BUNCH OF FIVES

When I was at junior school our rather austere classroom had a series of small cards pinned in a line around the walls. Each card had a black dot, or dots, corresponding with numbers from one to ten, the idea being that they would help us 'visualise' the numbers during mental arithmatic exercises. Whether it worked or not I don't know, but I was rotten at numbers (and maths in general), anyway. What I do know is that I have always remembered those damned dots, and even now, seventy years on from junior school, the cards and their patterns still come to mind if I am trying to do sums in my head.
My favourite number was five. I don't know why. It just looked neat, I suppose. Four dots in a square with a fifth in the centre. Later, I found another way to count five. A football team forward-line. Matthews, Mortensen, Lawton, Mannion and Finney (England). Or possibly Delaney, Morris, Rowley, Pearson and Mitten (Manchester United). Or at a push, Waddell, Johnstone, Reilly, Steel and Liddell (Scotland).
Beautiful. The sum total of football, plus arithmatic of the highest order.
Closer to home were the two local teams: Paul, Cluroe, Jeffries, Ryder and Middlemass (Spalding United), and Hutchinson, Megginson, Sharman, Fox and Stamp (Holbeach United). The names and sequences roll off the tongue like sporting poetry. Two wingers, two inside-forwards, and a centre-forward. A tribute to precision and efficiency.
I can even slot some of these bunches of fives into a dating framework, like: Hurst, O'Linn, Vaughan, Kiernan and Duffy (Charlton Athletic, early 1950s), and: Griffin, Ryan, Allen, Nicholls and Lee (West Bromwich Albion, late 1950s), with dear old George Lee out there on the left-wing. He won an England cap and a Cup-winners' medal, and I used to watch him at the Hawthorns while doing my National Service. Later, he became trainer/coach with Norwich City and a friendly and football-wise travelling companion on the Canaries' team coach in the days when this journalist was allowed into the inner sanctum. George even had to give me first-aid on a couple of occasions when travel sickness threatened.
Also in the 1950s, of course, was: Budai, Kocsis, Hidegkuti, Puskas and Czibor. This was one of the great forward-lines of the famous Hungarian (mostly Honved) side which demolished England, pricked our bubble of complacency, and showed that the rest of the world could play football, too, and more, that they even trained harder and had better coaches. Later, in 1960, to emphasise the matter further, there was Real Madrid: Canario, Del Sol, Di Stefano, Pushas and Gento. Football heaven, it seemed at the time.
As long ago as 1954/55 the Playfair Annual editor was moved to lament: 'Never have so many countries stood above us in the world rankings, and our decline, gradual in recent years, has been hastened to conclusiveness by events of the past twelve months.' He was talking about the Hungarians, Germans and Uruguyans. By the late 1950s, however, another fine 'bunch of fives' had popped up ready to dominate my working life for the next decade or two: Crossan, Allcock, Bly, Hill and Brennan (Norwich City).
Not for another few years would mid-field control become the basis of the game, the famous fives gradually becoming four, and then three, then two, and now often one.
Mental arithmatic has never been the same.