I know I’m about twenty-four hours late but it’s like that. Jack Charlton died yesterday, and while you take note of some of the ex-footballers who die over the years, Big Jack is one you not only remember but feel loss over. Some of my earliest footballing memories are in the first few years of the 1990s, my first being in the 1990 World Cup. During those early years he was in charge of the Irish, a country I’ve an affinity with through my Granddad. I have strong memories of that time and in particular of a man adored. I don’t remember much if any of the football but at that age you are only aware of personalities. He was certainly one of them. Even then very little of his personality has stuck in my mind, bar him fishing strangely enough, so you’re stuck with this idea that evolves into whatever it is I feel now.
He was born in Ashington. A northern working class town with a mining history that is about forty-five minutes from me and in which I deliver bread three times a week. I know this part of the world. There are lots of cliches about tough working men from the north but you can’t help feel this was a world he came from and epitomised. He said he couldn’t return to Ashington without succeeding in football, he would have been seen a failure. For all the ability, the drive must never be overlooked. You wonder if what appeared a fun, happy character below the hard enforcer he was, came from realising he had succeeded. There seems an appreciation.
Of course I’m very familiar with England’s 1966 World Cup triumph but being Scottish it’s hardly something I’ve looked on in celebration. Jack and his brother Bobby are probably the only two players I’ve much interest in, Bobby through his association with Manchester United, but Jack most likely through his association with my earliest footballing memories. He played for Leeds United who are one of Manchester United’s fiercest rivals. I quite like that he did, that he spent his whole career there during arguably their best ever period and that he was a part of that. This wasn’t just a character or a good manager, he was a bloody good player in his day.
This was Big Jack Charlton who died yesterday at the age of eighty-five. A genuine legend.
Observations and Misunderstandings 