Glory days
Andy Townsend remembers life under Big Jack
FORMER Irish football captain Andy Townsend has recalled how the Irish squad had to beg Jack Charlton to be told to go to bed.
Townsend appears tonight in a bittersweet documentary on the life of the squad manager, which details his fight with dementia.
Finding Jack charts the nation’s most treasured Irish squad manager – and all round hero – from his life on the pitch until his dying days with the disease. He died last July after he had been diagnosed with lymphoma while also battling dementia. He was 85.
Townsend, who was a formative part of the documentary, says his time under Jack was terrific both on and off the football pitch.
‘Jack didn’t want to incarcerate us whenever we went away. He never wanted to keep us under lock and key. He was more than happy for us to have a beer because he was aware of the size of our squad. We didn’t have endless resources so he had to make players want to turn up, want to come, want to be there. And one way you achieve that is by making players enjoy it.
‘We used to have to ask Jack for a curfew. We would say to him Jack we can’t go out tonight we have a game. I think we‘re the only national team that has to beg our manager for a curfew. But he was never afraid to put demands on any one of us, and he did that.’
Despite Jack’s lax drinking rules for the players, Townsend says that he commanded authority.
‘Everybody respected Jack and everybody was prepared to do what he said. And if you didn’t want to abide by the rules, Jack would find somebody that would.’
The Jack Charlton era was the glory days of Irish football. But the team’s performance was a microcosm of an Ireland on the cusp of change. ‘There was a genuine reason to be optimistic in Ireland at that time when you were following the football team,’ says Townsend.
‘It’s amazing how much weight that carries. Sport is a fantastic connector.
‘And I witnessed that with the team at that particular time. He gave the country a lot of hope.
‘Jack was a natural communicator and was very, very good at making us feel like we were capable of anything… of something… special.’
Townsend, who remained firm friends with Jack until his very last days, said that it was ‘tough’ to see him beaten by dementia.
‘Jack was such a force of nature and such a strong personality. The type of personality who when he came into a room he could fill it, he could engage with people so well, he had people in the palm of his hand more often than not.’
‘Jack didn’t want to keep us under lock and key’