Royle and Donachie are contrary personalities, but they share a cultural background from which much of British football is still forged. Donachie was brought up in the Gorbals district of Glasgow, one of five children living in a house without a bath where several families shared the same outside toilet. Royle lived in inner-city Liverpool, forced to sleep on a camp-bed in his parent’s bedroom because of a shortage of space. Football was their ticket to somewhere better.
Time has not lent enchantment to Donachie’s view of his home city of the ’50s and early ’60s. ‘The shipyards were closing down and it was a hard place to grow up in. There were gangs on the streets and it was a very aggressive environment. If you showed any interest in your school work you were seen as a swot,’ he says. His mother died when he was 12 and he did not get on particularly well with his lorry-driver father. ‘He was a hard Glasgow man who would never show his feelings or emotions. He didn’t really give me much encouragement, except to say I was crap! He gave me one good piece of advice though; he told me to try and find a club in England.
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