Further to our article mentioning Arthur Shaw (George Curtis: the Arsenal player who managed Norway) I (Tony Attwood) received this note, which is published here with permission of the author.By David J Williams.
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By chance on Saturday last at the Emirates I spent a couple of hours chatting with the daughter of Arthur Shaw, and I discussed the late George Curtis with her.
My connection with dear old George was via membership of the London Football Coaches Association, of whom George was our Life President until he passed.
So there were many of us members who revered dear George, in his very latter years.
Many of those including Bob Wilson could speak of his attendance at our annual dinners held at Highbury and his regular visits to our many coaching sessions.
Personally I got along very well with George, and I would sometimes drive out to his Norwegian log cabin and drink tea whilst he regaled me with wondrous stories about The Arsenal of the 30’s, and of head tennis tournaments which they were set to take to the West End theatres for no doubt a sell out audience but WW2 curtailed that.
George and I would often kick a ball about in the JVC centre at Highbury after the demo sessions. I recall us both getting told to pack up – there he was in his 80’s still addicted to the ball – me in my 40’s hanging on every word about Alex James and Co. He coached Stefan Iviesons Father when at Norway.
Also the trip to Brazil in 1948 ( I have a photo ) and the flight over etc.
He was a true gent.
Sadly at a Highgate training session the dementia reared its head, poor George couldn’t recall how to operate the car, how to navigate home – I guided him back following me up the M11. I was not familiar then with dementia, or I would have just put him in my car. I visited the next day, but he didn’t know who I was.
The deal with the Norwegian cabin was that it had to be vacated a fortnight or so on an annual basis, but that was overlooked.
So until then he was fairly well looked out for by our association.
I do hope that above might fill in a few gaps, please take what you like from it. I probably have a dinner menu dated with his name on it, I’ll find it.
Editor’s footnote: You can contact David Williams at davidjwilliams1@me.com
