Boots

It was a Golden Era when fans idolized Stanley Matthews and Billy Wright and a boy’s dream was to play for EnglandIt was a sound that filled with terror the hearts of people in the small English Midlands coal-mining town.The hooter at the mine pithead started sounding a regular on and off sound — quite unlike its familiar signal for shift change-over. And it could only mean one thing…Disaster at the mine. Men trapped underground. Some injured, some killed. Maybe some survivors, though. And some at the surface chose to descend into danger, in hopes of rescuing their mates.It was a journey into a hell of collapsing timbers and rolling fragments of rock and coal. But Harold Ibbotson led the team that did it. And led them out again, with three rescued miners.He never forgot that disaster and his very close escape from death or serious injury. And he vowed, once again, that his son, William would escape a life that he had been forced to live underground.So he coached William at football, the game he loved. Later, he was joined by Albert Hall, one of the men he had rescued at the mine. Albert was coach of the town’s amateur football team and volunteered many expert hours to teach William the game. He grew to love him like a son but he was also deeply grateful for Harold’s courage in saving his life.Together, they gave the naturally-gifted William a powerful boost in football mastery. But there were thousands of gifted young footballers in England in the 1950s — and today.Could William Ibbotson become one of the very few young men ever to run onto the pitch of London’s Wembley Stadium for a major game along with Lofthouse, Finney and Charlton?