‘If found, please return England hero to hotel’

THE differences between the extrovert Jack Charlton and his much quieter brother Bobby were highlighted the very night of the 1966 World Cup final.

After a banquet at the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington, Bobby and his wife Norma went with some other players to the Playboy Club. There, feeling uncomfortable, Bobby had a single cocktail before leaving.

Jack was far less restrained. Along with journalist Jimmy Mossop, he went to the Astor Club and, according to his own account, ‘the whole place was one big party. I got so drunk I don’t remember much about it after that, except that Jimmy and I woke up in some house in Leytonstone [East London] on the floor and the settee’.

The house belonged to a couple of total strangers — ‘a lad called Lenny and his wife,’ as far as Jack recalled — who had been celebrating at the Astor.

And to his amazement, when he went out in the garden, nursing his hangover, a woman popped her head over the fence and said: ‘Hello Jackie.’

It turned out to be a neighbour from his home town of Ashington who was visiting relatives in London. Jack later explained: ‘ “How are you going Jackie?” she asked a little suspiciously. I think she was wondering what I was doing in a house in Leytonstone.’

Soon afterwards, Jack stuck his hand in his pocket and discovered two objects: his winner’s medal and a slip of paper which read: ‘If found, return this body to the Royal Garden Hotel.’