Once or twice in a lifetime, in any given field of popular endeavour, there arises an individual who becomes beloved, first in his own land and then far beyond; an idol without the proverbial feet of clay whose achievements are prodigious, yet whose stature is somehow more immense than the sum of them. Such a man was Bobby Charlton, who has died at the age of 86 after a long illness.
On a football pitch he was an inimitable combination of silk and dynamite, one moment beguiling the senses with a touch of exquisite artistry, the next conjuring raw exhilaration with a sudden, savage strike of power. He brought to his work a sense of wonder, an inescapable impression of grace, treating his audiences to extended sequences of unalloyed delight. By any standard, he was a great player.
Charlton in the red and white of his beloved United, in October 1960— (PA)
Fittingly, he scaled the game’s loftiest peaks, bestriding the world stage with England and contributing seminally to the unique charisma of the institution that is Manchester United. Yet all that represented only the most obvious aspect of the universal Charlton appeal.
That glorious career was followed by a quarter of a century during which he became British sport’s premier international ambassador. Through it all he remained modest, dignified and wholesome, a perennial winner mercifully untainted by scandal or dishonesty.
Though a lifetime of media exposure was to engender belated self-assurance, there remained about Charlton a certain native shyness which some mistook for aloofness. In fact, he was genuinely unaffected by his fame yet sometimes became overwhelmed by adulation, at a loss about dealing with it, and therefore retreating into a defensively private shell.
In action as a teenager for Manchester United, March 1957— (PA)
Bobby Charlton, the son of a Northumberland miner, was born to be a footballer, even though his father, Bob Sr, was barely interested in the game. His mother, Cissie, hailed from the Milburn clan – her four brothers all played professionally and her cousin, Jackie Milburn, was the hero of Tyneside for a dozen years after the Second World War – and she, Iike most of the Charltons’ home village of Ashington, was football crazy.
As a small, thin nine-year-old Charlton could dominate a game in which most of the other boys were five years his senior. Indeed, the sublime body-swerve that was to become a trademark was already in joyful evidence as he weaved past opponents in epic contests in the streets between Ashington’s seemingly endless grey terraces of miners’ cottages.
Aided by his mother, Betty, Charlton lights the candles on his 21st birthday cake at his home at Ashington— (PA)
Inevitably, as the prodigy began to star in school football, word reached the ears of the professionals. Soon the Charlton household was besieged by scouts from League clubs, no fewer than 18 of them, but the object of their quest had little difficulty in making up his mind where he wanted to go. Not to local giants Newcastle, whom he felt had taken his allegiance for granted, but to Manchester United, whose representative, an avuncular and sincere fellow name of Joel Armstrong, had told Cissie on first meeting: “I don’t want to butter you up, Missis, but your boy will play for England before he’s 21.’’
Accordingly, the 15-year-old inside-forward signed on as an amateur at Old Trafford in July 1953, initially taking a job in an engineering works before becoming a full-time player on his 17th birthday
As one of Matt Busby’s Babes – a glib label for his precocious youngsters that the United boss actually loathed – Charlton found himself in the most stimulating football environment imaginable. Over the next few years, he matured steadily alongside the likes of Duncan Edwards, Liam Whelan and Eddie Colman, helping to win the FA Youth Cup for three successive years from 1954.
Lying in a Munich hospital, 11 days after the plane crash— (Getty)
Come the autumn of 1956, junior football could contain the blonde northeasterner no longer. He scored twice on his First Division debut, going on to play enough games that term to earn a League Championship medal, as well as appearing in the FA Cup final defeat by Aston Villa. Indeed, but for a controversial injury to their goalkeeper, Ray Wood, it is probable that Busby’s team would have become the first this century to lift the coveted League and FA Cup double. That was how agonisingly close Charlton had come to attaining footballing immortality while still only 19. Eventually, of course, his name would stand among the game’s elite, but not before untold heartache had been endured.
Season 1957-58 saw “Bobby Dazzler,’’ as the sportswriters dubbed him, make further encouraging strides, his dashing skills topped off by spectacular power of shot. Then came Munich, and neither his world nor Manchester United’s were ever quite the same again.
With manager Matt Busby in May 1958— (Getty)
Disaster struck on a slushy runway on the way home from a European Cup quarter-final victory in Belgrade in February 1958. Having stopped to refuel, United’s plane crashed on the third attempt at take-off, the accident eventually claiming 23 lives including those of eight players. Charlton was lucky, being catapulted some 60 yards to comparative safety, still strapped in his seat alongside teammate Dennis Viollet. His physical injuries were superficial, but the mental scars bit deep and never again did he play with the same carefree exuberance which had characterised his game before the accident
However, soon he returned to action and played an integral part in a patchwork United side’s astonishing progress to the FA Cup final, riding all the way to Wembley on an unprecedented wave of public emotion which bordered frequently on hysteria. They lost to Bolton Wanderers but that barely lessened the lasting impact of a heroic campaign which was to pass into soccer folklore.
Charlton is tackled by Tommy Banks during the 1958 FA Cup final, which Bolton won 2-0— (Getty)
For Charlton, there had been a fundamental change of status. No longer was he merely one of a collection of outstanding players, now he was by far the brightest star in the Old Trafford firmament, constantly under the media microscope, ever in demand, not the easiest of burdens for a naturally retiring 20-year-old to shoulder.
It was to be some time, however, before Chariton’s limitless potential was to be translated into solid achievement. In an attempt to speed up that process, Busby converted him into a left-winger in the early 1960s, and while he was an enthralling flankman, especially when he cut inside to unleash the rocket shots with which he became synonymous, there was a nagging feeling of waste, that he spent too long on the fringe of the action instead of being at its hub.
With brother Jack at an England training session at Stamford Bridge, in April 1965— (Getty)
For United, back to earth after that surprisingly rarified 1958-59 season, this was a period of rebuilding after the air crash, a trophyless interlude which ended in 1963. With relegation having been narrowly avoided and with inspirational new recruits such as Denis Law and Pat Crerand bedded in, the Red Devils beat Leicester City to win the FA Cup. Charlton was a leading force in the regeneration process, which gathered impetus in 1963-64 when United were First Division runners-up again.
But the real turning point, for club and player, came in 1964-65. Charlton was switched to deep-lying centre-forward, where his acute vision and majestic passing ability could be utilised fully without denying opportunities to dribble and shoot, and United, now enhanced by the arrival of a young man named George Best, won the title. With the glorious trinity of Charlton, Law and Best at their incandescent peak, they did it again in 1967 and then, in ’68, finally attained Matt Busby’s holy grail by becoming the first English club to win the European Cup. Charlton, by then club captain, scored twice in a 4-1 victory over Benfica in the Wembley final and then wept uncontrollably at the significance of a glorious success which had cost lives along the way.
Charlton (right) got his FA Cup winner’s medal when Leicester City were beaten 3-1 at Wembley in 1963— (PA)
Meanwhile, the balding maestro had hardly been underachieving for his country. In 1960-61 he had excelled in an exhilarating side which won seven games out of eight and entertained royally, then he was England’s outstanding performer in the 1962 World Cup finals in Chile. There followed a season or so when he made little impact at international level but then, after his positional change, he emerged as one of the most majestic playmakers the game has seen.
This full flowering of Bobby Charlton could not have been better timed, coinciding as it did with the 1966 World Cup finals, in which he played alongside older brother Jack. Bobby’s part in England’s home triumph is difficult to exaggerate, the highlights being his gazelle-like run and fulminating strike against Mexico which revived the nation’s hopes after a stultifying start to the tournament, and his crisply executed brace in the semi-final against Portugal.
Enjoying a lap of honour as world champions in July 1966— (Getty)
By 1970, Chariton’s light was beginning to fade a little, though he remained central to England’s hopes of retaining their trophy in Mexico. Sadly, after helping to establish a 2-1 quarter-final lead against West Germany, he was substituted in order to save him for the semi. However, the Germans had not read that particular script, hitting back to win 3-2, and the 32-year-old Charlton closed his England career after 106 appearances and 49 goals, both records at the time. Indeed, while Bobby Moore and Peter Shilton were to collect more caps, his goal tally was not outstripped until 2015, by Wayne Rooney, and more recently by Harry Kane. Charlton, to the end, remained typically modest about it, maintaining that the likes of Tom Finney and Nat Lofthouse played against fewer “weak’’ opponents and pointing out that Jimmy Greaves managed his 44 goals in a mere 57 games.
Back on the club scene, a more troubling scenario was developing. Sir Matt Busby was coming to the end of his illustrious tenure and his European Cup heroes were growing old together, while Best was in the early throes of his own sad downward spiral. Accordingly, United entered a period of tetchily turbulent transition, the team sliding into disturbing ordinariness under successive new bosses Wilf McGuinness, Frank O’Farrell and Tommy Docherty. Charlton, frustrated beyond belief by what he saw as Best’s mindless waste of his talent, and aware of his own inevitably declining powers, helped his beloved Red Devils avoid relegation in 1972-73, then retired from top-flight football at the age of 35. He had garnered every top honour the game had to offer and held the club record for senior appearances (754) and goals (247).
With George Best and Tony Dunne as United play Chelsea in August 1971— (Getty)
Now most observers expected Charlton either to bow out of football altogether or to accept some benign figurehead role, as befitted his shining image. It was felt he was too plain “nice’’ to enter the rat race of management, yet that is what he did, accepting the reins of Second Division Preston North End, a once-mighty power who had fallen on lean times.
It was a tall order and it didn’t work. Though his depth of knowledge was undeniable, he lacked the ruthlessness and drive to lead, and his first season at Deepdale ended in demotion. For the second, he came out of playing retirement, adding his nous and experience to an unremarkable side which finished around mid-table in the Third Division. He never seemed truly at ease in the role, not cut out for the inevitable politicking it entailed, and in August 1975 he resigned after his board sold a player to Newcastle United without telling him.
Starting what was to be a short-lived managerial career with Preston, July 1973— (PA)
Wisely, Charlton acknowledged he had wandered into the wrong field and thereafter concentrated mainly on a travel business near his home in Cheshire, where he lived with his wife, Norma (whom he had married in 1961), and daughters Suzanne and Andrea. In 1982 he began running his own football schools, which became enormously successful, spreading from the Manchester area to many parts of the world, and he became involved with sports promotions.
Perhaps Charlton’s greatest and most influential role was as an ambassador for his country. Having long conquered the natural apprehension about flying that was a legacy of Munich, he globetrotted constantly in the last two decades of the century, whether coaching, pushing Manchester’s case for hosting the Olympics, acting as a consultant (notably in Japan) or merely attending major events.
Collecting his CBE at Buckingham Palace in 1974, with his wife Norma and daughters Suzanne and Andrea— (AP)
Preposterous though they may seem, stories of his fame in the world’s farthest-flung outposts can be taken as true, in spirit if not in the minutest detail. There really were Eskimos, Bolivian peasants, Maori tribesmen, etc, with barely a dozen words of English at their command who would greet English visitors by grinning broadly and proclaiming something along the lines of “Bobbee Charlton, him mighty fine!’’ Cynics may scoff but such astonishing renown and affection never changed Bobby Charlton, who continued to live for his football and his family, scarcely able to believe the position in which he found himself. In 1994 he was awarded a knighthood, though to his legions of admirers, from Lapland to La Paz, the honour was no more than an official rubber stamp. To them, after all, he had always been Sir Bobby.
Robert Charlton, footballer, born 11 October 1937, died 21 October 2023
