Renaldo (65 page)

operation.

Now Arthur Russell sat facing the corporation’s chairman, his dour

father, Reginald. The elder Russell was devoid of any interest in the sport itself,

but news of Arthur’s sea rats’ thumping of the shipbuilders had the whole

community abuzz. His son’s passionate plea for the continuation of the team

and what it would mean to the men that toiled on Canary Wharf was not lost

on Reginald Russell. The team spirit had already given the locals a focal point,

a sense of belonging, a community source of pride.

The work on the docks was thankless, backbreaking toil that could

easily wither a man’s body and soul. “Football could give the workers strength

through pride in their team,” Arthur had told his father. Much to the younger

Russell’s surprise, the elder Russell agreed with him.

The corporation held a long-term lease on several acres of reclaimed

marshland southeast of the Wharf, about ten minutes’ walk from where father

and son sat formulating the future. Despite his enthusiasm, Reginald Russell

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told his son that all he could do was bring the matter up at the next director’s

meeting for discussion. He did, nevertheless, assure his son that he personally

would speak favorably for the proposed ‘Canary Wharf Football Club.’ That

was more than Arthur had hoped, for he knew that his father was held in great

esteem by the other directors. Arthur was certain that those men would be

reluctant to deny their chairman such a request.

Two weeks later, Arthur Russell was called into his father’s office.

“Pack your bags, my boy. We are taking a trip north to Glasgow. There is

an engineer up there by the name of Archibald Leitch. He specializes in stadia

design and construction. You have your team, Arthur, and soon, you will have

one of the finest stadiums in London to play in as well.”

With a howl of delight, the younger Russell embraced his father. Their

journey to Glasgow was a great success, with the engineer proving both

approachable and professional. A design was settled on consisting of one main

covered grandstand in two tiers housing roughly nine thousand seats. This

section of the grounds would be reserved for people of the carriage trade,

gentlemen of wealth and influence and their families.

The main grandstand would have a multi-span roof with the individual

letters of the word ‘Canaries’ painted on the front of each gable. Reginald

Russell had chosen the name for the team personally, and also insisted that the

colors be black and yellow, in deference to their namesake. The balance of the

stadium would consist of standing terraces on three sides, all uncovered and

accommodating some fifteen thousand patrons. These were the working man’s

vantage points, for it was from the terraces that true football fans watched their

heroes play, or so was the popular belief of the time.

Total cost for the work was estimated at fourteen thousand pounds, a

hefty sum in that era. But the Canary Wharf directors were caught up in the

enthusiasm of their new project and the attention that it was drawing to their

company in the London press. Leitch, seeing this enthusiasm firsthand on a trip

to London, suggested to Reginald Russell that the ground be called ‘The Bird

Cage,’ and sketched two distinctive cupolas resembling traditional bird cages

on the end spans of the main grandstand roof. The chairman loved the idea,

and ‘The Bird Cage’ became reality less than a year later.

One other item that arrived back in London with the Russells was a design

for the Canary’s team crest. Father and son had spent the entire trip home

designing and refining the perfect logo. The end result of their collaboration

centered around a bold, black, letter ‘C.’ Inside the initial proudly rested a black

ship’s anchor, representative of the team’s seafaring roots. To add a dash of color,

Arthur suggested that the anchor be set on a field of blue, as close to the color

of the sparkling Atlantic Ocean off the Canary Islands as possible. When the

graphic artists in London transferred the rough sketches and ideas produced by

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the Russells to finished form, the result was uniformly praised by the team’s

board of directors and adopted as the official team crest and corporate logo

forthwith. The same crest would be worn on the Canaries’ jerseys right into the

last quarter of the new century.

That new century ushered in the Canaries’ rise to the football league

division two, and three years after that, promotion to the first division. The

team had done all that was expected of it and more, giving the residents and

workers of the Isle of Dogs a focal point that would shine some light on their

dreary, workaday lives. The Canaries were the talk of the town, at least that

part of the town, and sellout crowds became a Saturday tradition at The Bird

Cage.

Young Arthur had proven to be a shrewd and resourceful manager. Each

year, the team climbed steadily up the league ladder, until finally in 1913, the

Canary Wharf Football Club won their first Football Association Cup. It was

a triumph that would bring the last rays of sunshine to Arthur Russell’s days

in England.

With the outbreak of the First World War, the Canary Wharf manager

rejoined his old Marine Battalion, the Fourth, and served his country for the

next four years. Then, on April 23, 1918, during an attack on the German

submarine base at Zeebrugge, Belgium, Major Arthur Grainger Russell was

killed in action during the bloody, but successful operation.

The tragic news of Arthur’s death was too much for seventy-nine-year-

old Reginald, who suffered a stroke within hours of the telegram’s delivery

and passed away within a fortnight of his son. It had been the formation and

ongoing operation of their beloved Canaries that had bonded father and son

together, turning an icy, distant relationship into one of true love and warmth.

The rest of the Russell family knew this for a fact, and in their honor, a bronze

statue depicting the founding father and son team was erected outside the main

grandstand entrance to the Bird Cage shortly after the end the war.

The family mantle was passed to Arthur’s eldest son, twenty-eightyear-

old Elliott Stuart Russell. The hostilities had also touched Elliott, who had

been mustered out of the Royal Marines two years earlier after suffering the

loss of his left arm, when his ship was sunk by one of the Kaiser’s U boats.

The missing limb did not hinder Elliott Russell from fathering a son,

born Reginald Arthur Nelson Russell, in the fall of 1919. Elliott had sired

three daughters before the great conflict had commenced, and he was elated to

finally have an heir to his title and business interests.

It was his business interests that totally preoccupied Elliott Russell, and

the fortunes of his football team were left to hired managers. Working with

a reduced budget and with minimal interest from the executive suite, the

fortunes of the postwar Canaries soon hit the skids. They were relegated to

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the league second division in 1922, where they languished for the next nine

seasons. Attendance suffered as a result, and the bottom-line attitude of their

chairman, Elliott Russell, nearly caused the team to fold in the early 1930s.

It was primarily the avid interest of Elliott’s only son that convinced him to

keep the team afloat, even though the world was suffering through the Great

Depression.

Trade and commerce were severely affected by the global economic woes,

and the profits of the Canary Wharf Trading Company were no exception.

Thousands of workers were laid off from their jobs on the docks and from the

seafaring vessels. But in spite of all this gloom, the amazing fact was that those

same discarded workers turned to the football club to relieve their personal

woes. Attendance at The Bird Cage actually increased in the first three years of

the depression. By 1935, the Canaries were in a position to challenge for their

old spot back in the first division.

Sixteen-year-old Reginald Russell urged his father to open the purse

strings and acquire the necessary talent to gain promotion. While in boarding

at Eton, young Reggie had formed a Canaries Fan Club amongst his peers.

These youthful fanatics sent a petition to Elliott Russell, consisting of over

two hundred signatures, pledging their undying support to the Canary Wharf

Football Club.

While this did not translate into pounds and shillings, it moved the elder

Russell to open the corporate coffers sufficiently to purchase a few class players

that were available on the transfer market. Many of the other league division

clubs were in dire financial straits, and they were more than happy to part with

a player or two, just to keep the lights burning. The money was wisely spent,

and the following season the Canaries, again, joined the ranks of England’s

football elite.

Gaining promotion was the easy part of the scheme. Competing with

the likes of Manchester United, Leeds, Tottenham Hotspur and the rest of the

league giants was another matter. The corporate balance sheet could not sustain

the higher salaries that were demanded from first division players, and the old,

but lovable Bird Cage was in great need of major refurbishment to bring it up

to modern-day standards. The Canaries finished their first two seasons in the

premier league in the lower regions of the table, avoiding relegation, but the

writing was on the wall.

Without a major influx of capital, the team could not compete with their

new adversaries for a prolonged period. While the Canary Wharf Trading

Company had diversified into several different areas of trade and commerce

before the Great Depression hit, the overall balance sheet was still extremely

anemic by the start of 1938. The board of directors could not see the merit in

pouring the corporation’s capital into a venture that was losing money. The

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truth was that the football club had little hope of turning a profit without a

larger, modern stadium that would warrant higher ticket prices. The funds for

such a project were just not available in those belt-tightening times, and much

to the dismay of his son, Elliott Russell refused to open his wallet a second

time.

As a result, the Canaries sank to the bottom of the standings and were

relegated to the second division at the end of the 1938 season.

The disappointed Canary Wharf supporters stayed away from the old Bird

Cage by the thousands, taking their loyalties a few stops up the tube line to

the home of the ‘Hammers.’ West Ham was enjoying a successful run at the

top of the first division at the time, and the team still had strong links to the

shipbuilding and seafaring community. The fortunes of his football team were

insignificant to Elliott Russell, for he was astute enough to realize that there

were far greater concerns facing the United Kingdom at that moment in time.

The news from the continent was chilling. In Germany, a country still

despised by most Englishmen, a former corporal in the Kaiser’s army was

stirring the nationalistic passions of the Hun again. Adolph Hitler was a name

that seemed to be in the news on a daily basis, and Elliott Russell knew full

well where the rantings of this madman would lead. In early 1939, he obtained

an audience with the War Ministry and offered all the resources of the Canary

Wharf Trading Company to the service of his Majesty the King. Should war

come again to the Empire, prime dock lands and their associated storage

facilities would be of vital importance.

The gesture proved most timely, for when Germany invaded Poland in

September of that same year, Great Britain found itself, once again, locked in

deadly conflict with its old foe. The Canary Wharf Trading Company virtually

ceased to exist during the six years that followed, and even the football team

had to relocate its home fixtures due to the War Office’s expropriation of the

Bird Cage as a storage and training facility.

The Nazi air blitz on London that commenced in August 1940 pinpointed

the shipping and marine facilities as primary targets, and both Canary Wharf

and the Bird Cage suffered extensive damage as a result. It appeared to anyone

who ever had been thrilled by the exploits of the yellow and black, that the

once proud Canary Wharf Football Club would never rise from the ashes of

Hitler’s destruction.

But those people did not know Reginald Arthur Nelson Russell. The

Canaries were never far from his thoughts, even though they had fallen on hard

times and lost favor with many of their supporters. Young Reggie longed for

the return to the glory years that were chronicled in the recently published