I'll Be Bert

That’s Bert Trautmann, German-born goalkeeper for Manchester City from 1949 to 1964 and total hero for young Bill, a lonely kid growing up in post-Second World War Moss Side and only certain of getting a game because it was his ball. Heroically, in 1956, Trautmann played the final 18 minutes of the FA Cup final with a broken neck.

In a gentle, downbeat performance, Bill Cronshaw builds a world before the commercialisation of football, a time when kids would replay the whole of the FA cup on the back green – complete with meeting the queen. He gives that world its full post-war context, the nit nurse, playing kiss chase, visiting relatives still scared in the war.

The writing is spot-on. Those who have nits are treated with “all the diplomacy of a rhino with piles” while the innocent and intriguing world where children still looked up with awe to the grown-ups is delightfully created.

Donning the dark-blue gabardine and home-knitted balaclava that were the unofficial uniform of working class boys of the mid-fifties, the big, lumbering Cronshaw even takes on the character of his younger self and other people. Great stuff and one for all real football fans – although Manchester supporters of a United persuasion might not enjoy it as much as the rest.