The Heartbeat of United: Paul Smethurst

The Failsworth lad, who grew up idolising George Best before joining United in 1976, aged 16, is approaching 48 years as a club employee. And yet his first tale still manages to knock us sideways. 

 

Because it turns out his links to Manchester United go back much further than the mid-’70s. Amazingly, his great-grandad, William ‘Billy’ Hood, played 37 times for us in the Newton Heath Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway days! 

 

He even scored in one of the club’s most famous early victories: a 10-1 thrashing of Wolves in 1892 that is still the second-biggest scoreline in our history!

With that bombshell out of the way, we move swiftly on to his own career, which has maintained his family’s historic connection with the club. 

 

Sir Matt Busby, Tommy Docherty and Sir Alex Ferguson? Paul has befriended them all during his years within the catering department – as waiter, head wine waiter and, latterly, assistant operations manager. 

 

“I even did private dinners for Sir Matt,” he recalls. “I’d do the bar and serve the main dinners... Sir Matt would be there, [daughter] Sheena, his son Sandy. I knew Sir Alex all through his 26 years. He’s amazing, not just for his football – he knows everybody’s name.  It’s a real skill, because he must meet so many people. He’ll [walk in and] be: ‘Alright, Joe! Alright, Paul!’ It’s amazing to see. 

 

“Tommy Docherty and [coach] Tommy Cavanagh would come up every day and have fillet steak, chips and HP sauce. I had a good laugh with him [Docherty]. It was a shame what happened in the end...”

You’d be correct to assume that 21st-century hospitality life is somewhat different to the Docherty days. 

 

To give an example, after United’s famous Scouse-busting 1977 FA Cup final win over Liverpool, Paul was given a rather different task than flambéing steaks and filleting Dover sole. 

 

“There were only two [hospitality] rooms in those days. There’s 26 now,” he notes. “So when we won the FA Cup, we had to hold the trophy in our dry stores room downstairs. It was locked up in a cage, and every day I took it out, washed it, took it out into the trophy cupboard so people could see it at lunchtime. It was the original FA Cup, but we kept it with all the expensive wines and champagnes. 

 

“When you see it now, there’s always two men around it with white gloves... I used to shove it in the sink and wash it!”

Smethurst had only ended up in the job after his aunt, a worker at Crumpsall Biscuit Works, had asked a colleague that was dating the head waiter at United to put a word in. 

 

Within a week, he’d been told to report to Old Trafford for the opening fixture of 1976/77: a 2-2 draw with Birmingham City. 

 

Since then, it’s been a whirlwind of memories: he’s seen West Indies (and Lancashire) legend Clive Lloyd bat in a cricket match in front of the Stretford End, climbed on the stadium roof to retrieve a ball hoofed there by Brighton & Hove Albion’s Steve Gatting (brother of England cricketer Mike), and been personally introduced to former executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward by Sir Alex.

“I’ve had a good journey,” he admits. “I’ve been to every single cup final. I particularly remember Rotterdam – it was the coldest, wettest night of my life, but a great memory! The two Crystal Palace finals [in 1990] too. For the replay I was sitting next-door-but-three to Jim Leighton. I felt really sorry for him. He was motionless; he didn’t want to be there.”

 

Read the newspapers and you get a razor-sharp impression of United as a story that never stops moving at breakneck pace. The recent announcement of Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s investment in the club only further underlines United's constant evolution. But speaking to people like Paul – another Failsworth boy made good – you remember that United’s living links to the past run very deep indeed.

In this case, all the way back to the foundational days of Newton Heath Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway FC. Before the name ‘Manchester United’ was even conceived.