Ipswich plays tribute to Kevin Beattie

by Asif Burhan

Currently bottom of the Championship and without a manager following the dismissal of Paul Hurst on Thursday, the glory days of Ipswich Town under Sirs Alf Ramsey and Bobby Robson seem distant memories but there was a chance to reminisce as followers of The Tractor Boys gathered yesterday to pay their last respects to a man who will always be remembered as an East Anglian legend.

As the sun broke through overcast Suffolk skies, hundreds, including club players and staff, lined Portman Road to applaud as the hearse carrying the man regularly voted Ipswich Town’s greatest-ever player made its way to Nacton for the funeral of Kevin Beattie.

Since his death just over a month ago, supporters have filled a book of condolence and flowers have been laid at the foot of the Sir Bobby Robson’s statue outside the ground.

It is the testimony of the late Robson who brought a teenage Beattie down from the north-east to East Anglia that continue to burn the brightest when the obituaries were written for the man known as “The Beat”.

Robson noted:

“I’ve never made any secret of what I thought of Beattie. This guy had the lot. He was a phenomenon. If you’re talking of the best British players of all time, he’s in there – and right near the top. When I first laid eye on him, I said we had uncovered a diamond. He was the best”.

It was Robson that converted the young striker into a swashbuckling centre back who represented Ipswich on 307 occasions.

His and the club’s greatest day was at Wembley 40 years ago when Ipswich defeated Arsenal to win their only FA Cup Final. Yet Beattie was already suffering from a series of knee injuries which would eventually cut short his career.

“I had to have three cortisone injections on the day, one late morning at the hotel, another in the Wembley dressing room about half an hour before kick-off and then a top-up at half time to make sure I could keep going right to the end”.

He celebrated by smoking a cigarette as he collected his winner’s medal.

Fans gather at Portman Road to honour Kevin Beattie

For all his talent, Beattie only made nine international appearances. He later recalled,

“I was called up for around 100 squads but had to pull out of so many because of my injuries”.

His solitary England goal, the second in a 5-1 demolition of Scotland at Wembley in 1975 was one for the ages, a sweeping end-to-end move which perfectly summed up his all-action style.

“I’ve got it on DVD – it reminds me of when I could run. They had a free-kick outside our box and I headed it away and carried on running. Alan Ball did a lovely flick to play Keegan free up the right and I kept running. He put in a brilliant cross and I met it by the penalty spot and looped it in at the far post”.

A glittering future beckoned for the man voted by the PFA as the inaugural Young Player of the Year in 1974 and nicknamed “Monster” by team-mate John Wark.

Such was the notoriety of Beattie’s physical prowess that he was challenged to an arm wrestle by Sylvester Stallone during the filming of Escape to Victory.

“I was just sitting there and Stallone came over and asked if I’d like to give him an arm wrestle. Anyway I ended up beating him and I don’t think he talked to me again for the rest of the film! I guess I was naturally strong. I used to carry the bags of coal for my dad”.

On set he developed a friendship with Michael Caine for whom he performed as a body double. According to Wark, who also appeared in the film,

“Michael Caine was a good lad and wasn’t a bad footballer. But his legs were gone and he couldn’t run. Kevin Beattie was Michael Caine’s legs”.

Beattie’s own legs were to curtail his career at the age of 28.

“My knees were knackered. According to modern medical science, three cortisone injections in a lifetime is about enough, whereas I was having three every game”.

Another injury, an arm fracture in the 1981 FA Cup semi-final, ended his time at Ipswich and also cost him a role in the club’s UEFA Cup victory a month later.

Despite attempted comebacks, much of Beattie’s later life was spent on income support unable to work while caring for his wife who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis shortly after his retirement. He lapsed into the alcoholism before being offered work as a radio pundit for BBC Suffolk. A failure to declare his earnings led to a conviction for fraud in 2008. Yet he kept his job and with financial support from the PFA, he continued to commentate on Ipswich matches until the day before he died aged 64.

“I didn’t do too badly for a kid from the rough part of Carlisle. I’ve got four brothers and four sisters, and believe me it was a real struggle for my parents. I had loads of jobs before I got into football. I worked in a slaughterhouse, I helped to deliver furniture, I was a coalman and I worked in two different laundries. When I arrived in Ipswich I had nothing, just the clothes I was wearing and my old boots wrapped in brown paper. For the fact that I played in the (FA Cup) semi-final and final, I will be eternally grateful.

“It enabled me to fulfil a boyhood ambition because I used to sit at home and watch the FA Cup Final every year, dreaming that I might one day play in it. So I suppose I was lucky even if I did have to pack in early and, but for injury I might have achieved a whole lot more”.

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