Margaret Potts a Tribute

Margaret's family - husband Harry flanked by son Ken and daughter Linda

The news of her passing-away came as a huge surprise even though she was 86. Some people you imagine will go on forever - and she was one of them. My abiding image will be of her, a petite frail figure, working in her garden when I pulled into her drive to spend a morning with her. She always wore a pair of baggy pants, a woolly hat and Harry's battered old anorak. That garden was her pride and joy and she was never happier than when she was keeping it immaculate.

She was small, indefatigable, gracious, yet feisty, and knew exactly what she wanted to say in the book. How cross she got with me one day when something I had written wasn't quite right and the way she wanted it. I suspect that had we not had a deadline to meet we might still be writing it - such was her recall of events, and the number of times she managed to think of something else just when I thought we had finished.

It was Ray Simpson who rang up one night early in 2005 and asked me if I was interested in writing this book. Ray, some time earlier, had already worked on it with Margaret, he had spent months recording interviews, transcribing them and then sorting chronologically all the boxes and boxes of Potts memorabilia. That in itself was a monumental task. When Ray willingly agreed to hand over the results of all his groundwork, and Sportsbooks expressed a tentative interest, it didn't take long to decide to go ahead.

Then there was the first meeting with Margaret. First impressions count. She was vivacious and had such energy. We hit it off from the start and it helped that she knew I'd already written Burnley books.

Source material is the key to the writing of any biography. So all Margaret's memorabilia, plus the three dozen scrapbooks containing seemingly everything ever written about Burnley from 1960 to 1980, that were bequeathed to me by lifelong Claret Alan Bailey, and I was all set and ready to go. I went through every folder that I brought home, pulling out yet more press cuttings, old letters, documents, old programmes and picture after picture. One letter was from Leeds United in the fifties when Harry was at the end of his Everton career. It invited him to join the Leeds coaching staff. If he had accepted, just think how the course of Leeds United and BFC history might have been changed. I read through everything relevant to Harry Potts the man and the Harry Potts years already on my shelves - the Ray Simpson books and the Tim Quelch, Forever and Ever, surely worth a reprint by some kind sponsor.

But where do you begin? At the beginning is the obvious enough answer, but publishing is a precarious business and Sportsbooks wanted an 'angle.' A publisher wants to know that his books have at least a sporting chance of selling well. Randall Northam and I therefore met Margaret in late March 2005. Randall wanted to test the water, talk to her, see her marvellous collection of pictures, and see if his instincts came up with anything. Randall used to be a journalist; he has a nose for the things that make the heart of a story. After an afternoon of talks we came up with the basic idea that this was a love story, a love story involving Harry, Margaret, and Burnley Football Club. The sub plots were there as well - Harry's mother, Bob Lord and Jimmy Adamson. And underlying it all there is the story of a small town club defeating the giants until at last they are no longer able. So many Burnley games in the sixties were the story of David and Goliath, and there's the beauty, David won not just once but over and over again. Margaret was a part of all that, at the same time providing a haven of family life to which Harry would return every day.

The title was obvious from the start. Unlike the Willie Irvine book where we didn't come up with a title until the very last minute, the Harry book was easy. This would be Margaret's story as well as Harry's story, and it would be her story because she had such a phenomenal memory, and even in her eighties a pin sharp mind, plus her diaries.

The one problem was that Harry rarely talked football with her. He would come home and by and large leave Burnley FC behind him. He brought his disappointments and moods home on occasions but rarely told Margaret anything about his day job.

So the two of us told the story together, Margaret telling of Harry the man at home, the way the football affected her daily life, Margaret the mother and then Harry the family man. I told the story of Harry the manager, a man without an ounce of deviousness in his body, a man in love with football. Between us we tried to get to the heart of the man and their life together.

Margaret Potts with former players in 2004

So the writing of it took 13 months before it was handed over to Sportsbooks. Then, when a book goes to the publisher the editing begins and a book becomes a partnership between writer and editor. An editor sees things, spots things, repetition, a paragraph that can be moved, an error with a date or a name, spelling inconsistencies, he does the fine tuning, and when an author waxes lyrical and uses ten words where five will do, some pruning as well. And then that's not counting the proof reading, where a total stranger, an expert, corrects your punctuation and grammar, a salutary experience. Your work comes back with errors marked and annotated in red. Now I know what children felt like years ago when I marked their work.

But there's trust involved. I knew that Randall wouldn't take out whole pages, but I knew he would make suggestions, improve the flow, focus things, tighten it, smooth the edges, basically 'cut the waffle' and add his own little bits of knowledge.

For thirteen months I made the trip to Read initially every week and then once a fortnight as I visited ex players and colleagues of Harry in between. And on top of all those visits were the dozens of phone calls. Margaret talked, I wrote, sometimes she wrote, letters, her own notes, sometimes writing things that could just be worked straight in. Much of the time I wrote for her, trying to be her, writing what she might have thought. I had my fingers smacked several times. "Oh no, that doesn't sound like me at all," she would say.

The draft pieces went back and forth to be corrected; changed and re-written, shredded would be a fair word on some occasions, sometimes more than once. A chapter would be drafted; Margaret would read it, correct it, alter and annotate it. Her notes filled the margins. Back they would come either on a Tuesday when I visited her or in the post. Painstakingly, the completed chapters, which satisfied us both mounted up. She had the most amazing things in her collection of memorabilia - an essay written when she was a small schoolgirl about a trip in a charabanc to Hardcastle Crags a few miles away, Harry's very first pay slips.

Only the final chapters became difficult. Just when I thought we were winning, quite amazingly she sent me in the post another 24 pages of handwritten notes, 12,000 words to go through. What I thought would be the final chapter became three final chapters and all ending with the most difficult of all… the postscript… a mother writing about roots and wings, the way in which we give our children their roots and then we must be strong enough to give them their wings and freedom so that we can let them go and they must make their own way in the world.

At this point I don't think Margaret would mind me saying she was tired and weary; don't forget she and Ray had first mooted this book as long ago as 2000. This was the point I realised we had spent thirteen months on it. We couldn't get the Roots and Wings right. I used to be a head teacher in my other life; now this was Margaret the headmistress, demolishing the chapter, telling me in no uncertain terms to do it again, and again, and get it right. And I did (I think) and we were both smiling again. And at last the thing was done and we decided t'job was a good un. With a bit of luck it would sell outside of Burnley and the publisher would be happy.

The publisher said writing a book is like giving birth. I partially agree, but I'd say it's more like a journey with obstacles and landmarks all along the way. For me this was a journey where I met so many great people, heard so many great stories, drove 40 miles each way back and forth to Burnley, through the bottleneck that is Colne, more times than I care to remember. The most entertaining meeting was with Steve Kindon. We met at 5 o clock in The Kettledrum. I asked the first question and never got another word in. He finished talking at 6. I didn't hear a full stop; it was just one long sentence. When he starts you just sit back and listen and laugh. I was spellbound as Dave Thomas told me the story of how he chose Harry the man, in preference to Revie and the holdall of money he put on the carpet in his living room. I smiled to hear that Harry was as skilled and frequent a 'diver' in the penalty area as any modern player. The difference was there weren't endless TV replays and Andy Gray analysis.

Harry Potts fulfilled his dreams until Lord and Adamson had no further use for him. Margaret was by his side as his heart was broken. Jimmy Adamson had his own dreams broken for him. Bob Lord then began the process of his own self-destruction and turned to Harry once again to rescue him in the late seventies. Harry had a damned good try, but it was a forlorn attempt and then after the last harvest of young players under Brian Miller and a promotion, the real wilderness years began, which Harry and Margaret could only watch from the distance.

Margaret was, and is, a part of club history and her place is assured in the Burnley story. She was never more proud than at Maine Road in May 1960, Wembley 1962 or the book launch in 2006. She saw the good times and the bad; she endured criticism when Jimmy Mac was sold. And then when Harry was struck by dementia in later life her devotion to him and her care of him was far and above the call of duty.

She loved writing and receiving letters and saved them all, over the years. In my files are so many that she wrote while we worked on the book. They were full of news and she loved to know about other peoples' families and she cared about their problems. She treasured all Harry's possessions and memorabilia that she had kept. Even in moments when we were not talking about the book, her conversation would inevitably come back to him.

With Harry she made Burnley FC a caring, family club. Many a new mum at the club received a little knitted jacket for the latest arrival. Yet she was never afraid of speaking her mind at a time when women were expected to be seen but not heard at Turf Moor.

When I last saw her she was still keeping cuttings and clippings of the club and its events. She retained her love for Burnley Football Club and people until the end. Margaret and Harry Potts are inseparable names and she is now re-united with him.

A great lady has passed away.