Obituary: Alexander Rooney Forbes, footballer and coach

Born: 21 January, 1925, in Dundee. Died: 28 July, 2014, in Johannesburg, aged 89
Alex Forbes trying on the FA Cup lid in 1950. Picture: PAAlex Forbes trying on the FA Cup lid in 1950. Picture: PA
Alex Forbes trying on the FA Cup lid in 1950. Picture: PA

ALEX Forbes, who has died after a lengthy battle against prostate cancer, was one of the outstanding Scottish international footballers of the immediate post-Second World War era. He was 89.

Dundee-born Forbes, whose shock of bright red hair earned him the nickname “Red” by the Gooners of the Highbury North Bank, was perhaps the identikit Scottish midfielder. He was fiery, aggressive, hard-tackling, not too big and also able to produce the defence-splitting pass and deft touches.

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He was born into poverty, and his parents died just as he was able to leave school in the middle of the war. He immediately took responsibility for his two younger brothers. He worked at the Dundee docks and, as he was accomplished with a stick and puck on the sheet at Dundee Ice Rink, he became a “rink rat” earning additional cash doing odd-jobs around the rink.

However, in 1944, his undoubted skill on the football field earned him a pathway out of poverty, when Sheffield United signed the teenager who had been getting rave reviews with his performances for Dundee North End in the junior ranks.

At Bramall Lane, he was quickly in the “Blades” first team by the time normal football service resumed in 1946, going on to play some 75 official games for United.

His good form with the Yorkshire club saw him win the first of an eventual 14 full Scotland caps in the first post-Second World War England v Scotland match, at Wembley, in April 1947.

The match ended as a 1-1 draw and Forbes kept his place, taking his caps tally to five by the end of that calendar year. He also scored his only Scotland goal, the sixth in a 6-0 hammering of Luxembourg, in May 1947. This was Scotland’s first post-war international victory.

Injury then intervened, he lost his place in the United team, fell out with the club and put in a transfer request. There was a frantic bidding war, but, encouraged by his Scotland team mate Archie MacAulay, he signed for Arsenal in March 1948, the Gunners paying £15,000 for the man whose “thank you” to MacAulay was to dislodge him from the first team.

He won a League Championship medal at the end of his first part-season at Highbury, but it took him until the ill-fated Scotland v England match, at Hampden, in April 1950, to regain his Scotland place. This was the match Scotland had to win, if the SFA was to take a side to the 1950 World Cup finals in Brazil, but Roy Bentley’s goal saw England grab the South American trip.

Forbes had better fortune at Wembley that month when he played a big part in Arsenal’s 2-0 win over Liverpool in the 1950 FA Cup final. He returned to the national side for the 1950 end-of-season continental tour and held his place for the two autumn internationals against Northern Ireland and Wales, and for the December match against Austria at Hampden.

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The Austrians won that one 1-0, becoming the first continental side to beat Scotland at home and Forbes, along with Willie McNaught (a stand-in for the injured Sammy Cox), Bobby Collins, Eddie Turnbull and John McPhail, was dropped.

His exile lasted six internationals, before he was re-called in November 1951, going on to take his caps tally to 14 by the time he was last selected, for the 3-1 Stockholm loss to Sweden, in May 1952.

That was a bad month for Forbes. It had began with a second FA Cup final appearance, but this Wembley visit ended in defeat as Arsenal went down to a 1-0 defeat to Newcastle United.

Things looked up the following season, as he earned a second League Championship medal as Arsenal pipped the Preston North End of Sir Tom Finney and Tommy Docherty on goal average for the title.

Forbes’ successful eight-year spell at Highbury ended in August 1956. He had struggled against recurring knee problems in his final season and, with future Wales captain Dave Bowen signed to replace him, Forbes was allowed to leave and run down his playing career with Leyton Orient, Fulham and non-league Gravesend and Northfleet.

He then turned to coaching, returning to Highbury as Youth Team coach, an appointment which would lead to the second phase of his football life, when, in 1964, he led a party of Arsenal youngsters on a summer tour of South Africa.

While in Johannesburg, he was offered a coaching job at the famous and then all-white Wanderers club. He accepted, returned to London, settled his affairs and took his family off to Johannesburg, where he would spend the final 50 years of his life.

He coached at Wanderers, but was also one of the first missionaries to take the football gospel into the townships, in those dark days of apartheid. He would coach anywhere and worked with the black South African majority, coaching township and gold mine teams.

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He also enjoyed a 35-year association with the exclusive orthodox Jewish Yeshiva College, where he coached football. This led to a short spell as coach to Maccabi Haifa, the Israeli club, while he also coached in Kuwait and had a spell in charge of the famous South African side Orlando Pirates.

Forbes only quit coaching at Yeshiva at the age of 83. By then he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, but managed the disease very well until the final weeks of his long life.

He was always self-effacing, seldom speaking about his distinguished playing career. His son Bobby said: “Dad rarely spoke about his Arsenal days. Indeed, I learned more about his playing career from speaking to Denis and Leslie Compton (the famous footballing and cricketing brothers) when I met them over here on cricket business.”

But, even though he was in South Africa, Arsenal never forgot Alex Forbes. He was member number one of the Arsenal 100, a club for 100 of the most famous Gunners and, until his death, he was the oldest-surviving former Arsenal player. He was also honorary president of the Arsenal South African Supporters Club.

Bobby Forbes, who survives him along with sister Jen and two grandchildren as well as Alex’s wife Peggy, a genuine East-Ender, whom he met while on an Arsenal players night out at Walthamstow dog track more than 60 years ago, recalls taking his dad to the opening of a Johannesburg pub he had redesigned.

The pub owner could not believe that he had “Red” Forbes in his bar – he had lived next door to him back in Dundee and had charged the other kids in the street to come in and see Alex’s Scotland strip hanging on the washing line.

The life of Alex Forbes, the third-oldest surviving Scotland football internationalist – will be celebrated with a wake at the Wanderers club, where he loved to play snooker, while Yeshiva College will hold a special service of remembrance in honour of the Scots gentile who served the school so well for so long.

Some 4,000 former pupils have sent messages of condolence to the special Facebook page the school put up in his honour – a measure of the affection he earned.

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