Early Life
Born in Scarborough, Yorkshire, the eighth of nine children, he worked briefly in a laundry after leaving school, but at the age of 16 he was invited to a trial at Tottenham Hotspur (Spurs), where he arrived on 16 March 1936. After a month's trial, he was taken on as a ground-staff boy at £2 a week. He signed as a full professional at the age of 18 and played a few matches for the first team before he joined the Durham Light Infantry on the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. As a professional footballer he was sent on a Physical Education course and was made a sergeant-instructor, training new intakes of troops throughout the war. Although the war probably cost him half his playing career, he did not regret it as his experiences taught him the man-management skills which were to have such a great effect later in his career.
Read more about this topic: Bill Nicholson (footballer)
Famous quotes related to early life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)