When Dennis Tueart wanted a move away



Al said:
The only time I have ever watched a player visibly not giving a shit on the pitch was actually Billy Hughes - when he was playing for Leicester. I forget who they were playing but it was the old first div. Hughes was moaning and complaining to his teammates every time he was expected to run - wanted the ball played right to his feet & wasn't prepared to break into more than a jog. Don't know what was behind it all.
The other thing I remember from that game was being really impressed by Steve Whitworth - I remember thinking wouldn't it be great if we could get a player like that at Sunderland. Then we did but I never saw him play again like he did that day for Leicester :-(
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He was hardly stand out but he was part of a very good and improving Sunderland team
 
Chewit said:
favourite ever player.The club did not show enough ambition after the cup final.
I think the only signing of note was Rod Belfitt who was a knackered Leeds reject not as good as anything we had.
He was international class and he was being held back both professionally by the club and financially by the circumstances of the time ( law on max wage and increases to keep lid on inflation).
Remembering these were times of 3 day weeks and going home on a night time to sit in candle light and play board games.
The book says he was subdued, but you can’t compare players of that time with today. They lived in the same semis as everyone else and had a career of selling insurance, working as a brewery rep or running a pub to look forward to.
Don’t judge them by today’s standards. Players in those days were incredibly loyal and Tueart would have beenplaying first team football about 6-7 years by then, and been on coppers.
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Not sure the law on maximum wage held him or the club back in the mid 1970s? The Maximum wage was abolished in 1961, when Tueart was only 12 years old
 
No memory of this at all and he wasn't subbed at Bristol according to stat cat. I guess without modern day social media there just wasn't the info flying around especially about a game far away. I watched loads of home games those few seasons and have no memory of Tueart not trying but can certainly understand him wanting to play at the top level as he was a great player.

Thanks for the note about that book though, hadn't heard of it and only £3.99 for Kindle.
 
spen666 said:
Not sure the law on maximum wage held him or the club back in the mid 1970s? The Maximum wage was abolished in 1961, when Tueart was only 12 years old
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Max wage increase for everyone in the country was in place at the time in an attempt to curb inflation. Only way to get more money was to move to another employer.
 
spen666 said:
Not sure the law on maximum wage held him or the club back in the mid 1970s? The Maximum wage was abolished in 1961, when Tueart was only 12 years old
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It wasn't about the football max wage, which as you say was abolished in the 60s. It was about a national limit on wage increases for everyone in the country. Was this maybe the time when they were imposing a limit of £1 plus 4% ?
 
Rob said:
Bloody marvellous Google.

books.google.co.uk

Stokoe, Sunderland and 73

50th anniversary edition of the story of the team that caused the last, great FA Cup upset...'Times have changed but this book is an engrossing reminder for all fans' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY'An essential piece of British football history for fans of any club. Brilliantly researched and written...
books.google.co.uk

Extract from Lance Hardys excellent book Stokoe, Sunderland and 73. Got it in the house somewhere. Bristol City away ?
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Bristol City away I heard Halom had someone pinned against the wall for not trying, thought it was Hughes but could have been Tueart.
 
Chewit said:
favourite ever player.The club did not show enough ambition after the cup final.
I think the only signing of note was Rod Belfitt who was a knackered Leeds reject not as good as anything we had.
He was international class and he was being held back both professionally by the club and financially by the circumstances of the time ( law on max wage and increases to keep lid on inflation).
Remembering these were times of 3 day weeks and going home on a night time to sit in candle light and play board games.
The book says he was subdued, but you can’t compare players of that time with today. They lived in the same semis as everyone else and had a career of selling insurance, working as a brewery rep or running a pub to look forward to.
Don’t judge them by today’s standards. Players in those days were incredibly loyal and Tueart would have beenplaying first team football about 6-7 years by then, and been on coppers.
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He was still sharing a bedroom with his brother while he was Sunderlands finest player.
 
Al said:
It wasn't about the football max wage, which as you say was abolished in the 60s. It was about a national limit on wage increases for everyone in the country. Was this maybe the time when they were imposing a limit of £1 plus 4% ?
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Fkn bastard Tories BTW
 
Chewit said:
he was being held back both professionally by the club and financially by the circumstances of the time ( law on max wage and increases to keep lid on inflation).
Remembering these were times of 3 day weeks and going home on a night time to sit in candle light and play board games.
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ahhhh the jots of a socialist government, happy days...
 
Al said:
I wasn't aware that there was a game like that. I remember being a bit taken aback when I saw it reported on the telly that he was leaving, but then I was a naive young thing at the time. Also, I thought that a significant issue was the government's wage controls in place at the time that meant that the only way he could get a significant pay increase was to move to another club. Or a meringue.
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Meringues were worth a King's ransom back then
 
Different when you’re a kid but you have to match the ambition of your best players or risk losing them. He left and got to cup finals with Man City as well as England caps while we yo-yo’d so can’t say he wasn’t justified.
 
Chewit said:
Tueart dug his heels in to leave, and went on to play for city and England. Billy Hughes stayed put. Hughes ended up with a testimonial where no one turned up and he was left in tears at making nothing from the game. The lads who stayed loyal were paid peanuts ...
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Met Billy Hughes decades later when he was Steward of a golf course in Darlo (Blackwell Grange?) and he hardly had a good word to say about SAFC. We cajoled him into showing us his FA Cup winners medal, but he wasn’t enthusiastic about doing so.
Remember being surprised and disappointed about his feelings towards the club.
 
At the start of the season Stokoe had said the overriding ambition, at the expense of everything else, was promotion.
Tueart and others would have been unsettled when all the front five of the Wembley team were not selected for a vital game at Hull, ahead of a Cup Winners Cup in Portugal.
No signings were made in the close season.
I always suspected the government imposed pay restrictions were a convenient excuse for the club's lack of ambition. Back in the fifties, the maximum wage was no impediment.
 

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