>> Jackson: Picking North sets a poor precedent
England promoted another uncapped scrum-half last week, an autumn ritual dating back to a time when Britannia ruled the rugby waves. And thereby hangs a sobering tale, of ‘Jackie’ Charlton, a fully paid-up member of The Geordie Nation whom England selected but never capped.
Alex Mitchell will hardly need reminding of the obstacles still to be cleared in his pursuit of Test status but having hurdled out of a losing Northampton team into a training squad, albeit a heavily depleted one, he is at least on his way.
Assuming word of the 23-year-old Saint’s rise towards the more hazardous heights of the slippery pole reached him at work on the farmlands of the north-east, it would have evoked memories for one of his predecessors from way back when, Hall Charlton.
Having reinvented himself as an agronomist for life after rugby, Jonny Wilkinson’s abrasive half-back partner from Newcastle’s glory days can be found in a quieter but no less challenging environment, an expert in herbicide treatments.
Charlton is unlikely to find much solace in the fact that no uncapped player of any nationality could possibly have gone closer to winning one only to watch it drift away before his very eyes on the unforgiving tide of history.
Unlike Mitchell, Charlton – nicknamed ‘Jackie’ by Wilkinson and Falcons’ wing Jim Naylor in deference to his unrelated footballing namesake – had been selected for England. Not any old England but the one in the first year of a brief reign as world champions.
Charlton, whose stature and physicality readily identified him as a graduate of the Terry Holmes school of scrum-halves, had been granted his training experience three years earlier, hand-picked by Sir Clive Woodward to sample life with a squad then on its way to winning the World Cup in 2003.
Almost exactly one year later, on Saturday November 13, 2004, Charlton found himself at Twickenham, all suited and booted for his Test debut against Canada. His name was there in the programme, No.20, on the same bench as a trio of World Cup winners: Ben Kay, Will Greenwood, Ben Cohen.
By the time England had finished filling their boots against game but outclassed opponents, they all got on as did three other substitutes, Andrew Sheridan and Hugh Vyvyan for their first caps alongside reserve hooker Andy Titterell.
The gradual emptying of the bench around him reinforced Charlton’s conviction that his turn would come any minute. It never did and it would never come again.
“Clive Woodward had had enough with the RFU by then and Andy Robinson had taken over as head coach,’’ said Charlton. “Harry Ellis was the coming scrum half and he should have been there but he was injured.
“Andy Gomarsall started and I was the back-up. I got there on the Sunday but the training week could not have gone much worse for me.
“I tweaked a little muscle in my quadracep on the Monday. I felt it whenever I passed the ball but I battled through to finish the training session. I thought: ‘Do I tell the physio?’
“If I did, they’d think: ‘Look at this kid. He’s just come into the squad and he’s injured already.’
“I was still expecting to get on, even if it was only for the last ten minutes”
“I didn’t sleep well that night. The next morning I told them that I’d tweaked a muscle. I spent my time in the pool which meant I missed out on all the training. I’m thinking: ‘This doesn’t look at all good.’
“Then they said: ‘Right, we’re going to fitness test you on Friday.’ I knew I would get through it but I also knew they’d be thinking: ‘This guy hasn’t trained all week.’
“I was still expecting to get on, even if it was only for the last ten minutes.
I can remember sitting in the changingroom afterwards nearly in tears but managing to hold them back.
“I’m the only one not to get on. What have I done wrong? Jason Robinson captained the team that day and he
came over and put his arm around me and said: ‘Keep doing what you’re doing.’
“Andy Robinson said to me: ‘You need to want it more.’
“The first thought that came into my head was: ‘Nobody could want it more.’ I was a bit shell-shocked. It was in one ear and out the other.
“I liked Andy. When I thought more about what he said, I supposed he didn’t just want to give the cap to me. If I’d been able to train all that week, I’d have got on.
“All the family came down for the match. I’ve still got my England shirt and my England blazer and all the stuff. I loved the England set-up and I loved the occasion. It just wasn’t to be.
“Mentally, I was a bit bruised by it. My form dropped off for a good four-tosix weeks afterwards. I got over it and back to my best with the Falcons but by then the chance had gone. Younger guys were coming through.’’
Some six months earlier Charlton had come off the same bench to play a major role in one of the great cup finals: a 70-point thriller against Sale for the Powergen Trophy which the Falcons won through Phil Dowson’s late try and Twickenham rocked to the raucous sound of Blaydon Races.
No fewer than 14 scrum-halves have sat where Charlton sat 16 years ago. Some had to wait longer than others but everyone has been capped, in chronological order: Harry Ellis, Peter Richards, Shaun Perry, Richard Wigglesworth, Paul Hodgson, Danny Care, Ben Foden, Ben Youngs, Joe Simpson, Lee Dickson, Jack Maunder, Willi Heinz, Dan Robson, Ben Spencer.
Charlton spent seven more years at Newcastle before injuries took their inevitable toll. He coached at Blaydon and is now performing the same role at his alma mater, Durham School, or he was before the pandemic struck last March.