This is quite a long piece but I make no apologies. It was, for me, an interesting time at Home Park and Peter McParland was, at one time, one of the greatest players in the land and deserves an appropriate obit. If you are not keen on history perhaps it is best to scroll on.
On 05 January 1963 a confident Argyle, 3rd in the Second Division, entertained First Division West Bromwich Albion in one of only 3 games played across the whole of England. There were banks of snow all around the running track and much of the pitch was frozen, especially in the corner where the Mayflower and the Barn Park End meet. But referee RE Smith (Newport) surprisingly declared it playable.
With the game poised at 1-1, Argyle centre forward Alex Jackson chased a long ball towards the corner flag. Realising it was a lost cause, Jackson tried to stop but collided with Graham Williams (later his manager at Weymouth). Although he tried to play on, both before and after the interval, Jackson’s leg was broken.
Earlier in the season Argyle had sold established centre forward George Kirby to Southampton for £17,500. Chairman Ron Blindell talked of Argyle being in the market for a £30,000 centre forward but in the immediate games after Kirby’s departure, manager Ellis Stuttard handed the number nine shirt to inside forward Alex Jackson. It turned into Jackson’s best run in the side and he responded with 11 goals in 18 outings. But now his season was over.
Before the plaster was dry on Jackson’s leg, Stuttard moved for a replacement, one that looked a sensational coup. He recruited Northern Ireland international Peter McParland from Wolves, equalling the record £13,000 fee Argyle had paid for Neil Dougal 14 years earlier. I would think that after Jack Rowley and Peter Shilton, both recruited as player-manager, Peter McParland was probably the biggest name to have signed for Argyle. Although the Argyle chairman made a lot of the fact that they had equalled their record fee, it should be remembered that by 1963 the record between two English clubs had moved on to the £65,000 West Ham paid Palace for Johnny Byrne. When Neil Dougal had signed the record stood at just over £20,000.
McParland was a real star at Aston Villa. At a rate of almost one every three games, he scored a lot of goals for a man who played most of his career on the left wing. He also provided many goals, including the first nine in an 11-1 Villa win over Charlton, before scoring the final two himself. I honestly don’t think I am exaggerating when I say that in his pomp Peter McParland was not far short of people like Tom Finney, Ryan Giggs and John Barnes.
Having surprisingly left Villa for Wolves in January 1962. He had scored 120 goals in 341 appearances, amazing numbers for an outside left. He made his debut for Wolves against Spurs, a week after Tottenham had knocked Argyle out of the FA Cup. Despite scoring 10 times in 21 appearances, he lasted marginally less than a year at Molineux. Stuttard told the Press that McParland was a direct replacement for Jackson.
Although he had made his name as an outside left at Villa and for Northern Ireland, in 1961-62 he had played 15 times at centre forward for Villa and netted ten times. The first of those goals was the extra-time winner against Rotherham in the second leg of the first-ever Football League Cup Final. (The other scorers in Villa’s 3-0 win that night were Alan O’Niell and Harry Burrows, each of whom also went on to play for Argyle). Having scored both goals in Villa’s controversial 2-1 win over Manchester United, McParland’s goal against Rotherham made him the first man to score the winning in goal in both an FA Cup Final and a League Cup Final.
In terms of wages McParland became Argyle’s first ever £40 a week player and, with a contract until June 1964, the first to ever have a contract lasting more than a calendar year. With Britain in the grip of the third coldest winter on record, we had to wait until 19 January 1963 for his debut against Newcastle (who had Duncan Neale at right half), on a part frozen surface, badly damaged by Argyle’s attempts to keep the frost at bay. It ended 0-2, our first home League defeat of the season.
It would be McParland’s first and last game as Argyle’s centre forward. For the next game, a 5-4 home defeat to Middlesbrough, and the 17 games thereafter, Stuttard chose McParland at outside left, and promptly sold popular winger Mickey Lill to Portsmouth. Wilf Carter returned to the side as centre forward.
McParland was often the outstanding player but the rest of the side struggled and results were poor. But on 06 April 1963 McParland rolled back the years with a virtuoso performance in a 3-1 home win over Leeds. He scored a hat-trick and gave the Leeds right back, Paul Reaney, a real chasing. But in his 18 games that season, he was on the winning side just four times and as the thaw set in and teams started to play their games in hand, Argyle slid slowly from third in the table to 12th. McParland’s class was there for all to see and he netted 11 times in 18 outings.
He had turned down each of the club houses he was shown and the club were forced to buy a brand-new detached Wright and Lang bungalow for him in Reservoir Road, Elburton. I remember speaking to John Newman about McParland. I asked if the £40 a week wages and the new, detached home had antagonised the rest of the players. Newman’s recollection was that it didn’t. “We all felt that his presence would improve the side and we would get lots of win bonuses. Unfortunately, we never really got going again after the Boxing Day win. Looking back, it was a pity that we didn’t buy McParland a year earlier and Barrie Jones two years earlier. What a team that would have been. He was actually a popular lad in the dressing room and no one could doubt his effort.”
The following season, 1963-64, took up where the previous one left off. It was 13 games before Argyle registered their first win. McParland played 22 games but was on the winning side just twice. He alternated between his favoured outside left (10 games) and outside right and scored only 3 goals.
Between 2011 and 2021 I had several lengthy conversations with Peter McParland. Most were by phone but I did go down to Bournemouth one day and met him on the seafront for a coffee. He was a wonderful raconteur and had the most amazing memory. He was nothing but frank with me and clearly regretted that his time at Argyle did not work out. He told me that he didn’t know why it didn’t work though he did admit that he was shocked at the lack of facilities at Home Park. He also said that in his second season he resented being moved from his favoured left-wing position to accommodate Ken Maloy. “Towards the end of that second season I was overlooked for the run-in but I had no problem at all with Nicky Jennings being preferred to me, but there is no way the lad Maloy was better than me. There was a lot of stuff going on with me and the trainer, George Taylor. I phoned in sick one day, saying that I couldn’t train and within an hour he is knocking on my door checking if I am telling lies.“
I also asked him about the challenge on Ray Wood, the Manchester United goalkeeper, in the 1957 FA Cup Final. Wood suffered a broken cheek-bone and McParland was publicly castigated. He expressed regret that Wood was injured but added “goalkeepers were fair game back then. And people missed the fact that he tried to pull out at the last second. That is when people get hurt. I’m more concerned that I hit the post when I should have scored, denying myself a Cup Final hat-trick. ”
A year later all was forgotten and McParland was a hero again when he was one of the outstanding players in the 1958 World Cup. He scored five goals in four games, including both goals in a play-off that saw Northern Ireland advance to the Quarter Final stage. He remained very proud of his performance in that tournament but was equally pleased when Pat Jennings also made it to the Quarter-Finals in 1982 (albeit in a group stage)). “Pat and I were both born and raised in Chapel Street. Next door in fact. Two World Cup Quarter-Finalists, no bad for a wee street in Newry, eh?”
In view of how great a player he had been, it is somewhat sad that after leaving Argyle in the summer of 1964 he never played at Football League level again. He next surfaced at Southern League Worcester City before going to Atlanta Chiefs in America. For a short while coached in Cyprus and then Libya, until Colonel Gadaffi felt that football was beginning to become more popular than him. He returned to Northern Ireland and player-managed Glentoran, taking great delight at snatching the league title from his old team-mate Billy Bingham.
Footnote: Some years ago a fanatic collector of Argyle memorabilia, the late Colin Parsons, lent me the Boardroom minutes covering the period 1959 to 1963. I was quite shocked to read that at the time he was given permission to sign Peter McParland for £13,000, manager Ellis Stuttard was instructed to recoup £12,000 by selling Wilf Carter. So much for all that stuff about equalling our record outlay for a player. Although Stuttard refused the initial instruction, he did switch McParland to the left wing so that he could sell Mickey Lill to Portsmouth. The things we never knew!
