taking stock of the mad hatters -
the alec stock story
By Rob Hadgraft
FOOTBALL management is not normally an occupation that engenders a sunny disposition and smiley demeanour. Which is precisely the reason charismatic Alec Stock is still remembered with much affection, long after his retirement in 1980 and death aged 84 in 2001.
Mention of Stock’s name always raises a smile and a chuckle – and no wonder: As Luton Town manager he enjoyed a special relationship with the nation’s favourite comedian Eric Morecambe; at Fulham he worked under comic Tommy Trinder; and in the 1990s found himself affectionately caricatured as ‘Ron Manager’ on BBC TV’s Fast Show. Added to all this, some of football’s best known cheerful chappies – Rodney Marsh, Harry Zussmann and Harry Haslam – all had a special place in their hearts for Somerset-born Stock.
The stories of how Stock took QPR into the top flight in 1968 and Fulham to the 1975 FA Cup final are well known, but less widely appreciated is his work at Luton, where he created one of his finest sides in the early 1970s (it was a team of “real smoothies” according to Stock). Hatters’ fans of a certain vintage purr with delight at the memory, and reckon that Luton side was every bit as good as the teams Stock put together higher up the League ladder at Loftus Road and Craven Cottage.
Stock joined Luton in December 1968 on the rebound, shortly after ruthless QPR chairman Jim Gregory replaced him with Tommy Docherty – all because Stock had taken sick leave after an asthma attack. Thus a remarkable nine-year reign at Loftus Road ended miserably - but QPR’s loss would prove Luton Town’s gain.
Kenilworth Road presented an ideal scenario for Stock to bounce back, the Hatters evidently back on the way up after struggling through the early 1960s. They were led by dashing chairman-elect Tony Hunt, the entrepreneurial brains behind the flourishing Vehicle & General insurance business. Hunt had a vacancy to fill because he’d parted company with the successful previous manager Allan Brown - a messy episode in which Brown was accused of disloyalty for attending a secret interview for the Leicester City manager’s job.
Stock, by now 51, was delighted to get back into football, still outraged by his treatment by Jim Gregory, but promising Luton he was hungry and healthy again. The Kenilworth Road staff soon found their new man was erudite, fastidious and skilled at man-management.
Below: Stock signs up, with John Bain, Len Hawkins, Tony Hunt and Bob Readhead delighted to get their man.
Stock was now Division Three’s best-paid manager and introduced a philosophy he described thus: “Here at Luton we have three basic rules – train, play, laugh. We never let them mix and everyone is happy.” He certainly had the last laugh on Gregory, for his replacement Docherty lasted just 28 days at QPR, who were relegated in 1969 with only 18 points.
Stock enjoyed life under millionaire Hunt, a former Battle of Britain pilot who had made Vehicle & General a spectacular success, thanks largely to his idea of offering a ‘no claims bonus’ to good drivers. Hunt’s homes included a huge white Cambridgeshire mansion, a London penthouse and an Algarve villa, the latter made available for Stock’s family holidays.
Just weeks before Stock’s arrival, Eric Morecambe had watched his first game at Luton, having recently moved to the area. It was a storming 4-0 win over Oldham, and the comedian was immediately hooked and became a regular. He accepted Hunt’s invitation to become a director and struck up an instant rapport with Alec Stock.
I contacted Stock’s youngest daughter Sarah, who was then a teenager, and she told me: “Eric Morecambe and my dad got on well, and dad was very fond of him. As a family we would go to Christmas and end-of-season parties at Luton, for which I had to borrow clothes from my elder sister as I only had school stuff and jeans! Eric Morecambe used to tease me about the players - Viv Busby especially - and delighted in making me go scarlet, but did it in such a way that I still really liked him”.
Stock was pleasantly surprised by the quality of Luton players he inherited. He marvelled in particular at local youngster Bruce Rioch (“I haven’t seen such shooting since Bobby Charlton”). The Hatters were eighth in Division Three when Stock arrived and he had them in the top three within weeks. He hired Jimmy Andrews as his right-hand man and the relatively unknown Harry Haslam was given the unusual title ‘Chief Scout and Entertainments Manager.’
Below: Stock with Jimmy Andrews
Luton missed promotion in 1969 by just three points, the fans warming to Stock and his attractive attack-minded team. Stock reluctantly sold Rioch to Aston Villa for a record fee, but astutely spent a mere fraction of this on an unknown full-back from Fulham called Malcolm Macdonald. Stock and Haslam had to hatch a cunning plan to prise Macdonald from Craven Cottage: They urged the player to insist on a private meeting with chairman Tommy Trinder at which he must plead desperation and penury, and then promise to “beat the living shit” out of star player Johnny Haynes, who had been giving him a hard time.
Macdonald told later how he carried out orders and his performance left Trinder temporarily stunned. He was then left to sit outside the office for hours waiting for an outcome. Suddenly the wheezing figure of Stock burst through the door, followed by Haslam, covered in grease and mud. The pair had suffered a puncture rushing over from Luton and Haslam had been forced to change the wheel at the roadside. A discreet wink from the filthy Haslam assured Macdonald things would be fine and within an hour Stock had made one of his greatest signings.
A hunch by Stock and Haslam saw the player given an attacking role, the manager instructing him to go and out and get 30 goals. After recovering from the shock, Macdonald went on to hit 28. Kenilworth Road became a real fortress around this time and at one point during 1969-70 Luton were on a run of 72 home games with only one defeat. They duly finished runners-up and returned to the second tier after six years away.
It was now Stock’s troubles began. In the summer of 1970, with the team bus waiting to leave for a friendly in Belgium, he took a phone call from Bedfordshire Police to say star winger Graham French wouldn’t be joining them – he was in custody after a shooting. The brilliant winger led a wild lifestyle away from football, and this was merely the latest episode to jeopardise his career. When the case came to court, French would be jailed for three years, the judge calling him “an unsavoury man with synthetic glamour”. Stock would later reflect wistfully: “I still think about French a lot and dream about what a great player he could have become without his outside distractions.”
Even without French’s assists, Macdonald went on to hit 30 goals, but Stock would be left to describe 1970-1 as “a queer season” with Luton hit by everything but the kitchen sink. The immense promise shown by the likes of Don Givens, Chris Nicholl, Alan Slough, Jim Ryan and Mike Keen would be overshadowed by various crises off the field.
Directly after a win at Portsmouth took them into third place, Luton fans were stunned to pick up their local paper and read that swashbuckling chairman Hunt would have to quit his beloved Hatters. V&G had crashed spectacularly, all efforts to save the huge insurance business failing after its shares plummeted. Those shares had been underpinning the football club for the previous three years.
As this news broke, the squad were holed up in Jersey on a mid-season break. Stock would recall: “I had gone to bed early and was having a lie-in, something I never managed at Luton when driving up the M1 every morning. I had the papers, a pot of tea and life was marvellous. The first headline in the Telegraph hit me between the eyes like a sledgehammer. V&G collapse. I just held my head in my hands, for I knew exactly what that meant to the club and me. Life would never be the same again at Kenilworth Road.”
Below: Stock on snow clearing duties.
Luton were left in a state of ‘unofficial receivership’ and players had to be sold. The chairman departed and a cloud descended, leaving Stock fearful and stressed. He said: “Tony Hunt was a major influence on the rise of Luton Town. He was a personality, a man with a bit of style who allowed us to get on with running the club . . . he had been the blue-eyed boy only a couple of weeks earlier but was suddenly the villain. Through it all only one director stood firm alongside me – Eric Morecambe. He knew where his loyalties lay. He knew Hunt had done so much for Luton.’
Sarah Stock recalled: “I have a strong memory of dad's reaction to the V&G crash, wondering why he was so worried. Obviously, I now realise he could foresee it would lead to trouble at the club. Our family had been lucky enough to be lent Tony Hunt’s villa in Portugal once or twice. I remember going there when he was out there on holiday as well.”
There were genuine fears some of the V&G creditors might descend on the football club to recoup their losses. The atmosphere at Kenilworth Road soured and the promotion challenge collapsed, the Hatters finishing sixth. In the midst of this Stock had to deal with yet another bizarre off-field drama, 24 hours before a game with Charlton, when his skipper Mike Keen was kidnapped!
Keen was sipping coffee at the ground after training session when someone with a loud hailer rushed in screaming: “This is a raid, this is a raid”. Six people dressed in animal costumes made a beeline for Keen and astonished staff watched as the captain was bundled into a waiting van. The vehicle sped off towards Dunstable Road and disappeared.
It soon emerged that Keen’s abduction had been a stunt by local students as part of their Rag Week. But whether the Luton skipper would soon be released was not clear and Stock was far from amused. He called Luton College of Technology and was told the students demanded a £100 ransom. Bearing in mind recent events, rarely can a request for money have come at a more inopportune moment! Incandescent Stock slammed the phone down and told a reporter: ‘They are the biggest load of rubbish God ever created and I hope this Rag Week blows up in their faces. Friday is a very busy day for us – it’s the day we win football matches. If we lose tomorrow you know who is to blame.” Keen would emerge unscathed and smiling several hours later, the ransom unpaid.
Amid this unreal atmosphere, three defeats over a disastrous Easter killed off lingering promotion hopes. Leicester won 3-1 at Kenilworth Road and all the recent pressure on Stock became clear – at least in the eyes of Eric Morecambe. The comedian recalled holding open the Boardroom door and bidding a cheery farewell as Stock departed for home. Stock, not realising Morecambe was still looking on, then crossed the landing and gave an almighty kick to a chair, sending it flying through the air. “It was his private moment of pressure release,” recalled a stunned Morecambe.
Below: Firm friends, Eric Morecambe and Stock.
To keep the club afloat, Macdonald was sold to Newcastle. Stock would look back on this period with sadness for the rest of his life: “I was very distressed when my Luton team had to be changed. It was a most excellent young team and so rewarding because it was built from nothing. When you watched them in training you thought to yourself – what a bunch of smoothies, I fancy us to do something this year. Had it not been for the V&G collapse that team would have reached the First Division.”
Stock’s health still occasionally troubled him and the wretched daily commute from his Epsom home was getting him down. Daughter Sarah certainly noticed the problems: “Dad’s commute to Luton was tough. Those days were pre-M25 so it meant using Hanger Lane and the North Circular. Dad would leave at 6 in the morning and was often back well after I was in bed. We didn't see very much of him during the season. I seem to remember the club wanted him to move nearer and offered to help him do so - but my parents loved life in Epsom; I think it would have been hard to shift my mum from there. My sister and I were both entrenched in school and college and they would have been unwilling to uproot us. I do think the journey hit him hard. He was always involved in scouting and youth development at all his clubs, which was more difficult when living so far from the club’s patch. He was so dedicated to his work and had very high expectations of himself, which meant he pushed himself hard in all aspects of his life.”
Stock ploughed on and somehow found the funds to take the team on a 1971 summer break to Portugal. Due to dreadful weather and problems arranging fixtures, it turned into a shambles. During the many hours cooped up in their hotel, Stock gave embedded reporter Roger Duckworth a slew of exclusives. These included the revelation he would soon ‘move upstairs’ and become Luton’s chief executive, leaving Jimmy Andrews to run the team.
Some of the enthusiasm had been knocked out of him and it showed during 1971-2. Luton finished mid-table in Division Two amid more Boardroom shenanigans, during which Stock’s only ally remained Eric Morecambe. He’d had enough and formally resigned in April, stating: ‘For nearly three-and-a-half years I’ve been doing a round trip of 120 miles a day from my home and due to the financial position of the club have kept my nose to the grindstone for 22 months without a break. This is neither good for me nor the club. I began to feel more than a little worn out.”
Sarah Stock added: “Dad was happy at Luton - certainly at first – and always liked to feel he left every club in a little bit better shape than when he’d arrived. I hope all at Luton felt this was the case.”
It was certainly a sad day when Stock exited Kenilworth Road, handing the reins to Harry Haslam and uncertain where his own future lie. A whip-round in the offices saw him gifted a pair of binoculars to use at Epsom Racecourse, although Stock would mainly use them for bird-watching. “He was always a country boy at heart,” laughed Sarah.
