PATRON SAINT OF IRELAND
Tributes for Wembley ’66 hero and former Republic of Ireland manager Charlton
WHETHER Jack Charlton was on the football pitch, casting a line into a Scottish river or hoisting a glass of Irish stout, he could never be mistaken for anyone else. He had ‘character’ in every pore and sinew. After covering a match at Elland Road, I got a message that Leeds manager Don Revie wanted to see me in his office.
I feared a reprimand; had I written something that might have angered him? Revie offered me a beer and then said: ‘I hear you are a friend of Jack Charlton.’
I nodded a yes and Revie said: ‘In that case you have a friend for life.’
He was right. But he had many friends. His loyalty was unshakeable. He had a bark, as they say, but humour was never far behind. His players at club and country level loved him. One night in Germany, the eve of a big Republic of Ireland European Championship match, one of the trainers whispered to Jack, asking if he might have a beer.
Jack’s Geordie voice boomed: ‘They can all have a beer. A pint is better than that bloody Coca-Cola they’re drinking.’
His players indeed loved him and Ireland’s participation in the 1990 and 1994 World Cups established his legendary status in his adopted country. Sometimes he was misrepresented as a man reluctant to part with his cash, a bit shy at the bar, perhaps. That’s a nonsense.
It’s true he was rarely able to pay when he walked into a Dublin bar, but that was because no one would let him. He also had a barrel of Guinness in his room which invited guests were able to share.
Never to be forgotten in my mind is the night after England had won the World Cup in 1966. The official celebration banquet was at the Royal Garden Hotel. I wandered into the foyer just as Jack was emerging from the function.
He said: ‘Come on, you and I are going out for a few drinks. The others are all here with their wives and girlfriends. Pat (his wife) is at home waiting to have the baby.’
I protested: ‘But Jack, I’ve only got a tenner on me.’ He pulled a wad of notes from his top pocket and smiled, saying: ‘I got this for wearing those boots today, so we’ll spend this and we’ll spend your tenner too.’
Thousands of people were blocking the road outside. We were stumped until Jack and I crept down the slope to the street as we stooped behind Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s car. Imagine that with today’s security.
We jumped into a taxi that was already occupied and apologised to the passenger. He had no idea of Jack’s identity and in a cultured, very English voice said: ‘I believe there’s been some kind of football occasion today.’
While we said we would take him to his destination and pay the fare, he talked incessantly about an organ recital he was about to give at the Wigmore Hall.
We went straight to the Astor Club and as we walked in the band abruptly stopped playing and everyone rose to applaud Jack. We didn’t buy a drink all night as bottles kept arriving. The couple at the next table invited us back to their house in Leytonstone and we woke up in armchairs as the Sunday papers came through the letterbox.
Back at the hotel the England manager Alf Ramsey was waiting, stone-faced. The players were running late for a photo-shoot. ‘Jack, where have you been? Your bed hasn’t been slept in.’
Jack produced a slip of paper that read: ‘If found return this body to the Royal Garden Hotel.’
Good memories of Jack, and there are many more. He could certainly be uncompromising but there was a golden heart within.
Fishing was such a passion that when he was manager of Sheffield Wednesday on an FA Cup run, the fans sang: ‘We’ll be running round Wembley with a trout.’
As a coach he was incredibly knowledgeable and an original thinker. He took his Middlesbrough to Anfield when Liverpool were in their Shankly-era pomp. No one gave Jack’s team a chance. He revealed later: ‘I decided that if we didn’t have a centre-forward, Ron Yeats and Co would have no one to mark.’ He told Alan Foggon to run with the ball from midfield. Liverpool were confused and Middlesbrough won.
In that vein, Jack moulded a mix of Republic of Ireland players into a formidable group. They were a revelation, qualifying for the 1990 World Cup finals in Italy, where they made the quarter-finals only to lose 1-0 to the hosts and opening their 1994 World Cup finals group in the USA with a win over Italy in New York by the same score.
It’s a shame that he did not get to manage England. He would have made the best of the players. Now, as we say farewell to my old mate, sadness is tempered, thankfully, by memories of all that he gave to football at club and country level.
I can see him now, singing his favourite Irish song in front of his players and anyone else who was in the bar or at a post-match reception. He wasn’t a gifted vocalist but he could belt out “Dublin in the Rare Old Times” and they would all sing “Molly Malone.” It was like a ritual.
He loved the Irish. And they loved him. Didn’t we all?
Jack just loved the Irish and they loved him — but didn’t we all
JACK CHARLTON will be remembered not just as a World Cup hero for two nations but also as a larger-than-life character with a treasure trove of stories.
Here are some of the more remarkable anecdotes either about or told by the former Leeds and England defender over an enormously successful playing and management career.
He urged Bobby Moore not to play that long pass
Commentator Clive Tyldesley remembered a tale told by Charlton about Bobby Moore shortly after the World Cup-winning captain’s death. Recalling the final moments of that day at Wembley in 1966, Tyldesley said: ‘Jack and Bobby had just repelled another West German attack, and the ball fell to Bobby. Jack recounted he bellowed across to Bobby: ‘Row Z!’. Instead of hoofing it out of play, Moore looked up and picked out a long, searching pass, to which Charlton shouted: ‘Nooo!’
The pass ended up at the feet of Geoff Hurst and the rest was history. In his speech, Charlton was said to have recalled: ‘I still wanted to b ***** k him. I still wanted to tell him “don’t ever do that again”.
‘But then I realised: he could do that and I couldn’t. He was different from me, I could never be as good as Bobby Moore.’
He had been known to forget his players’ names
Charlton could be known to call his players by their positions rather than their names, and a story recounted by former Ireland midfielder Liam Brady perhaps explains why.
The mercurial midfielder said of his former boss: ‘Jack Charlton’s first words to me were, ‘You’re No8, Ian’.
‘I replied: “Ian Brady was the Moors murderer, Jack”.’ He fell asleep during his audience with the Pope
There were plenty of folk tales from Charlton’s hugely successful spell as Ireland manager, but one that perhaps topped them all was when he promised the team a visit to the Pope during Italia ’90 — and came good on it.
The excitement of the big day was not quite enough to keep Charlton awake, however, as he recalled in a television documentary how he drifted off while yards away from John Paul II.
After the Pope read his lesson for 20 minutes, Charlton remembered, six other bishops then proceeded to get up and read the same lesson in various languages.
Telling the story on Jack Charlton — The
Irish Years, the former Leeds defender said: ‘We sat through this and I found it very hard to stay awake. I was very aware because there was a bank of photographers over on the other side.’
He continued: ‘The Pope was on the third bit of his blessing and he was looking right at me and he had his hand in the air like that (Charlton raises his hand).
‘As I woke up, I thought he was waving at me, so I stood up and waved back at him.’