Charlie didn’t let size stop him making it to the top
SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY have high hopes of making it back to the Premier League this season.
The Owls travel to Huddersfield for the first leg of the Championship play-off semifinal today.
Winning promotion would earn the players earn a huge bonus.
Money really wasn’t an issue when Charlie Pllu signed on at Hillsborough 60 years ago.
He made the remarkable leap from junior football in Scotland to becoming the smallest goalkeeper in England’s top flight.
But there was no big signing-on fee – nor a bed to call his own!
Charlie recalled: “I had played for Saltcoats Victoria for about five years before I went to England to do my National Service.
“I played football in the Army and was approached to turn out for non- league Scarborough.
“I must have done well because I then attracted the attention of Sheffield Wednesday.
“I played a floodlit friendly for them against Zagreb of Yugoslavia in November, 1956 and was offered a contract.
“There wasn’t a penny of a signing-on fee offered but I would have played for nothing.
“Sheffield Wednesday put me in a hotel for six weeks and then I was moved into digs where I had to share a bed with the right back, Jack Martin from Dundee.
“It wasn’t ideal but I loved going to places like Old Trafford.
“I played against the Busby Babes and saved a penalty from Johnny Berry.
“I was only 5ft 7½in tall and weighed 10 st 4 lb. You would get barged by strikers like Nat Lofthouse and the referee would issue a caution if you then lay on the ground.”
Charlie’s league debut came against Everton in the company of some infamous names.
He went on: “We had Tony Kay and Peter Swan, two of the players caught up in the match-fixing scandal, in our team.
“The player who organised it all was Jimmy Gauld. He scored twice against me for Everton.
“I dropped a cross at his feet for the first one. But they didn’t have to pay me to let in goals. I did it for nothing!”
A modest appraisal of his ability, but Charlie did well enough to became the club’s number one goalie.
He said: “I once ran out of my box to tackle Preston’s Tom Finney and he went down.
“A woman then came on the pitch and started hitting me with an umbrella because I dared to challenge her hero.
“In my second season, I dislocated fingers against Spurs. I was rushed to hospital, had them put back in and played the second half at outside left. “One critic said I missed two sitters!” After leaving Sheffield Wednesday, Charlie almost made it to Scotland’s top flight.
He said: “Willie Thornton invited me to come to Dundee for a six-week trial.
“I turned down a contract with Airdrie, who signed Jock Wallace instead, but the trial didn’t work out.
“Whenever I saw Jock after that, I always told him I’d sent him on the way to success.
“I then went to Portadown in Northern Ireland but had a fall-out with the manager, Gibby Mackenzie.
“Norwich manager Archie Macauley wanted me because their first-choice goalie got injured before the FA Cup semi-final.
“I would have walked to London to play but Portadown wouldn’t release me.”
Charlie retired when they also blocked a move to Oldham Athletic.
He became a contracts manager in the building trade and, now 83, lives in his hometown of Saltcoats.