Great interview here too,
www.eastleighfc.com/the-mcnamara-interviews-with-derik-brooks/‘Forever Thankful One Derik Brooks’ proclaims the banner permanently and prominently hung opposite the main stand inside Eastleigh FC’s Silverlake Stadium home.
That public display of gratitude is just one way in which Spitfires supporters have acclaimed the remarkable man to whom their club owes its existence. On May 22nd 1946, at a meeting he convened, Brooks officially founded Swaythling Athletic FC – since 1980 Eastleigh FC.
Now its Life President, Brooks’ substantial, unbroken, 68 year contribution towards the club’s evolution was recognised after the team’s 2-1 Good Friday victory over Basingstoke Town – a win that sealed promotion into non-league’s highest tier, the Conference Premier.
Brooks, however, had received no indication that he would be joining current skipper Glen Southam on the Silverlake pitch to hoist aloft the Conference South champions trophy.
‘I honestly didn’t know. It was obviously connived by somebody. I was sat in the stand and Kevin Dixon (the team’s kit man) said ‘Come down here with us’. I didn’t know what for. I went down and that’s what happened (he was asked out to join the presentation ceremony). I had no idea at all, none whatsoever.
‘It wasn’t until I got out there I realised I was going to get a medal. I just thought I was going out to get involved with the celebrations’.
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Derik Brooks
As with any successful campaign, there were a few ‘what if’ scenarios to mull over at the conclusion of Eastleigh’s triumphant season. Primarily, what if one time runaway league leaders Bromley hadn’t suffered a late-season slump that saw them, between February 15th and April 8th, lose eight of 13 matches?
‘They just suddenly had a slump didn’t they? It was amazing’ says Brooks, whose own early life tale features plenty of ‘what if’ episodes. What if, for example, a careless goalkeeper hadn’t left his mark on a young winger
‘I worked for Cunliffe-Owen Aircraft. I played for their football team, but got injured. A goalkeeper took a flying kick at the ball, but missed it and caught my kneecap instead. That put me out of football for a long time, but I still went with the lads to all their games. I did one of two things for them to help out. Eventually, the football secretary left and I was asked to take it on. That’s how I became involved in that side of life’.
The next decisive event, resulting from both the impending liquidation of the company, and call ups to National Service for many of its players, was the disbanding of the Cunliffe-Owen football team. Inspired by his love for football, and enjoyment of his new secretarial duties, Brooks was quickly hatching a plan that led to the formation of a new club.
‘Every Saturday evening we used to go to Cunliffe-Owen’s club and, off-the-cuff, I said, ‘Let’s form a team’. Eventually, that remark turned into a reality. We did form a team.
‘The more we talked about it, the more I thought about it. I did enjoy the secretarial side. There was a lot to learn, especially all the administrative rules. But, from that initial comment, Swaythling Athletic was born.
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‘Our first games, up until about Christmas time, we played on the common opposite the Cowherds pub. You were a pauper if you played on there – and we were one of the paupers. There was one big changing room which all the teams used. There was no segregation. We marked the ground out with sawdust – which is not funny on a windy Saturday morning. It was a rough and ready place.
‘Cunliffe-Owen had a lovely pitch and good facilities. This was quite the opposite. We won our first game against Woolston Boys Club – I think it was 3-1’.
Sitting in his Bitterne Park home alongside wife Marion who, despite confessing with a smile that she has little interest in football spent many years working in the Eastleigh boardroom, Brooks recalls the club’s formative years with enormous affection, and no less clarity.
‘After Christmas (1946) we moved to what was really just a grass area in Walnut Avenue (Westfield), near the airport. We obtained some goalposts. Changing facilities were an Air Raid Precaution shelter. It was dark inside, with no lighting. It was just a long brick building.
‘That’s where we established ourselves. Our second team won Southampton Junior League Division Two in 1947-1948. The way it worked then meant that the first team (who had been playing in the league above) was promoted into the Southampton Senior League West, and the second team got up into Junior League One. Two years later we won the Southampton Senior League and, from that, we applied to go into the Hampshire League. We were accepted into the Third Division West.
‘We had quite a big support. There was no official gate recorded, or charge to watch. A chap called Fred Topp (who was present at that historic 22nd May 1946 meeting, and went on to be a committee member) just went around with a money box. Some people turned their backs and others put their hands in their pockets.
‘There were about six prominent supporters who did just about everything – and tried to organise other people. They were known as ‘The Bowler Hat Boys’. They wore bowler hats painted blue and white, and used to kick up a lot of noise’.
Demonstrating vision and ambition comparable to that of today’s owner, Stewart Donald, Brooks and his comrades were soon looking for a new home, suitable for their progressive club – by now playing in the Hampshire League’s First Division.
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‘We learned that Farmer Brown, who owned most of the land at Stoneham Lane, was selling up. We heard there was a piece of land available that was exactly ten acres in size and wondered if we could do anything about it. After a lot of umming and ahing we settled on a price (in August 1954). We obtained a loan from the Football Association which we had to pay off over quite a number of years – we paid it off well before the due date’.
There would, though, be one large obstacle to surmount before the team could move to the site which it still calls home today.
‘The Eastleigh Borough Planning Committee initially refused permission for us to build on Ten Acres, so we had to go to a public enquiry (on 26th January 1955) at the old town hall in Eastleigh. We won hands down. We had a QC –who set us back a fair bit. I’ll always remember going over in the afternoon and there was this QC swaying about on the balls of his feet, and with his thumbs in his waistcoat. He was a big chap, over 6ft, and he talked and talked and talked. But he knew what he was talking about.
‘Once we’d won the public enquiry we didn’t have any money to build anything so we were still playing at Walnut Avenue. We had the land and couldn’t do anything with it’.
It was the summer of 1957 before building work could begin on the newly purchased ground. Now an interested onlooker with respect to the planned construction at the Silverlake over the coming months, – ‘We’ve got improvements going on in the ground. We’ll be surprised, I think, by how it will look but that’s progress’ – fifty-seven years ago a pioneering Brooks was central to the concerted effort to have Ten Acres ready to host football in time for season 1957/58.
‘At Walnut Avenue they were developing a new estate. The building manager, Frank Wright, took an interest in the football (becoming chairman of the Supporters’ Club). With his ideas and knowledge of architecture, he designed the dressing rooms. They were extremely nice. There were sunken tiled baths for both sides. There were separate rooms for the referee, as well as a pavilion. We were really taking off, but we weren’t popular with the traditional clubs like Cowes, Andover and Alton. They were the prima donnas of the Hampshire League and we were just new boys to be beaten.
‘We became popular locally, though, and had quite a following. The playing surface was only so-so. It had been farmland after all. There was one summer’s weekend we spent digging herringbone drainage around the pitch because it got so wet. About twenty-five different faces turned up to do their bit. A lot of the players used to come in and help. Everything was voluntary. We just took our coats off and got stuck in. We decorated the place, painted the goalposts, everything’.
Honorary Secretary of the club at the time of the move to Ten Acres, a position he held for 22 years, Brooks subsequently served as Honorary Treasurer for 13 years, and spent another 25 years in the post of Honorary General Secretary – not to mention making seven first team appearances, even if he modestly recalls ‘four or five’ outings ‘when somebody didn’t turn up’. Elected as Eastleigh FC’s Life President in 2006, the 90 year-old is present at every home match, and rates the current side as the best he has ever seen represent his club.
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‘The present team is very close-knit. Their whole attitude is reminiscent of what I grew up with. They’re a good bunch.
‘We are a professional side now, there’s no getting away from that. I know there are one or two people who say, ‘Yes, it’s great to have all this success, but…’. I can understand that. People my age think back to the past a lot, believe you me.
‘But, the ‘We must win’ attitude is still with me, and always will be. It’s like when England play. I don’t care who they’re playing, if it’s the World Cup or a friendly, I just want them to win.
‘This year has been extremely good. The standard of football has been good. It is the best Eastleigh team that I’ve seen. Some of our teams in the past played very good football, but this has been of a very high standard. We’ve got a good manager (Richard Hill). He’s strong, but I think he’s fair. At the match when we won promotion he said to me ‘You caused all this’.
Brooks’ response when asked if he has a favourite member of the current playing staff, perhaps offers an insight into why he is such a popular character; revered enough that he was asked last month to open a new supporters’ club bar named in his honour – a tribute that left its recipient feeling ‘pleased and proud’.
‘To me they’re all equal. Everybody in the club is equal, whether they’re chairman of the club, chairman of the supporters club, or whatever. I’ve always taken that attitude. You mustn’t favour a player or committee man. I’ve always tried to treat everybody as equal’.
As a self-described ‘ex-Londoner’, Eastleigh FC owes a debt of thanks to Dulwich Hamlet FC for spiking the young Brooks’ interest in football.
‘I used to go to Dulwich Hamlet with my father. They had a lot of England internationals in their side. They were the bees-knees. That’s how I got my interest in football.
‘I always look for the result of Dulwich Hamlet on a Sunday morning. After that, I’m not really interested. I’m interested in our club and the teams they play. I always read about Totton and other local clubs as a point of interest, and just to keep up with the times’.
Those childhood trips to watch his local team were the first steps on a storied track that culminated with Brooks, after he had re-located further south, creating what Hill and Donald now hope to turn into ‘a monster’ of a football club.
‘When war broke out I was evacuated to Chichester. I left school because I wasn’t really learning anything – and my parents didn’t want me to. I had an Aunt and Uncle who lived in Southampton. My Uncle worked at Cunliffe-Owen Aircraft, and I wanted to get into the air force.
‘I was in the RAF Volunteer Reserve. I went a couple of times to Oxford to be interviewed and was told I’d be called eventually. I went back to work in the drawing office at Cunliffe-Owen, and then found out that the company had applied for me to stay so that’s how I remained here’.
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His passion for the game, and ‘his’ team, has never deserted a man who, five years ago this month, received the ‘Citizen of Honour’ award from Eastleigh Borough Council. Upon Brooks taking early retirement, after 33 years spent working in the accounts department at Ford Motor Company, his boss commented that he expected the company’s telephone bill would be significantly reduced, – ‘or words to that effect’ – such was his employee’s dedication to football matters.
Laughing, and remembering who is sat next to him, Brooks denies that football has been the prime concern throughout his life.
‘Well, I got married somewhere in there!’ he says, casting a look across at Marion. Nevertheless, the enthusiasm that prompted a 22 year-old Brooks to found a football club remains readily evident, even if he does admit to being a touch more reserved when watching matches than was once the case.
‘Oh yes (he still gets as excited as ever), although I don’t let myself go as much as I used to. A few years ago my feet would leave the ground when we scored a goal. I have been known to lose my umbrella in full flight. I’m a bit more serious now, I suppose’.
The next task for the current Eastleigh squad – many of whom this week travelled to Las Vegas to spend five days celebrating their title winning achievement; a far cry from the skittle evenings and annual Christmas time trip to watch a pantomime in Bournemouth that Brooks counts among treasured memories of ‘an extremely sociable, happy club’ – will be to establish itself in a higher division.
‘Mr Eastleigh’ has no doubt that they are capable of meeting that challenge. Typically, his expectations are straightforward.
‘I am very proud of the club. We have had our ups and downs, but when we’ve had our downs we’ve always recovered and fought back.
‘I just want them to do as best as they can. I don’t expect anything outrageous to start with. The main thing is to consolidate. That’s easy to say, but there’s some big clubs in there. After we were promoted I looked through the list. It makes you shudder’.
Are there any of those teams that Brooks is particularly looking forward to seeing in action?
‘No, no. Only my own. It will be hard but everything in the club is professional enough to deal with it. There are one or two things that will need improving, but that’s the same at every club. It’s going to be an interesting season. The more we win the better it will be’.
Spoken like a winner and, more importantly, a gentleman. That is Derik Brooks all over.
