England calls for another Charlton brother
Tommy, younger than the famed Bobby and Jack, tells Simon Briggs about his national trial today – at walking football
‘If I can do anything to push this sport, I will. It has been fantastic for me’
There is a faraway note in Tommy Charlton’s voice as he recalls the goal that got away. “The ball came across from the wing, 18 inches high. I hit a sweet volley, into the top corner. And the referee penalised me because both my feet were off the ground!”
It would never have happened to Jack or Bobby, Charlton’s renowned older brothers. But then Tommy was talking about a different form of the game: walking football, which is catching on so quickly in Britain that it feels like the new Parkrun.
Tommy was an early adopter of the new code. Walking football was invented in Chesterfield in 2011, and two years later he joined the Mature Millers – a team set up by Rotherham United. The basic idea is that you have five or six players on each side, and running is outlawed, along with anything rougher than the lightest physical contact. Today, Tommy will be attending trials in Burnley, with a view to winning selection for the first England over-60s team. An international cap, against Italy in the summer, would make quite a story.
Tommy’s flirtation with conventional football is well behind him. The baby of the family at 71, he turned out for local Northumberland clubs Ashington Co-op and Newbiggin Welfare until he blew out his knee in his early 20s. “I wish I had been better,” he says now. “I love playing but I was just a trier.”
Despite his enthusiasm, Tommy lacked the sporting magic that coursed through the rest of his family. His mother, Cissie, had four brothers who all played professional football, as well as a cousin, Jackie Milburn, who led the line for Newcastle and England. Father Bob – a miner – earned the nickname “Boxer” for his skill in the ring. Even Gordon – the third of the four Charlton brothers – tried out at Leeds, and played as an amateur for Harrogate Town.
When the 1966 World Cup came around, Gordon famously missed the whole thing because he was sailing the South China Sea with the merchant navy. Yet being 6,000 miles closer at hand did not help Tommy much. “I was an apprentice at the pit, with no money, and no means of getting to London,” he says. “The whole thing was a nightmare.”
Still, those family connections brought Tommy a twinkle of reflected glory. He remembers a day in the late 1970s when Bobby came to stay with him in Rotherham. He was then working for the Mines Rescue Service, and they both ran out for a kickaround with his colleagues. “I picked Bobby and at half-time we were winning 7-0,” Tommy says. “He had laid all the goals on for me. Then he changed sides for the second half and we lost 8-7.”
Tommy admits that his chances of making the England team are slim, given the thousand-plus walking football clubs that have sprung up. But that will not spoil his fun.
“Jack thinks I am a silly old bugger,” he says. “But if I can do anything to push this sport, I will. It’s been fantastic for me. I’ve got a metal valve in my heart [after he nearly died of an aortic dissection] but the football keeps me fit and mentally it’s something to build your week around.
“If I can talk one old man into getting off his bum and having a go, I’ll be happy. I guarantee that he will love it.”