PROFILE
Lucky life for one of Docherty’s Diamonds; Bert Murray Before Beckham was even a twinkle in his mother’s eye, another lad from east London had donned the number seven shirt and was making great strides for England and Chelsea. Bert Murray was born into a family of 9 from Shoreditch and made his way through the football schoolboy ranks. In 1958 his breakthrough moment came when he scored 2 goals for England Schoolboys against a Scottish side including Billy Bremner who they beat 3.1 in front of a crowd of 100,000 at Wembley. The side included Terry Venables and Alan, brother of ‘Chopper’ Harris. Jimmy Thompson, chief scout for Chelsea, responsible for taking Jimmy Greaves and Terry Venables to the Club, made
Bert an offer which was to see the lad play 170 games for the side.Trainer, Dickie Foss changed Bert’s postion from centre forward to right wing, “ one of the best things anyone has ever done for me” Bert recalls. For 2 years he played for the Juniors and then at 18 years old he was promoted to the first team having been a member of the FA Youth Club winning side. One of Docherty’s ‘diamonds’, the team was relegated to the 2nd division for one year, promoted in the next. Altogether he scored 44 goals for the Club including in games at Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham and Man U. between 1958 and ‘66. In that auspicious footballing year, Bert was to go to Birmingham for a happy 4 years.He then signed for 3 years at Brighton where his youngest child, Jamie was born at home in Saltdene. “Bobby Charlton, was the best player I ever played against” remembers Bert, “but I was also lucky enough to play against Dennis Law, Dave McKay, Georgie Best and Jimmy Greaves.” At the end of his footballing career, Bert was approached to play for Posh by Noel Cantwell and has fond memories of playing with Chris Turner, Freddie Hill, John Cousins, Tommy Robson, Jack Carmichael and Jim Hall for 3 years. Sponsorship and 6 figure paypackets were long into the future and £40 per week was considered by Bert to be a decent sum when playing for Docherty at Chelsea. “But we had to pay for all our clothes to look the part, keep a car and telephone, it all added up. Johnny Haines promoted brylcream on TV and things started to change with Georgie Best.” Left without a trade, Bert and wife, Eileen then took on the running of the Grenadiers nightclub in March but after just 6
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