Alan Dicks on Bristol City promotion, cigarette packet sums and his issue with modern football On the anniversary of when he first arrived at Ashton Gate, legendary Bristol City manager Alan Dicks sits down with Richard Latham to talk through his life and times in BS3 please log in to view this image Fifty-four years ago this month, a sky blue Rover 2000 car, owned by Coventry City Football Club, was driven into the Ashton Gate car park. Behind the wheel was then 33-year-old former Chelsea player Alan Dicks, relieved to have arrived at his destination having lost his way on the Cumberland Basin. The Londoner had impressed as assistant to manager Jimmy Hill at Coventry. Now he felt ready to take on the number one job and had been recommended to City by Hill as a potential replacement for the recently sacked Fred Ford. A 70-minute meeting with directors ended with Robins chairman Harry Dolman offering AD, as he became known, the job on £4,000 a year, with a bonus of £1,000 if he kept the club in the Second Division. The anniversary of him starting work as City boss was last weekend, October 16 to be exact, as Dicks, now 87, spent part of it watching the current team take on AFC Bournemouth from the directors’ box. Revered as the only manager since the early 1900s to have taken City into the top flight of English football, Alan continues to take a keen interest in the club’s fortunes and rarely misses a home game. When we chatted in the garden of his Henleaze home, he was keen to show off the towering sunflowers he has enjoyed cultivating since bringing some seeds home from America, where he coached for many years after his 13 seasons in charge of City. When the conversation turned to football, Dicks displayed, not only a remarkable memory for his initial struggles and eventual glory days at Ashton Gate, but also some firm opinions about the modern game and the tactics employed. “I am lucky that the current board of directors invite me to matches and I always enjoy visiting the ground, although the games don’t always inspire me,” he told me. “Teams these days tend to build slowly from the back, whereas I believe you need to create a side that gets behind the other team. please log in to view this image Alan Dicks pictured at Ashton Gate in 1972. He took charge of 611 matches as Robins manager from 1967 to 1980 (Photo by Roy Jones/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) “If you are playing in front of the opposition all the time, it is very easy for them to defend and pick you off on the counter-attack. “You don’t see many wingers anymore. I used to say to Clive Whitehead take your full-back on the outside or the inside, test his speed and once you get level with the edge of the box get a cross in. “Going past opponents and being able to play in tight situations is so important. I would always play with two up front because to be successful you have to score goals.” The brief given to Dicks by Dolman from the start was to get City out of the Second Division. But in his early years the most likely route to doing that was relegation. “We were finishing fourth or sixth from the bottom,” he recalled. “Fortunately, Harry had faith in me and the board as a whole were very patient. “There was limited money available and it wasn’t easy. I had to live with the fact that I could lose my job and was nervous about it plenty of times.” please log in to view this image Alan Dicks, pictured in 1957 during his playing days as a centre-back for Chelsea (Photo by Monty Fresco Jnr/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images) Alan soon had to sell his star striker Chris Garland when an offer came in from Chelsea to make him Bristol’s first £100,000 footballer. “Harry was building the Dolman Stand at the time,” he said. “He had this habit of writing income and expenditure on a cigarette packet. “I remember him telling me that another £80,000 was needed for the stand. When the offer came in for Chris, out came the ***s, he scribbled it down and muttered ‘that would just about cover everything’.” City’s first success under Dicks came in cup competitions. They reached the League Cup semi-finals in 1971, losing over two legs to Tottenham Hotspur, and knocked then all-conquering Leeds United out of the 1973-74 FA Cup, causing national front page headlines by winning a fifth round replay 1-0 at Elland Road. That tie brought into opposition two of the game’s hard men, Leeds midfielder Billy Bremner and his City counterpart Gerry Gow. Dicks recalled: “In the first game at Ashton Gate I heard Don Revie in the opposite dug-out signalling to Bremner, pointing and saying ‘the number four’. “I didn’t know what he meant, but the next time Bremner and Gow challenged for the ball, Billy went in with his foot really high, only to realise that Gerry had his even higher!” With a mixture of signings from Scotland, identified by his chief scout Tony Collins, and local products from a successful Bristol Boys team, Alan gradually moulded the side that won a place in what is now the Premier League in April 1976. At the time, he called the promotion-clinching win over Portsmouth “the greatest night of my life”. Forty-five years later he says that remains the case. When the first game of the following season brought a 1-0 win at Arsenal, it seemed the Robins could only soar further. But three days later rampaging striker Paul Cheesley clashed in the air with Stoke goalkeeper Peter Shilton, sustaining a knee injury that ended his hugely promising career. It was blow from which City never fully recovered, even though they retained top-flight status for four seasons. Dicks firmly believes Cheesley would have gone on to play for England. “Paul had the best vertical jump I have seen and always powered his headers, rather than glancing them.” he said. “He could shoot with both feet and was basically impossible to replace. “Today his injury would have been treatable. But in those days once you heard the words damaged cruciate ligament you feared the worst. please log in to view this image Alan Dicks with Bristol City captain Geoff Merrick (Photo by Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Mirrorpix via Getty Images) Over the next three seasons under Dicks, City won the Anglo-Scottish Cup and beat all the First Division giants, finishing as high as 13th in 1978-79. The axe finally fell following relegation in 1980. There are no regrets. “Ten or twelve years ago I offered my services to the club again, but was politely declined,” he revealed. “No matter. I had 13 wonderful years and have so many fantastic memories. "It was a wonderful time to be in Bristol and, apart from going to work in America, I have never wanted to leave." Does he think City will ever grace the Premier League? “Steve Lansdown has ensured the stage is there and there is nothing I would like to see more.” https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/sport/football/alan-dicks-bristol-city-promotion-6091758
I was lucky enough to meet him on a few occasions, he even organised for me to have trials there!! Great guy..and produced a great team I shall never forget!
Great guy and great unforgettable time. But the sad reality is, that we may never see those glory days again
I may be in the minority here but for me it’s a sad reflection on our club when these stories come out. It just reinforces to me how much we have underachieved. Some other clubs can talk about when they won the FA or League cups, some even the UEFA, Champions League or the Premiership title. Even simply getting to a European placing is worthy talk for some. All we can do is reminisce about a few seasons in the 1970’s when we briefly dipped our toes into the top flight before nearly going out of business. That and a handful of JPT wins, oh and THAT ‘great’ season under sir Stevie Cotts when we were division 3 champions. Just the same as whenever the World Cup or the Euros come around, the old stories of 1966 get recycled and re-printed. Don’t get me wrong; I love AD and what he and his players achieved back then, but I read these stories with sadness rather than excitement or pride. We’ve been a backwater club for too long and I’m frustrated, embarrassed and pissed off about it!
We've had golden opportunities to buck that trend as recently as 2008 but the owner didn't see it that way and rather than buy or loan some quality to make it happen, we brought in second rate players and fell at the final hurdle. It may have been as close as we ever get ever again, which is depressing in itself.
