except when he was on the pitch! There were quite a few celebrities in my team but some of them got a bit of a surprise when Bobby took the game by the scruff of the neck and started shouting at them: ‘Come on! We want to win him this game!’
“I must admit, I got a bit of a surprise too! We were four goals down and it looked like we would just have to play out the rest of the match, but he was determined that it would be a contest.”
Davie Clarke, the East Fife sweeper who played alongside Charlton on the night, remembers Charlton’s frustration just as vividly. “When he turned up, there was a hush in the dressing room,” Clarke recounted. “I suppose we might not have believed he was coming until he actually turned up. No one knew what to say, and we didn’t have a manager in charge of the team.
“It was the same when we came in at half time, and by this time we were losing 5-1. With no manager, no one took the lead and we all just sat there. For the first two minutes in there, no one said anything. And two minutes is a long time when you are just looking at your shoes. Then Tommy Gemmell broke the ice by saying ‘Thank f*** we kept it tight at the back.’ Everyone laughed.
“Then the mood changed. Bobby was not happy at all, and he let us have it. He told us that we might be laughing and joking now, but it would be a different story when we read about how poor our performance had been in the newspapers the next day. Then he walked out! There was silence again. No one could answer him, because he was taking the match seriously and had come so far to play in the game. He wanted to see everyone else showing the same kind of commitment as himself.
“But it was an experience to play alongside him. I remember one moment during the game when the ball bounced towards him halfway inside his own half, and he hit it with the outside of his left foot, putting spin on it. The ball zipped through the air with a big curve on it, to get round two players, and landed right at the feet of our winger. I just thought, ‘Christ, how do you do that?’ He got his goal in the second half, and came off before the end. He had a shower, got dressed and was away. The last we saw of him was when he left the pitch, because he was gone by the time we returned to the dressing room at the end of the game.”
Charlton headed straight home, possibly questioning the wisdom of his journey. And yet, his impact had been immense. Those who took their chances on the Bayview terraces that night, where slippy railway sleepers had still to be upgraded to the comparative terra firma of concrete, speak with one voice about the thrill of seeing Charlton in full flight — which says a lot for the player, given the popularity north of the border of all things 1966.
The match was estimated to have raised a “four-figure cheque” for Martis, with which the Mail reckoned the big defender should be “well pleased”. But it is the memory of the event itself — reinforced by the headline “Night to remember for big John” — that is cherished.
“He was a world-class player, and it showed,” Martis said. “Of all those I played alongside in my career, he was the stand-out, even if it was just a one-off match. It was a wonderful night, and all these years later it is still hard to believe it happened. I will always be grateful to Bobby.”
John Martis XI: Ernie McGarr (East Fife), Willie Mathieson (Rangers), Tommy Gemmell (Dundee), Mark Clougherty (East Fife), John Martis (East Fife), Pat Stanton (Hibernian), Kenny Aird (Hearts), Davie Clarke (East Fife), Dixie Deans (Celtic), Bobby Charlton (Preston North End, captain), Bertie Miller (East Fife). Subs: Drew Rutherford (East Fife), Harry Kinnear (East Fife), Billy Gillies (East Fife). Scorers: Aird, Charlton.
Fife Select: Murray McDermott (Raith Rovers), Jim Scott (Dunfermline), Davie Cairns (Cowdenbeath), Alex Kinninmonth (Dunfermline, captain), Jim Taylor (Raith Rovers), Jim Hamilton (Dunfermline), Billy Laing (Cowdenbeath), Bobby Conn (Raith Rovers), Ken Mackie (Dunfermline), Gordon Wallace (Raith Rovers), Andy Harrow (Cowdenbeath). Subs: Graham Martin (East Fife), Graham Honeyman (East Fife), Geir Karlsen (Dunfermline). Scorers: Mackie (2), Conn (2), Kinninmonth, Laing.