THE OLD ORDER

I remember reading a football column a few years' ago in which a presumably youthful sports journalist, in discussing England's World Cup victory in 1966, commented that, 'of course, there wasn't much public interest in the competition then.' Well now, laddie, I thought, what you need to do is go and talk to your dad. He'll put you right. A similar train of thought rose to the fore while reading a more recent column in which another writer said that, 'Football in the old days was a friendly affair.' What he meant, I think, was that in the past the relationship between club, player and journalist was carried on at a much more personal level. 
He was probably right. But, of course, it all depends what you call the old days. I wasn't in town when Norwich City faced a severe cash crisis in the 1950s, which brought many old quarrels to a head; but I can certainly remember several occasions, at a time when I was around Carrow Road, when relations between the club and the Press descended into sulky resentment. Of course, these moments were actually few and far between, because both sides of the argument also realised they actually needed each other. On the other hand, I don't think 'friendly' is quite the right word. I seem to remember our relations - and most people were outwardly friendly enough - as necessary and delicate.
Take the period between the 1960s and the early 1970s, which spans my involvement with Norwich City. These were notebook and pencil days, of course. No mobile phones, no Press conferences (unless there was an actual crisis, in which case the chairman would invite us to his tiny office in Tombland), only a belated increase in television interest, no club Press offices or officers, and no real casual contact unless the manager popped into the Press tearoom under the main stand to have an invariably brief and usually diffident post-match chat. And fraught, too. Reporting a match 'live,' as it were, by telephone, to a copy typist back in the office; writing copy against the clock, and phoning it through. That was fraught enough.
Sometimes there were six of us in the old wooden Press box at Carrow Road, sometimes a dozen. If a London club was involved, then Fleet Street might send a couple of grizzled hacks who would spend most of the time grumbling about the length and discomfort of the rail journey, and the hard Press box benches.
But pressured? Again, sometimes. Among the scattered scribes in the Press box would also be reporters from a couple of news agencies (including one lady, incidentally), and sometimes a young Fleet Street hopeful who would try some sort of stunt. So while we haunted the training ground at Trowse waiting for the manager or some of the players to finish their showers, or lolled around at Carrow Road on a Monday morning, hoping to speak to someone, the pressure was actually more insidious than obvious.
Aside from the actual method of 'live' (meaning telephone) reporting, there was also the rivalry between our own morning and evening newspapers. No sharing of copy or titbits there, because we at least tried to maintain a veneer of rivalry and neutrality. And second, there was the thing that pressured us the most - the Sunday newspapers.
In those days nearly all of them carried Football Briefs columns, with paragraphs of club gossip most usually, of course, about who was interested in which player, or who was going to sign whom. Panic-stricken, we dissected these pages down to the last full-stop. Had we been caught out? Yes, we knew about X. And yes, we heard about Y, and have checked it out, and it's all rubbish. And occasionally: 'Oh, gawd, that a new one. The Editor will want a quote on that.' Which meant a Sunday morning phone call to the manager at his home which was often - if your luck was out - answered by his equally fraught wife in the middle of cooking Sunday lunch.
Fraught and friendly sums it up, I suppose.