A dinosaur in awe of the young (From Times Series)

A dinosaur in awe of the young

8:58am Monday 14th July 2008

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Not a day goes by when I am not reminded of the words of the title of the famous Lionel Bart musical - Fings aint what they used to be.

Although a self-confessed dinosaur in a changing world of technology, political correctness and the stark realisation that top footballers earn obscene pop star salaries of £100,000-plus a week as "slaves" and Barnet councillors have just received a generous pay rise on their allowances, I don't harp on about the good old days.

It's the return of football this week, a pre-season friendly at St Albans City for Barnet FC and then a sell-out home game against Arsenal at Underhill and all is right in my world. I'm looking AHEAD, with excitement (and apprehension) to the next nine months.

Gone are the days when managers whistled down a pit and good players came up. Gone are the days when Matthews, Finney and all their legendary counterparts travelled to work by bus and earned £10 a week in the winter and £8 in the summer.

One cute fellow asked his manager why .... "I'm not a worse player in the summer", was his logic.

Gone are the days when Jimmy Greaves, Dave Mackay and the other Tottenham Hotspur greats would join me and my fellow football writers in a pub near the ground after matches ... and none of the conversations got into the papers.

I remember going to Fulham Broadway in 1961 to interview my friend,the late great Johnny Haynes, the Fulham and England player, about becoming the first £100-a-week footballer.

My "technology" was a biro and a cigarette packet - I'd forgotten to take a notebook or any paper - and saying to Johnny: "I bet you're going to laugh all the way to the bank."

He smiled, which I took to be approval. I scribbled the quote on the cigarette packet and later that afternoon it went round the world. Who needed 21st Century technology?

I am reminded of the old gag of the entrepeneur who excitedly rushed into his office and told his partner he had bought a few thousand 2005 diaries.

When his partner queried the purchase, the fellow replied: "If 2005 ever comes back we'll make a killing".

I know, of couse, that 2005 (or all those other years) ain't coming back. Prime Minister of the time Harold Macmillan once told us that we'd "never had it so good". I look at my CV and apply that famous quote to my life.

Technology? The Signy family regales in the story of the time Mrs S bought a new bread bin and the twins, then about five years old, found me staring at it in wonderment in the kitchen the next morning.

"Oh Daddy", said one of the girls... and clicked it open for me.

A one-time managing director of the Times series called me in one day and asked if I'd like a computer. His reasoning was that if I could master an Apple anyone could.

I got to the stage where I could produce editorial copy and letters on my computer... and I was then despatched around the country by Westminster Press billed on the lines of "If-this-idiot-can-do-it so can you".

I developed a 40 minute patter and revelled in my role. One day I was talking to the top brass and senior executives of the organisation near Northampton.

After listening to me, they went back to their individual computers working on a set programme for their course. As I wandered among them, a former md at Hendon, then with a South Coast paper, asked me what he should do next.

"Just press this", I told him ... and wiped out the entire programme. I was never asked back.

I can remember my disdain at the advent of expenses for councillors in the 1970s and, after much pressure, going to the town hall and recording the amounts they were claiming.

In my early days and in my book councillors opted for the role to put something back into their communities.I was chairman of a dozen Mayoral appeals in Barnet and reckoned that cost me hundreds of pounds a year for raffle and function tickets. I was chairman of Barnet Crime Reduction Partnership for 10 years, chairman of Barnet Lay Visitors' Panel and, after launching the Barnet Appropriate Panel Panel, I made 1,000 visits to police stations and identity parade suites in Barnet and beyond in the next decade looking after the interests of vulnerable youngsters and adults.

I did not claim a penny for any of this community and charity work. I enjoyed it all... except, perhaps, the parking fine I collected outside Edmonton police station one Bank Holiday Monday.

I am equally excited this week about two community projects Barnet FC is involved in. We launched a Kickz project at Underhill Junior School in partnership with the police and the council and we are going into partnership with Ravenscroft School once the ball starts rolling.

Ten youngsters from Ravenscroft will be given DVDs of each Bees' match on a Monday and will each prepare an analysis of nine minutes of the 90 for manager Paul Fairclough to study to work on with his squad.

It's a unique project. More about it later. I must tell you, though, that I am in awe of the skills of the youngsters involved.

PS The latest bread bin rolls upwards to open!