Classic Eddie Clamp

The announcement about the sad death of Bill Slater, jogged a memory from a story I had read recently involving the above mentioned Eddie Clamp.


Eddie was legendary at Wolves in the fifties and a regular in the England half back line. To say he was a hard man was an understatement. Not dirty, but hard. It was reported that Sir Stanley Matthews would not play for Stoke if Clamp was in the opposition team.


But back to the theme of this post. At the time Stan Cullis was the manager and Wolves ruled football. A young Luton lad who had done very well in schools football had just signed for Wolves. He had been offered an engineering apprenticeship to run along side his football. Barry Clarke joined the club around 1957/58 season and was in digs with Clamps mum who lived near the ground. One of his first jobs was to re-stud the players boots. The old nail in type. Most players were addressed, as Mr, but Bill Slater and Eddie insisted on being called by their first names.

One day the young Barry was after a pair of boots for himself so he asked Eddie if he had a pair he could let him have. Eddie asked him his size and gave him a pair. Barry noticed that the boots had red soles and asked why?


The classic Clamp reply: "They don't show the blood son".