Celebrating with Leeds in frontof the Kop in’69 gave down-to-earth Jack more joy than the ’66 WorldCup

THEY CALLED HIM ‘DIRTY BIG GIRAFFE’ ..HE CALLED IT A TERM OF ENDEARMENT

JACK CHARLTON did not rate the World Cup final of 1966 as the most memorable moment of his playing career.

Instead, top-ranked was the aftermath of a match at Anfield in April 1969 when a goalless draw confirmed Leeds United as champions ahead of Liverpool.

Led by captain Billy Bremner, Don Revie’s team celebrated in front of the visiting supporters in the Anfield Road end before their manager instructed them to walk the length of the pitch towards the Kop, still crammed with home fans.

Charlton and Bremner were wary but went all the same and the thunderous ovation afforded to them by the Kop stayed with Big Jack forever.

“That gave me the most joy in my playing career,” he would tell Sue Lawley when guest on the Desert Island Discs radio programme.

Liverpool fans had a song about Charlton that referenced him as the “dirty big giraffe”.

Charlton described it as “affectionate.”

And he was probably right.

They would have had a grudging admiration for the type of defensive excellence that kept that clean sheet at Anfield on that title-winning day.

The wonderful tributes that have flooded in after his passing have, unavoidably, majored on Jack the character.

The Pope story, the night on the town with a journalist after lifting the Jules Rimet trophy, the cheque-writing myth, the journey from humble Ashington, the plain-speaking.

But it is worth remembering that Charlton (below) was a fine footballer in an era when the skill of defending was far more treasured.

One of his many quotes that have been headlined over the past 24 hours was the one where Charlton says he could not play but was good at stopping other people play.

The second bit was right, the first bit nonsense. You do not make your senior debut for a top-flight club at the age of 17 if you cannot play.

You do not, as a defender, score 96 goals in 773 club appearances, and six in 35 international appearances, if you cannot play. You do not become Footballer of the Year, as Charlton was voted in 1967, if you cannot play.

For a defender to be given that accolade by the Football Writers’ Association was slightly more common in that era but still not the norm.

Nowadays, it is a true rarity, the last defender to win the FWA Footballer of the Year being Steve Nicol in 1989.

The players have given defenders more recognition but, when Virgil van Dijk got the PFA award last season, it was only the second time a defender had won it in the last 26 years.

Yet more often than not, success is built on sound defence.

Liverpool, by some distance, have conceded the fewest Premier League goals this season – 27 in 35 games, an average of 0.77 per match.

In that 68-69 title triumph, the Leeds defence – with Charlton and Norman Hunter at its heart – conceded 26 in 42 games, an average of 0.62 per match.

Charlton was right when, in an interview with the BBC’s Michael Parkinson, he described himself as “a destroyer, a batterer, a fouler,” and no, he was not the most technically gifted player out there, far from it.

But for all the selfdeprecation, for all the focus on his ruggedness and character, Jack

Charlton could play.

And back in

1969, the Kop knew it.