Hi,
This link no longer seems to be working.
Does anyone know if there is another way to view this.
Many Thanks in advance.
Hi teelacker, Blizzard took the article down and it’s behind a paywall now, but I did manage to find it elsewhere and I thought I’d copy it before it was taken down again.
So, here it is, it’s not formatted very well and hope that doesn’t spoil the read for you.
The Crash
The tragedy that costs Tom Silk his life, and West Brom a visionary director.
22 September 1980. It was a Monday. Graham Silk had just taken a call from his mother Ruth, who paused her wedding anniversary celebrations in France. Like any good mother she was checking up on her sons back home in the UK.
Ruth and Tom Silk would be flying back to the UK on their private jet on Wednesday morning. They would be arriving in plenty of time to make the trip from the West Midlands to Merseyside for West Bromwich Albion’s match at Everton. Tom would be taking his usual position in the director’s box, alongside the Albion chairman Bert Millichip.
Tom Silk never did arrive at Goodison Park.
On the morning of Wednesday, September 24, Graham took a phone call that would change his life forever.
The Silks’ Piper PA-31-350 Chieftain had dropped out of the French sky, crashing into mountains near the Ardèche region. The Albion vice-chairman and his wife did not survive.
Graham and his younger brother Phil lost mum and dad.
West Bromwich Albion lost the man who planned to transform the club into a footballing powerhouse.
***
Tom Silk was born in March 1921, setting up Hampson Industries in West Bromwich after graduating from Kings College as an engineer. He knew the intricacies of each and every machine in the factory – “in case someone was off due to illness†– and was a kind but firm boss. He encouraged members of staff to be forthcoming about mistakes, on the basis that they learned from those errors and became more diligent and skilled in their roles. Although the company specialised in airplane jet starters, Tom was more than a mere Black Country engineer with modest ambitions. His eye for flair and innovation took him outside of his Midlands’ comfort zone and on to more ambitious projects. His ability to spot potential would serve him well, not only as an entrepreneur but later as a visionary within the West Bromwich Albion boardroom.
“Mum and dad would go abroad a lot,†said Graham, the elder of Tom and Ruth’s two sons. “The one time he came back from Thailand with a big contract. The country had a spate of fires and because it was so hot people would run in front of the water jets while the fire brigade tried to douse the flames. That was causing all sorts of issues as you can imagine, so dad sold them the idea of putting dye in the water so the police could identify those people the next day. They were still using that 20 years later. He just had this knack for spotting opportunities. He got involved in another company: Hill & Smith in Brierley Hill. It had gone into receivership because their speciality was making ornate gates that were long out of fashion – nobody wanted those kind of gates, not least post-war when people were skint. People were telling dad to go nowhere near the company but he saw something. Motorways were being built at the time and those roads needed some kind of fencing to keep drivers safe. This company had been concentrating on prestige stuff during a period where times were hard, but dad realised that good old-fashioned metal bashing to produce central reservation barriers was where the money was. And so that’s what they did. That’s now a billion-pound company, still going strong.â€
Sport was Silk’s other passion. A keen cricket man, he joined the West Bromwich Albion board in 1965, becoming the club’s youngest ever director at that time. By the mid-to-late 1970s, Albion were prospering on and off the pitch. In the days before integrated and sophisticated scouting networks, much of the talent-spotting fell to directors and associates. Albion were fortunate to have the then-record goalscorer Ronnie Allen operating as chief scout. It was he who offered to pay a £5000 transfer fee for a young footballer called Cyrille Regis, such was his confidence in the player’s ability. Two years earlier, Allen and Tom Silk had begun the process of bringing another youngster to the club – one who was eventually to lay the foundations for Albion’s place in footballing folklore.
Graham recalls the moment Albion were alerted to the elegance of a sophisticated Orient winger, who had the physique of an adolescent and the grace of an accomplished gymnast. His name was Laurie Cunningham.
“We’d just played Orient around Christmas time and this young fresh-looking black kid was terrorising our right-back Paddy Mulligan,†recalled Graham. “When we got home my dad asked me and my brother what we thought of the game and said ‘What did you think of the winger?’ Yeah, we praised him. Dad asked what the Albion fans thought of him. We told him a couple of fans hadn’t said nice things. Dad said ‘You didn’t join in did you? You must never do that.’ Dad went a few times to watch him play – at Notts County, Brisbane Road and other places. He told Ronnie Allen, who then told manager John Giles. I don’t think Giles would have taken it from a director – ‘stick to the boardroom, you know nothing about football’ – but dad got on with Ronnie. So we got Cunningham in 1977. There was no network of scouting as you get these days so dad was very integral to that signing. But what struck me was his curiosity about how the fans took to him. Racism was a massive issue at the time but dad was already thinking about the bigger picture. It’s like he already knew that Laurie Cunningham would become our first black footballer.â€
Alistair Robertson was to become one of very few footballers to straddle three decades with Albion – making his debut in 1969, before driving up the A41 to join Wolves some 17 years and 622 games later. Those seasons during the late 70s were the apex of Robertson’s career. He was not surprised to hear of Silk’s pursuit of Cunningham, nor his efforts to ensure Albion were at the vanguard of racial integration. Within 11 months of Cunningham signing from Orient, Albion had also acted on Ronnie Allen’s recommendation of Cyrille Regis, before adding a third black player, Brendon Batson, in February 1978. As black footballers continued to face prejudice and discrimination, Albion took the narrative, ripped it to shreds and re-wrote their own terms. The gloves were off. It was a pursuit for equality that Tom Silk drove from the very first moment he watched Cunningham’s cameo some two winters earlier.
“That’s Tom to a tee,†said Robertson. “He was brilliant for the club and typical of him to be so forward-thinking. We stuck together as a team. The more stick those black footballers got, the harder we tried. We wanted to absolutely rub it in people’s noses when they dished out the horrible, vile racist abuse. Our way was to beat teams and walk off smiling. And Tom was a part of that culture we had within our dressing room. I’d been in football for many years and I can tell you that boardrooms can be stuffy places, full of elderly stiff white men – but Tom wasn’t like that. Yes, he could say all the right things to other directors… but it felt like he had our back. And you cannot say that about many directors in football.
“When I came down to West Bromwich in 1968 I left behind a village of 300 people in Scotland. My digs were in Handsworth where, until then, I’d never seen a black person before. I used to love chatting to Caribbean people, who used to laugh at my accent. So to be part of that special team at West Brom a decade later was a huge source of pride to not only us as player, but fans too. Tom was part of the culture that embraced everyone.â€
John Giles left the club during the summer of 1977. Ronnie Allen, his replacement, was to walk out on the club later that season, pursuing opportunities in Saudi Arabia. He was replaced by Ron Atkinson. As a result, the 1977-78 campaign had the potential to be turbulent for the Albion. Yet it was anything but. Albion prospered, though it could have been so different, had it not been for Elton John.
“Graham Taylor of Lincoln was our first choice before Allen got the job,†recalled Graham Silk. “I recall dad driving home and telling me, ‘We’ve missed out on him.’ Graham Taylor had been calling my dad and told him about the conversations he’d had with Watford’s owner, a certain Elton John, who also wanted him. Elton was basically telling him, ‘Whatever Mr Silk offers you, we’ll double it.’ So we missed out on Taylor. And then a few months later I was doing my A-Levels in Oxford. Dad called me to say he’d be visiting me, but first he was off to watch Oxford United play Cambridge because there was a guy managing the visitors that he wanted to chat to. It was Ron Atkinson. Those talks went a little better…â€
Silk’s impressions of Atkinson were of a kindred spirit – a man he could clearly become friends with and do business with. Both men had a passion for football, but were also raconteurs and keen barstool philosophers – usually over a glass or two of something sparkling. The two men struck up a friendship that remained until Tom’s death.
