Found this interview of former Swan Tom Kiley. My Dad played with him in the Swans reserves in 1949 - my Dad made his debut 2 months before his 17th birthday. Tom would have been 24. How times - and the life of a footballer - have changed! ‘Tom Kiley was a centre-half on the playing staff between 1946 and 1957. He made his first-team debut in April 1950, and in total made 129 league appearances, scoring two goals.His career was ended by a bad knee injury received in 1957. Tom died in September 2000. This interview withTom Kiley was recorded in the Club House at St Helen’s where at the time Tom was Treasurer of Swansea RFC Supporters’ Club. HB Can we just begin with your first contact or association with the Swans. Did you, for example, have any involvement as a supporter? TK No, I didn't and strangely enough - well we used to play in those days you see - we used to play schoolboy football in the morning and I never felt like going to watch them in the afternoon. I used to watch the All Whites on one or two occasions. My father brought me down in 1935 to see Swansea play New Zealand. Swansea was the first club side to beat New Zealand in those days and there were some 53,000 people out there at St Helen’s and I didn't used to go to Vetch Field at all. But we were allowed to go and train as schoolboys. Our manager was a strange person, you may well have heard of him, Dai Beynon. He's a legendary figure in Swansea and lived to about 94 years of age. He died a couple of years ago and he had the right to take us to the ground after school a couple of days a week and we used to train there. We would probably play on the ground on a Saturday morning if we were playing Cardiff or Newport or any other town side or English schools clubs, but no I never went to support the Swans. HB So your first experiences of the Vetch were as a player, schoolboy level, not standing on the terraces. TK That's right. HB That's interesting. What was your first impression of the set up then; as you went in there for the first time? TK Well, by our standards it was very impressive then. When I went into Arsenal Stadium for the first time I nearly fell over. There was a marble statue of Herbert Chapman in the front foyer there and even when we were training there as kids, we used to work on the ground staff cleaning the stadium floor and such, but we were allowed to train and I played many practice matches with the famous people. We were treated like lords. We had huge towels, they wouldn’t let us dress until about half an hour after we had a bath to enable all the perspiration to go and they took that sort of care even of the young boys. HBWhat about the circumstances surrounding your signing for the Swans? TKVery vague, I don’t quite recall it at all. Haydn Green I was aware of, and round about the same time as I signed there was a lot of Irish lads came over, as you know, from Eire, although there were some from northern Ireland as well and I was just one of a gang it seemed to me who were signed on at the same time. Jimmy * and Jackie Driscoll and all those boys, so really it doesn’t stand out in my mind. Again this may well relive the fact that I wasn’t all that interested. HB So there’s no recollection of signing on the dotted line, no big deal about the money? TK I remember that the money was something about eight pounds a week in the winter and six pounds a week in the summer, something like that, and of course it was three years before I got into the first team. HB So before that you were playing Welsh League, [Football] Combination? TK That sort of thing, yes. HB I ask because I’m struck when reading the Evening Postby the number of games that are taking place all the time at the Vetch. TK Oh yes and we used to get 10,000 or 12,000 at the Vetch Field if we played Arsenal or Tottenham in the Combination Cup. The Football Combination was regional, so we used to play the West Country teams, but the cup was nationwide. As I say we used to play Arsenal, Tottenham - Tottenham were a good side - also West Ham and Manchester United. That was while I was serving my apprenticeship. HBThat must have been a big thrill then going away to play at Tottenham. How did you do that? Did you go by train there and back in a day? TK Yes. The only time we ever stayed overnight then was when we went down to Plymouth on one or two occasions and we stayed there, but mostly London was always by train or coach travel. The Midlands, even in the first team when I got in later on, we used to go to Sheffield, Nottingham places like that, and we were always back the same night by bus and it was no fun coming back down the A38. I still don’t know how we found our way round Birmingham. Nobody can do it now. HB What about the initial impression of the set up at the Vetch? When you signed with this group of young lads, what was it like off the field there in terms of friendship and team spirit? TK We never met off the field. Well, up to a certain point we did. I got very friendly with *** *** and Ivor, Len Allchurch and Mel Charles, Dai Thomas, Ray Powell all those people and we used to meet in the café after training. HB This is Pelosi’s Cafe? TK Pelosi’s yes, and we used to have a cup of coffee and then go home. No afternoon training, sometimes the snooker halls. I didn’t concentrate on snooker very much, but it was a very popular occupation. So really we never met outside. We used to have a dance at the supporters’ club at the end of every season and all the wives used to come. HB And what about the set up of the club off the field? Was there much by way of administration there at all? TKI don’t imagine there was. Things were so simple in those days. You had the secretary who was generally called Secretary/Manager. Billy McCandless was not only manager but the secretary of this club because he was the most uncouth person I have ever met. It was quite an impact that he made. Then we had Frank Barson as a trainer. He was a man who hated me because I wasn't dirty enough. He was a blunt Barnsley lad and said ‘Ee by gum, if I were your size when I were playing I have a graveyard of centre forwards all to meself.’ The edict was that if it moved – kick it, if it doesn't move – kick it until it does move. HB I gather that Barson wasn't too keen on fullbacks approaching the half-way line. TK Oh no. Get it down field that's all he ever said. HB What of the Vetch itself, the facilities for players at that point? You've contrasted them already with Arsenal. TK Well, we had quite comfortable dressing rooms. The accommodation was quite good really and the baths and showers. As you know they were taken by 10/12 players at a time. You had to lose any shyness in my time. I had been in the Air Force so that didn't bother me. They were really good. Nowadays it surprises me that some of these players from here [St Helen’s home of Swansea RFC] go home and they don't even have a shower. They have a bath or shower at home, but I think that is very, very dangerous, I really do. They work very hard in training, they come and have some pasta afterwards – the old pie and chips days are gone, and then they go home without having a shower. HB What then about your progress through to the first team. Can you describe that? TK From 1947 to Good Friday 1950 I played in the combination side knowing that Reg Western was generally accident free and he was a good player. He was club captain, and I had to wait until something happened to him. And low and behold one Thursday it happened and I played my first game on Good Friday in 1950 at Queens Park Rangers, LoftusRoad. Of course it is vastly different now. But that was an experience. We drew 0-0 on Good Friday and we went to Bury on the Saturday and we drew 0-0 up there so that was quite good and we came home and we played the reverse game [against Bury?] and we lost 2-1, but you just accepted it. HB That's a long apprenticeship. Did you have itchy feet at that time or did you try to get away? TK Oh no. I probably played as many Welsh league games as I played Combination games in those days, and we also used to get some fun out of playing on Sundays. HB What about the experience of playing at the Vetch – your relationship with the crowd – was it a good place to play? TB Oh yes we were always aware because of course everybody was so new to the job in those days and this is where I hate these stadiums that you go to now where they have a running track. The players don't like it. Even the boys at international level didn't like it. So, yes it was very cosy at the North Bank as it was called. In the summer time we had to work down on that bank and the terracing behind the city end, or the town end, but it was hard work that kept us fit. HB What about your relationship with the crowd? Was it a good crowd to play in front of? TK Difficult. Swansea crowds are very difficult to play in front of, whether you are playing rugby, soccer, or cricket. They are very, very demanding. They don't allow for any mistakes. The worse thing that I could ever imagine anybody shouting at me, and it is so totally ridiculous when you think about it, was 'wake up'. Them thinking I was having a little snooze or something. Somebody goes passed you and you hear 'wake up'. Oh yes they can turn on you. HB A supporter described to me the crowd in the late 1940s and early 50s as being studious; that they enjoyed good football, they weren't prepared to accept any less. TK Oh yes, that's undoubtedly true. Frank Barson used to get at me all the time but I ignored him and played football as best I could. The crowd certainly appreciated that and that is one reason why the team of that period, for about ten years, mostly contained old Swansea boys and we always used to play football. We developed a system of football which, long before the Hungarians did, used a deep-lying centre forward, which was Terry Medwin. I used to come up to defend and find him, and he come away from the centre half and we were linked up. I hated it if I had to belt it – I wouldn't mind belting it into the crowd if necessary – but to kick it out as they chased back was just not on. HB Of course Terry Medwin broke the mould a bit didn't he in terms of having had Trevor Ford before who was big and bustling and Stan Richards, but Terry Medwin has always struck me as being more mobile. And presumably Ray Powell must have been a bit like that. TK Oh yes, Ray was like that. In fact Fordy wasn't a big fella come to think about it, but he put himself about and never got booked in his career and never hurt anybody. HB There's a magnificent photograph of him in there about to shoulder charge Johnny King and you wonder what happened next because they were both big guys. TK That was in the Welsh Cup Final at Cardiff. I scored the goal for us and they beat us 3-1. That would have been 1955. The Welsh Cup was as big then but it's gone now and I can't understand why they did that. You can't have a Welsh cup without Swansea, Wrexham and Cardiff. HB What about your two league goals? Where did they come? TK We went to a little place on the west coast [Workington], a little place between Blackpool and Carlisle – anyway we went there in the cup and it was freezing. We got there and the ground was frozen around the hotel – that was the time when we used to stay in a hotel because it was a cup match and youcould claim the expenses. Then we got up in the morning andit had thawed over night so you could hardly lift your feet up again, but it suited us and we drew two each up there and then we played a replay on the Thursday and we won 4-1 and I scored a goal then. I can remember that I was up for a corner but I never got a head to it, it was cleared and I just banged it in with my left foot. I've got a photograph at home somewhere of me shooting through about ten people. League goals – I can't remember any. I can remember own goal against Blackburn down here. HB Maybe I got it wrong. Maybe it was two in total. I had a feeling it was two league goals but given the number you have scored I think you would probably remember! What about the arrangements and travel to away games? We've talked a little bit about that, but I'm interested in an awful lot of time spent with the less than glamorous side of it on trains in those days and motorbuses. TK If we were going to London, we would always go to Paddington and if we were playing West Ham or Fulham, a cross London trip, would be taken by bus from there. We were treated alright in the sense that we had a meal on the train. But there again there is a little story showing the contrast between Rugby Union in those days and professional soccer. We were on the train to London one day and the Whites were going up to play Blackheath and they were on the same train. We went into the dining area and we were sitting there with our little bits of boiled fish and carrots and they were there with their pie and chips and beer and everything. I couldn't get over the contrast in that. But we were treated well enough. The Club used to do the best it could. As I say if we went to Sheffield we would probably go up on the Friday night and stay Friday night and go to the pictures and we would always come back on the Saturday evening and arrive back at about two in the morning from Sheffield. We didn't expect any better therefore we were quite happy about it. HB You weren't often helped by the fixture list were you, these return fixtures which were playing on Boxing Day and the day after. TK I remember once when we were going away to play, Jack Parry who was a particular friend of mine and one Christmas we were going away at 2 o'clock Christmas Day. So he came to my house in Swansea and had a meal with my mother and father and we went to the station and played on the Boxing Day and we played on the next day. It was that sort of weekend, you know. HB Of course the worst example of that is that you played one day over Christmas at Plymouth and the next day away at Newcastle, which takes some doing to make all that work. I wonder if you can describe the training programme. TK Well, basically it was, well you cannot compare with modern days. I wouldn't live with the fitness levels that they have now. We used to do a lot of running around the pitch and to the extent that we used to get fed up with that. We saw very little of the ball in Frank Barson's day; if we did have the ball it was on the beach. We weren’t allowed to use the pitch much to train on, we used to maybe have one practice match on a Wednesday. But it was mostly stamina. We use to push the ball around to each other in small groups, but nothing concentrated. God you should see the Whites training now, they are flying around. HB There are some great pictures books of the sort of cavalry charge type runs. TK We didn't have track suits or anything then. We used old grey sweaters and grey shirts, sort of flannel shirts which were very good for taking perspiration, but there used to be one hell of a pile up in the dressing room to get hold of one of those. HB What about if the weather was bad. Gym work? TK No, we never saw a gym. HB What about pre-season? TK Well, things were so inevitable in those days, it would be about July 24th when we would start training and the first game was August 20th or so. We used to have a public trial game a week before the season started, where the reserves would play the first team and there was a little bit of competition there and in fact they used to get 5-7000 watching. HB The Greens against the Whites. TK Yes, that's right. HB What about tactics then? Was there much discussion of tactics? TK No, not really. As I say Frank Barson would give his two 'penneth. The only one, and I wouldn't say it was tactics, was Billy Lucas. Billy was the one on field training. He would come back into the penalty area if we were defending a penalty and that sort of thing, that's all and you learned from this. HB A lot of people said he was a key signing because of that organisation. TK Absolutely and of course he was a fitness fanatic. He was a PTI in the army and he was amazing at the flips flops and anything else. Once we were playing at Doncaster, a midweek game, and we went over to Doncaster race course which is the opposite side of the road from the Doncaster pitch and he started doing his stunts there an hour and a half before the kick off. Bill was a lovely man and he died last year after a long illness. Yes, I learned a lot from him. Roy Paul was a natural player so he couldn't teach anybody anything, he was just a total and complete workhorse. How he did it I don't know because he used to drink like a fish. Oh yes – Friday night. There was quite a bit of smoking. HB Ray Powell told me that although he was one of the quicker players on the pitch he could never beat Jack Driscoll. TK No, Jack was very quick. HB Because Jack was a 14 a day man. TKWhat we used to do on a Friday, it was just an hour or so, we would have a few laps and then we would do work on the springs. This was on the spikes. We were allowed to put spikes on and chase down the park there alongside the pitch. HB Was there much discussion of the opposition at all? TK No, not really. We knew them by name. Must have been 1952 I had come back out the first team and I was back in the first team on Friday when we played Notts County. Tommy Lawton was centre forward in Notts County then and Reg Weston dropped out at the last minute. So we knew that you had to look after Tommy and as it happened I had a particularly good game. HB Was there much fraternisation with the players of other sides afterwards? Any inter-mixing after games or you just went your separate ways? TK That's right. They may share a meal now, I don't know, but in those days no. Rugby clubs have always done it and still do fortunately even in the professional area. HB What about the general lifestyle as a professional? TK Well it was quite good in the sense that compared with my father when I finished in 1958 it was just prior to the £20 per week, but we were getting £18 a week. My father was probably getting two pounds and ten shillings in those days. So, we were quite well off. Some of the players lived in rented accommodation. I had a council house in West Crossbecause my first wife had TB and we had a house down there through Harry Sullivan, one of the directors, who managed to get priority because Rosa had an infection for three years. HB So although the maximum wage existed it is was still a relatively comfortable lifestyle in comparison. TK Oh yes. Of course the comparison has become much wider now as the average wage is about £350; I believe it is, and this is a long way removed from £40,000 a week. HB What about the circumstances surrounding your departure from the Vetch at the end of your playing career? Obviously it was injury related to a degree? TK Oh yes, totally. I had an operation in 1956 and I tried to play again in March 1957 and managed to the end of the season, but after that I couldn't play. There was no insurance policy in existence or anything like that. There was some small payment from the Professional Footballer's Association to which we used to contribute as union members you see and I got about five or six hundred pounds, something like that. HB And did the club do anything to ease your way? TK No. As I say the only help that I got on a personal basis was Philip Holden was Chairman of Planning and had business interests in North London and he got me a job up there and I worked there for about three years. HB You'd had a broken leg before hadn't you? TK No, I never broke my leg. It was always cartilage. But in 1950, soon after I came into the side - No, it was in 1948 - one of the cartilages went and I was operated on and that appeared to clear up alright. But in fact it hadn't and there was no way that I should have started back playing as quickly as I did. It was the gradual deterioration, not so much of the other cartilage but of the kneecap – remember the old Dennis Compton knee – mine was exactly the same situation. Foreign bodies used to arrive and sometimes I used to have to walk off the field and sit on the touch line and shake my leg about to get the thing right. Then in 1956 I had this really bad injurywhich took the other cartilage and half the kneecap out. HB That was a training injury or an acccident? TK Yes, it was that's right. HB What were the circumstances surrounding that? TK Just can't remember really. The first one was against Leicester Reserves, funnily enough, in 1948 and somebody clocked me from behind and down I went and my father always played 'holy hell'. But the other one was just a training injury. I don't even remember a collision or anything, it was just perhaps a twist. HB We've touched on this before, but what has been the nature of your relationship with the Club since your departure? Do you still feel a sense of connection? TK Oh no. Only once have I ever been offered to go and watch the Swans and there was a testimonial game for Harry Griffiths and he got a lot of Liverpool players down and I did spend about twenty minutes on the pitch. But that was the only time that I was treated properly. They never have treated former players properly.. HBDo you take an interest? Are you watching out for the results? TK Oh yes, you do automatically don't you? The rugby players talk a lot about the Swans as well in Swansea. Swansea is a small town, it's never been a city and we all take pride or sorrow at whatever is happening. HB Is there much of a connection these days between the two clubs at all? There used to be cricket matches. TK Yes, we used to play cricket matches down here which were organised by Roger Blyth and I used to captain the Swansea team in those days, I played cricket here for the Whites, and Norman Blyth was Roger Blyth’s uncle. He used to captain the Whites and there were some good players on both sides, there really were. HB It would be good to think that those sort of ties could be restored. What is your best memory or moment? The high point of your career? TK I believe, funnily enough, it was associated with the Combination team. We won the Combination Cup one year which would have been about 1947-48 and I am almost sure it was the same year that the first team won promotion. The most enjoyable points I had with the Club were actually in the 1953-54 period when we went out to France. Again this was organised by Philip Holden, his interest in the Rouen werestrong, and we played Rouen, and we played on one of the grounds they were using for the World Cup, and that was so different from anything we had experienced before. HB That's extraordinary. TK The second week in May we were out there and we kicked off at half past nine in the night - floodlights. We'd never seen floodlights before and there was a black centre half playing for Rouen in those days, his second name was Louis, he was a French international for quite a number of years after that, and I really thought that was, well looking back now, I could see the future in those days. HB Then inevitably I've got to ask you about the worstmoment. TK Well I suppose realising that I couldn't play again. It didn't come suddenly because I'd had the operation quite a long time and I got back to playing in March 57 and I think I finished the season, but then they decided that I couldn't play anymore and I wondered what the hell am I going to do now. HB And what age were you then? About 30? TK I was 33 in 1957. HB So you had a couple of seasons left potentially? TK Yes. HB What about your feelings on the Club in general – just your general attitude towards the Swans and how have they been in your time and since? TK Well in my time they were just another second division club, but one thing I am proud of, I never played in any division other than the second division. I never played in the first, but I never played in the third either. And they were a good standard second division side, quite well respected. We used to play West Ham, Fulham, Nottingham Forest, Liverpool and Everton. People don't realise that I played at Anfield three times in my career and Goodison Park three times, one of which was a cup match and there were 55,000 people there. But you had the chance, even though we were only a second division club, the standards were quite high, they really were. The 'sixties and 'seventies I don't know much about them, but they never impressed me a great deal. I didn't think much of Trevor Morris as a manager, he was very abrupt.There again I was very interested and in fact I went up to see the semi-final at Aston Villa's ground in 1963/4 Ithink. They had done so well. Funnily enough my step-daughter was in Morrison hospital having an operation when they played Liverpool in that game. Ronnie Moran missed the penalty at the end, oh dear. Now he was a good character. He's still around with Liverpool, and is one of the old boys there I kept in touch with. There's another one, Jack Twentyman who played with Liverpool and I first met him when I was in Carlisle at the end of the war. I was still in the RAF and he was from Carlisle and we played against each other in local football up there. Very nice man, Jack. HBFinally do you have any views on the current state of play, the future of the club or clubs like Swansea? TK Well, the only hope for a club like Swansea is if this stadium move does come to fruition. They cannot carry on existing in the Vetch Field. A nice little 25,000-seater stadium, if they were in the second division they should be able to get something like 25,000 at home games surely. I don't like the whole set up around soccer these days. I have to say I don’t like the televising of it; and I see very little soccer on television. My wife isn't keen on it anyway so that 's half the battle. In fact, I'm on my hobby-horse here, television production of soccer and rugby in particular is pathetic in my opinion. They miss the relevant parts of the action while they are concentrating on something else and if you want, if you are in a position sometime to get a tape of the BBCs coverage of the 1966 World Cup, watch that for an hour and a half and you'll never miss a single minute’s play. They don't worry with… they're not viewing the crowd, they're not viewing the trainer, they're not viewing the manager and you know they thought they were doing a good thing when they brought in the idea that the goalkeeper couldn't pick the ball up from pass back – why the hell not? If you watch that game and the two goalkeepers were ruddy good goalkeepers and the ball was constantly passed back to them, so instantly it was alright again. What happens now is that the goalkeeper takes a shot at it ends up in the crowd.But the televising of rugby is even worse, I mean pathetic.The whole object of a traditional rugby match, I would say, is to make sure that the eighty minutes of rugby is shown to the viewing public at home and the one thing they need to do is get rid of the bloody big screen. If they've got to use it, use it only for re-playing action, because it is necessary to show a try being scored or a try not being scored, okay. But to show it and let these kids see, and not only kids but grown up people – I was absolutely appalled in the Wales-France game at the Stadium the other day and do you know they allowed shots to be shown of drunken people standing up with a pint in their hand waving while the National Anthem was being sung. Totally disrespectful. HB When was the last time you were at the Vetch then, for the Harry Griffiths testimonial? TK Oh no, a couple of years ago I went to a game and stood on the terracing and that was with mixed feelings.Again, it's not just kids, you know, it's middle-aged men who are drunk and all they do, the visiting supporters are there and all these Swansea idiots do is 'yea, yea, yea'. They never watch the football.Swansea supporters are just as bad as any, maybe not in such numbers. Cardiff are the worst I think, there's nodoubt at all. But you don't get it in rugby. We as all White supporters can go to Cardiff Arms Park and know that we can have a joke with them and we can chivvy each other and be perfectly safe, but you couldn't do that in Ninian Park. In fact the previous year, the previous time that Swansea were in the Cup Final and we lost to Cardiff, we were driving back in the bus all the way down toward Ninian Park, you know, that long long road and Cardiff City's game had finished about quarter to five,. They recognised the bus as being from Swansea and that was it. HB I asked some of the older supporters about this when this began and they will tell you that in 1949-1950 Swansea and Cardiff supporters on the North Bank would mix quite happily. Cardiff went to the town end and there was a bit of banter and all the rest of it. TK I can give examples of when we used to go to Bristol, to play Bristol Rovers, for example. We played Rovers more than City because they happened to be in our division. We used to go by train to Stapleton Road which was the halt quite near the ground and we used to walk across the bridge as players, mixing with all the Bristol Rovers and Swansea supporters through the big car park and thoroughly enjoying ourselves. God, I wouldn't like to risk that today.’
Cheers Taff ,cracking read. I'm assuming a lot of us on here grew up in the early /mid sixties so some of Toms stories we can relate to , some good some bad but that's progress I suppose.He'd finished playing football the year I was born
Here’s the letter from Billy McCandless to the scout informing him that my Dad would play against Seven Sisters
Thanks for posting that Taff an interesting read. Even though I am a teeny bit older than you I can't recall Tom
I remember his name as a former Swansea player and from his time at the Whites: in particular, I remember playing against the Whites’ cricket team in which he played alongside Norman Blyth. (I think Roger played as well, but not 100% certain)
