FROM JACK TO A KING: How accidental tourist won over nation as new patron saint of Ireland
‘IF YOU CAN’T GO THROUGH THE OTHER TEAM, YOU GO OVER THEM’
JACK CHARLTON was a World Cupwinner with England who became the most unlikely patron saint of Ireland — by accident.
Such was his appeal, the Aer Lingus plane which flew the Republic of Ireland squad home from the 1990 World Cup in Italy was renamed ‘Saint Jack’.
There could be no higher honour for the strapping miner’s son from Ashington in Northumberland, who guided the Irish football team to unprecedented heights, in achievement and popularity.
Over the course of almost 10 years, Charlton steered the team he built in his no-nonsense image to three major finals, the 1988 European Championships, the 1990 World Cup and the 1994 World Cup.
In addition, Ireland went unbeaten in the 1992 European Championship qualifiers and lost in a play-off for the 1996 Euro finals in England, which Charlton was desperate to be part of.
He left a few days after that Anfield play-off loss to Holland, ushered out on a cold morning in the AUL sportsgrounds in Clonshaugh by his FAI bosses, who felt his astonishing reign had run its course.
As John Giles observed of his former Leeds United club colleague: ‘What he did for the country was great. I’d love to have taken the international team to the stage that Jack did. Before Jack, there were a lot of barriers towards the sport (football); that’s gone forever. Jack was the first to take us to a major championship. It needed to happen.
‘Suddenly, you had the whole country pulling for the team, supporters from GAA, hurling, rugby, all rooting for the soccer team representing the country abroad. That’s the legacy Jack left.’
And yet, Charlton was only appointed manager of Ireland through a selection slipup, which reflected the FAI’s rather amateurish ways of operating at the time.
When the FAI’s 18-strong executive voted on February 7, 1986, to agree on a successor to Eoin Hand, there were four candidates in the ballot, Charlton, Giles, Liam Tuohy and, a late addition, revered former Liverpool manager Bob Paisley.
Paisley pulled nine votes with Charlton, Giles and Tuohy receiving three each. In the next round, the votes from Giles and Tuohy transferred to Charlton and with one of Paisley’s supporters defecting, 50-year-old Charlton was elected 10-8. That night on RTÉ’s The Late, Late
Show, host Gay Byrne was passed a piece of paper, looked at it, and announced with minimal enthusiasm that Charlton was the new manager of the Irish football team.
No one had an inkling then that sport in Ireland would never be the same again.
In terms of footballing ability, Jack Charlton was the ugly duckling compared to younger brother Bobby’s white swan, but his playing career compared favourably to ‘our kid’.
Both won the English League Championship, the FA Cup and the World Cup and both retired as footballers on the final day of the 1973 season – a hamstring injury denied Jack a farewell for Leeds United in the final of the FA Cup.
Unlike introspective Bobby, who was ill-prepared for life after football, garrulous Jack was a qualified coach who loved the outdoor life, the thrill of the shoot, the cast of the rod in a river at full spate.
‘I won’t die at a football match; I might die with a big salmon going down the river though,’ he said.
Charlton was always ‘a good earner’, too, from the time he pinched cabbages as a kid in Ashington. Later, he ran a merchandising shop at Elland Road. All along, he appreciated the value of a few bob.
His reputation for minding his money surfaced as Irish manager when he cadged pints and fags from Irish journalists in return for pointers about the team he was likely to pick.
More than once, the Ireland manager scribbled out his XI on a beer mat of a Sunday night at the Dublin Airport hotel.
Charlton’s ultimate goal was to manage England but when he wrote to the FA seeking an interview after Don Revie (who moulded Charlton into a top-quality footballer at Leeds) left the post under a cloud, he didn’t receive a reply.
That slight stung but Charlton hadn’t helped himself by revealing on TV how he kept ‘a little black book’ with the names of players he intended to even a score with on the pitch.
It was an unpleasant side of Charlton that surfaced when he became Irish manager. In an unguarded moment, he admitted that he set out to deliberately bring down ‘the Irish heroes’.
Frank Stapleton, Liam Brady and David O’Leary, the core of the team for a decade, were marginalised.
Stapleton went to the 1990 World Cup although Charlton was never going to play him; Brady was humiliated with a first-half substitution against West Germany, while O’Leary was exiled for three years.
‘We didn’t always see eye to eye but you couldn’t argue with the success he had,’ said Stapleton
Charlton’s methods were simple, effective and certainly of their time. He inherited a mess and was allowed exert full control. It was his way or the highway and the FAI didn’t dare interfere.
Before Ireland met England at Wembley in 1991 – arguably the finest performance by an Irish team in the Charlton era – he reaffirmed his managerial strategy.
‘We put ’em under pressure. We’ve a simple way of playing, and it’s played by very good players. I believe in discipline and good players, but good players must fit into the system.
‘If you can’t go through people, you go over them,’ he said.
If the tactics were not to everyone’s taste, for a nation crying out for international recognition, it didn’t matter, not when you were on the march with Jackie’s Army, getting scuttered in Stuttgart and hungover in Hannover.
After the mother of all breaks in November 1987 in Sofia, where Gary Mackay’s late winner saw Scotland stun Bulgaria and propel Ireland to their first major championships, Charlton cashed in.
With an iron grip on strategy, he led his team to within nine minutes of the Euro ’88 semi-final, to the World Cup quarter-final in Rome, and a meeting with the Pope, before a last hurrah in the USA in 1994 and a famous revenge win over Italy in Giants Stadium.
Along the journey, heroes emerged – players like Mick McCarthy, Ray Houghton, John Aldridge, Packie Bonner, Andy Townsend, Steve Staunton and Paul McGrath becoming household names and darlings of the Irish nation.
Charlton forgave McGrath for anything he did off the pitch, knowing he was indispensable on it. He often had rows with players (and the press, too) but he was as quick to forget as he was to lash out.
When the end as manager came in December 1995, Charlton departed with a record that continues to stand the test of time – his three finals appearances equals the sum of all five Irish managers to have followed.
‘He got honesty out of his players and gave honesty to the fans. The ledger is there for all to see,’ said the late broadcaster Jimmy Magee of Charlton.
‘He can walk down any village, town or city in this land and be recognised and welcomed. I’m not so sure he could do that in England.’
Jack Charlton, never ‘Jackie’, as he was called on his own turf. He was an Ireland manager who became a national icon.
From a Jack to a king.