How Rovers' fiasco exposed bigger scandal

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FOOTBALL is a huge global business these days. Equally huge are the players' salaries, transfer fees, television rights, sponsorship deals and gambling on a world-wide scale.

It's a far cry from the old jumpers- for-goalposts days of local teams fielding (mostly) local players; men who were earning not much more than their former schoolmates, who were working in factories and offices.

That was the background to the bribery scandal which rocked Bristol Rovers and the world of British football in 1963. The sum involved?

Just £300.

Sure, it was worth a lot more in those days, but it wasn't a fortune, and it certainly wasn't worth losing your job over.

In 1962, Bristol Rovers signed goalkeeper Esmond Million from Middlesbrough for £5,000.

Million put his bungalow up north on the market and moved into a new home at Reynolds Walk, Horfield.

As the weeks passed, he began to have money problems. For some reason there were no buyers for his old house, and he took out a bridging loan to pay for his new home. The interest started to stack up.

This seems to be the reason why he accepted an offer of £300 to throw an away game at Bradford Park Avenue.

In April 1963 he was approached by Brian Phillips, a former team-mate from Middlesbrough, now a defender for Mansfield Town.

Phillips was acting as a fixer for a syndicate of professional gamblers, who were looking to make a killing from fixed-odds bookies in the north of England.

Phillips gave Million £50 as a downpayment. Million approached at least two other members of the team. One was centre right Keith Williams, himself a recent acquisition, and someone who had money worries of his own. Yet the scam would turn out to be a squalid, ham-fisted fiasco for the best possible of reasons; most of the rest of the team had no idea what was going on and they played furiously.

All they knew was that the team was in a desperate relegation battle.

At the game on April 20, Hugh Ryden and Bobby Jones both scored for Rovers early on, running rings round the northern team's ragged defence before Million had even had the chance to touch the ball.

Bradford Park Avenue recovered, though and were equal by half-time. One goal came from the Bradford inside right, the 18-year-old Kevin Hector.

And the other?

Ray Mabbutt (father of Gary) many years later told the Western Daily Press: "It was my first match after injury and at one point I passed back, very gently, to Million.

"I turned to run upfield and heard the roar of the crowd. Somehow our keeper had let it go through his hands. It was extraordinary."

Keith Williams must have known even before the half-time whistle that the game was up. He reportedly groaned, "Oh, bloody hell, Es," to his co-conspirator.

Full back Gwyn Jones was also aware that something was up.

He had joined Rovers from Wolves around the same time as Million and the goalkeeper had approached him some days before the game asking him if he wanted to earn £100.

Some years ago, Jones told a Wolves' fan forum: "I thought he meant on the horses or something and, when he explained what he meant, I said 'Look, Esmond, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt if you promise me you'll do nothing stupid'."

Now it was clear that Million was doing something very stupid indeed. Jones reported his concerns to Rovers' captain Geoff Bradford at half-time. The second half of the game played out. It was still 2-2 at full time. But now things started to move very quickly off the pitch. Rumours of an attempt at match fixing had spread. Back in Bristol, players found newspaper reporters on their doorsteps.

At Eastville, the players met to talk about the accusations. Million and Williams said nothing.

Manager Bert Tann was now called into the meeting and listened.

Even though the club was staring relegation to the Fourth Division in the face and could little afford to do without two of its key players, he sacked Million and Williams

Interviewed in the 1970s, Tann said: "It took me less than a minute to make up my mind. We immediately told the FA.

"At a crucial time of the season we needed two key players. What we didn't need were players who were prepared to throw the match."

His quick and decisive response was highly praised and enabled Rovers to emerge from this shabby, pathetic affair with honour intact.

No scandal would attach to the club or any of its players other than Million and Williams, and these two were now in deep trouble.

The story was now out in the open. The People newspaper led with it on Sunday, April 28.

Million, Williams and Phillips were charged under the Prevention of Corruption Act. Million was fined £100 and the others were fined £50 each at Doncaster Magistrates Court in July.

The final chapter in the footballing careers of Williams, Million and Phillips was played out in a Birmingham hotel on August 15, 1963.

A four-man commission set up by the Football Association convened to examine the case and announced its decision after two-and-a-half hours.

All three men were to be banned from football for life.

Million was visibly in shock afterwards. All he could say to reporters was: "I am finished. It is a terribly harsh decision.

"I know I have done wrong, and expect to be punished. But not this. What on earth am I going to do now?"

Williams was only slightly more voluble.

"They might as well have cut off my feet," he said.

"As I owned up, voluntarily, I thought I might get off with a fairly light punishment. I have never done anything dishonest before in my life."

Denis Fellows, the FA Secretary, said in a statement: "The commission is convinced that all associated with the game and the public in general are anxious that the game should be kept free from any suggestion of corruption

"It is essential, therefore, that the punishment meted out today will show the world how concerned the FA is at events of this kind.

By now, however, the suspicion was growing that the Rovers' scandal was only the tip of an iceberg.

Fellows' statement added: "The inquiries have been concerned with these cases and these players.

"There is nothing that had come out today which is not connected with the case we have dealt with.

"There are obviously other matters pending and you know about them."

This cryptic reference was to something which had come out in open court, when the three men were fined at Doncaster the previous month.

The real culprit, the mastermind behind the scam, was named as Jimmy Gauld, a talented Scottish forward who had played for Everton, Swindon, Plymouth Argyle and Mansfield, but who had been forced to retire through injury.

Gauld pursued a parallel career in match-fixing, which the following year would result in him being imprisoned for four years – along with seven Mansfield and Sheffield Wednesday players.

Gauld, it turned out, had put together a ring of corrupt players, perhaps as many as 30, including three England internationals. Their scam was said to be making £4,000 a month.

In the fall-out from this case, anything that had happened at Rovers was largely forgotten.

Williams became a labourer in Bristol, but managed to return to a footballing career by emigrating to South Africa.

Because of the country's isolation under its racist Apartheid regime, the country was internationally isolated and welcomed any sporting talent it could get.

Meanwhile, Esmond Million returned to Middlesbrough and got a job as a bus driver. He later moved with his family to Canada, but would eventually return to Britain and is now thought to be living in Tunbridge Wells, Kent.

He never played football again and has never since spoken publicly about the events of 1963.