LOVING FAMILY MAN
Jack and Bobby Charlton drifted apart after lifting World Cup in 1966 but bonded again when mum Cissie passed away
A WORLD Cup winner, Leeds United’s record-appearance maker with league and FA Cup triumphs, he was the Geordie miner’s son who adored his mam, transformed the Republic of Ireland and loved the football over there almost as much as its fishing.
Jack Charlton. Big Jack. The Giraffe. A giant of the game, in so many ways, but a giant of a man as well.
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Jack, who has died aged 85, was also just a thoroughly decent and lovable bloke, a devoted husband to Pat, and a father and grandad who will be sorely missed by his family and friends.
The first brothers to win the World Cup together in 1966, Jack and Bobby Charlton hugged on the Wembley turf at the final whistle as their mother Cissie watched from the stands.
But the relationship between the three, so close in their Ashington home and inseparable around football, was to sour as they grew older.
English football’s most famous brothers were close in their early playing years. Cissie often told Jack to ‘go easy on our Bobby’ - ’Our Kid’ as he always called him - in games, although he never had to man-mark him.
Once married, as with so many families, they drifted apart.
Jack’s wife Pat would often travel to games together, and became close, not least in ’66 when they watched all the England games - until the final when Pat was absent, giving birth to second son, Peter.
Jack and his mother had an almost telepathic bond and he would despair of his mother’s antics and wicked sense of humour in much the same way his family treated him in his latter years.
By his own admission, Jack was not as naturally gifted as Bobby, and growing up was more interested in fishing traps than football.
He bought his parents a house with his World Cup winnings and called it Jules Rimet and moved them into a home in the Yorkshire Dales before his father died in 1982, when Cissie moved back to Ashington.
Bobby’s wife Norma and Cissie were never close which impacted on Sir Bobby’s relationship with his mother.
He once failed to call in after holding a coaching session in his home town, just 250 yards from her flat.
Jack was furious at the snub. He looked after his mother, with Pat, until she died aged 84 in 1996, just four months after he left the Ireland job.
He was pleased his brother made the funeral and carried her coffin. They were reconciled, but they were certainly never as close as that moment on the Wembley turf.
But they were always different. By his own admission, Jack was nowhere near as naturally gifted as Bobby and in fact, when they were growing up, he was more interested in the fields and fishing traps near their home than football.
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Bobby on the other hand was obsessed by the game from a very early age and his skills and pace were honed by his grandfather Jack ‘Tanner’ Milburn, a ruthless taskmaster and trainer.
When Cissie sent young Bobby down to Chesterfield FC to spend time with her brothers who played for the club, Jack was too busy in the countryside to be bothered.
Bobby represented Northumberland and England schoolboys before he signed for Manchester United, Jack played for Ashington Colliery Welfare and followed father Bob into the local pit because, deep down, he didn’t think he was good enough to be a professional footballer.
But the miner’s life was short-lived.
After a few weeks in the screening part of the pit above ground, where he set traps for rabbits and etched wildlife on stones, Jack was sent on a 16-week training course to become a fully-fledged miner.
He didn’t make it past the induction course.
After one eight-hour shift, and a chat with his foreman, Jack quit.
Big Jack played a major role in changing the relationship between England and Ireland and the peace agreement between the two. For that alone, he should have been knighted.
Yet he almost joined the police force, rather than the Leeds United playing staff.
Aged 15, he applied to become a police cadet but his interview in Newcastle was the day before an important trial match in Yorkshire, ironically against his beloved Newcastle United.
His uncles Jack and Jimmy were Leeds players and had tipped off the club about the tall, rugged centre-half.
With Cissie’s full blessing, he went to the Leeds trial and after the game Major Frank Buckley told him to report to Elland Road on the Monday morning.
He went on to make a record number of appearances for the club, blossoming under Don Revie who, as his team-mate, had warned him to knuckle down and stop messing around in training, otherwise he would be thrown out of the club.
He signed for Leeds in 1952 and become Revie’s enforcer, or one of the many the manager employed in his title-winning teams.
Having qualified as a coach just years after his Leeds debut, Charlton's move in to management was an obvious step when he retired from playing in 1973 and Middlesbrough were the first club to hire him.
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He changed the kit and the mentality of the club, gaining promotion to the top flight in his first season, creating a team which is still remembered affectionately as one of Boro’s best.
He enjoyed similar success and hero-worship at Sheffield Wednesday but his one failure was at the one job he truly coveted, Newcastle United.
After one campaign, and disgusting abuse from Geordie supporters in a pre-season friendly, he simply walked out of St James’ Park.
Then came the call from the Irish FA which would change his life, and that of an entire country.
He took Ireland to their first major championships, then the quarter-finals of the World Cup.
Some people said the football was crude, but Jack didn’t care and neither did the Irish fans.
He invented pressing before Jurgen Klopp was even out of school and turned world football on its head in the process.
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And when Jack Charlton, an English World Cup winner, was appointed Ireland manager, it was the height of The Troubles and flying the tricolour had very different connotations.
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Big Jack changed all that, and played a major role in changing the relationship between England and Ireland and the peace agreement between the two countries.
And for that alone, he should have been knighted.
Jack Charlton dead at 85 – England 1966 World Cup winner, Leeds United legend and Ireland favourite passes away
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