Should you ever encounter a pub quiz question regarding who played alongside George Best, Liam Brady and Alan Shearer, fret not: Tribalfootball.com has you covered. The answer is Tony Gale, a Premier League title winner with Blackburn Rovers and a true West Ham legend, who started his career with Fulham.
Gale recently published his memoir of a lifetime spent in football and it is little wonder someone had the idea of letting him look back at his career and put it in writing. He is an absolute fountain of stories from a career which started at 16 with Fulham, as we soon found out when facing Gale on a zoom call. But who was the better player of the three legends?
“Oh, George Best was special. He was a kind of loner and obviously, he had his problems at the time he was at Fulham, but he was just a special talent,” says Gale who is adamant Best never fulfilled his potential.
All in all, Gale had an incredible introduction to professional football, joining a team who had Best playing alongside Rodney Marsh and Bobby Moore. Neither of them famous for turning down a drink and a good time.
Indeed, Gale says of Bobby Moore: “He was footballing royalty and he used to drive me home after training in his yellow Jaguar. Me, 16-17 years of age, in a sports car with England’s World Cup winning captain! I was just dying to stop at traffic lights and people to recognize him and see me alongside him.”
Ince was a “big character”
Speaking of Bobby Moore, while still alive he never received the big recognition from West Ham a player of his stature would have seen today – which has left a lot of people puzzled and Gale as well.
“It’s one of life’s great mysteries. He’s arguably their greatest ever player. I think he should have had a role like Franz Beckenbauer had in Germany.”
Staying with West Ham and prolific teammates, Gale played alongside a young Paul Ince, who was a “big character”, as Gale says with a grin.
“He was a cocky so-and-so, so full of his own confidence. Alan Devonshire and I advised him against going to Manchester United, but he went anyway and after about six months of settling down, he was playing his best football,” Gale acknowledges while thinking back to the photo of Ince holding up a Man. United shirt before any contract had been signed.
“He was badly advised by his agent, Ambrose Mendy. Us players weren’t bothered as we knew how cocky he was, but it didn’t go down well with the fans.”
Speaking of Alan Devonshire, Gale singles him out as the best he played alongside during his decade with “the Hammers”.
“Him, George Best and Alan Shearer were world class. Totally different players, but real top talents in different respects. Devonshire would be the best player in the current West Ham team.”
Missed opportunity with Hammers
Gale continued, “Our whole team would get in it. At our peak, Jarrod Bowen might have a chance of getting in. It’s difficult comparing eras, but we had tremendous players. Cottee, McAvennie, Alvin Martin, Ray Stewart, myself. A world-class goalkeeper in Phil Parks and not least Billy Bonds.
“Bonds was a super athlete. As good an athlete as anyone in the Premier League now. Because he was a hard man, people forget how good a player he was. He could play right-back, Centre back, holding midfield, attacking midfield. You could play Billy anywhere, he was that good,” states Gale of his former teammate and manager, with whom he finished third in the old First Division in 1986, just four points behind champions Liverpool. “The Hammers” racked up an incredible 26 wins that season, the same as Liverpool. Three years later they were relegated.
“If we had been on TV back then, people would have been drooling over West Ham,” says Gale, who has often thought of that season as a golden but missed opportunity to win a legendary title.
Never should have left Upton Park
Instead, he had to wait nine years to win the league, now called Premier League as he made a surprise switch to Blackburn under the management of Kenny Dalglish. But going back to West Ham, Gale still thinks it was the wrong move to leave Upton Park for the London Stadium.
“It had a unique atmosphere. When you go to West Ham now, even though it is sold out, it doesn’t feel like 62.000 West Ham fans. But it is like that all over the country with the big clubs. Tickets get sold to agencies who then sell them to the foreign fans, so you’ve probably got 40.000 real West Ham fans in the stadium.
“At Upton Park it was all West Ham fans. I just think they could have developed the stadium, but the decision was made, and we have got on with it,” says Gale for whom it is time to get on with his daily duties, but he’s left the rest of us with an entertaining book about a life spent at all levels of English football.
The Tony Gale book is called “That’s Entertainment – My autobiography” and released through Reach Sport. You can buy the book here.
