Jack and Bobby: A story of brothers in conflict. Leo McKinstry

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ don’t want another job in the pit.’

      Jack already had another option lined up. Two weeks earlier, with a sense of foreboding about the job in the colliery, he had applied to become a police cadet. Now Jack could not be regarded as one of nature’s law enforcers, and his motivation was suitably vague. ‘I was getting close to six feet in height. That, to my young mind, seemed as good a reason as any why I should try for the police.’ Impressed with Jack’s application, the Northumberland Constabulary summoned him to an interview.

      But then fate, in the form of Leeds United, intervened. Despite the earlier rebuff, the club had not given up hope of attracting Jack and now another invitation arrived for a trial. This time Jack, having seen the misery of life underground, was much more receptive to the idea of becoming a professional footballer. He knew the truth, though, that Leeds’ interest was partly motivated by his close family connection with the club, with three of his uncles having been players there and one of them, Jimmy, still in the squad. ‘When I got the offer of a trial, I knew it was right nepotism,’ Jack once said.

      The immediate problem for Jack was a logistical one. His police interview was in Morpeth on Friday afternoon, while his trial at Leeds was early the following Saturday morning. In the days before motorways, there was no physical way he could get to both places within this timescale. So Jack decided to abandon the police interview, instead travelling down on Friday to Leeds with his parents. The trial was to be the most important match of his young life. If he succeeded, a new future in soccer beckoned. If he failed, there was little chance that any other club would show an interest.

      Snow was falling that Saturday morning at Elland Road as Jack ran out to play for Leeds Juniors against the Newcastle youth team. He was in his customary left-back position, and, in the difficult conditions, he was not sure he had done enough to impress. But the club thought otherwise, admiring his height and solid style. After the game he was summoned into the office of the club secretary, Arthur Crowther.

      ‘We’d like you to join the ground staff, Charlton.’

      ‘Do you really think I’m good enough?’

      Of course. Why do you think we’d want you if we didn’t.’

      Jack went home with his parents on Sunday to pick up his belongings, before returning to Leeds to report for duty on the Monday. Any ideas about becoming a policeman had been ditched as quickly as the career in mining. Despite barely giving the matter a thought, he had somehow become a professional footballer. His only anxiety now was whether he would succeed. What he dreaded, above all else, was being forced to return to Ashington, labelled a failure.

CHAPTER THREE The Rebel

      Jack and Bobby might have gone to two of the biggest cities in Britain, but they had joined very different clubs. Manchester United were one of the soccer powers in the land, capturing the imagination of the public with their dynamic style and young stars. On the other hand, Leeds United were languishing in the Second Division, an ordinary side full of ordinary players. What particularly surprised Jack when he arrived at Elland Road was the shabbiness of the ground, the disrepair symbolic of the state of the ailing club. ‘I always regarded Leeds as a big club but I must confess that I had the wind knocked out of my sails when I saw the place for the first time. The terraces were made from ashes, not concrete, and there was more than a liberal sprinkling of weeds sprouting around the ground. In general the ground had a look of untidiness and at first I was disappointed. Frankly, I don’t know just what I expected but it did not quite come up to the standard I had envisaged as a youngster,’ wrote Jack in one of his testimonial programmes when he retired in 1973.

      The only thing the clubs had in common was the reputation of their managers. When Bobby joined Manchester in 1953, Matt Busby had already been in charge for eight years, building teams which combined a dazzling creative flair with a powerful competitive edge. Born in a poor Lanarkshire mining village, Busby had been a highly effective wing-half for Manchester City, Liverpool and Scotland in the inter-war years, his ability to read the game making up for his lack of pace. A family man and a Catholic, he exuded a natural charisma and authority as manager, rarely having to raise his voice. His judgement of a footballer, both in terms of talent and character, was almost impeccable. All players held him in respect, the younger ones in awe. In his control of the club, there is a lot of the character of a stern devoted grandfather, making all the big decisions, ordering and disciplining in some huge, unpredictably gifted household,’ wrote Arthur Hopcraft in The Football Man. John Docherty, one of the United players of the 1950s, says of Busby: ‘There was always this impression of him being such a gentleman, but, in fact, he was as hard as fucking nails. Remember, he was from the Scottish coalfields. You don’t build great sides by being a nice guy. In private, he was a hard bastard.’

      Jack’s first manager at Leeds, Major Frank Buckley, was an equally powerful figure in the football world. Unlike Busby, who could terrify a professional with just a raised eyebrow, Buckley was much more volcanic, using loud, foul-mouthed tirades to impose his will. Born in 1883, he fought in both the Boer War and the First World War, where he acquired the title of Major. He was a good enough footballer to have played for England, while his finest spell of management was at Wolves just before the Second World War. An autocrat with a flair for publicity, he captured the headlines in 1938 by announcing that he had given his players ‘monkey gland’ injections to increase their energy levels. Stan Cullis, the Wolves captain of the 1930s and later Busby’s biggest managerial rival of the 1950s, once said of Buckley’s authoritarian style: ‘He was never one of those equivocal people. He was a one-man band, who knew exactly what he wanted and where he was going’ – an approach that some might argue Jack Charlton was to adopt in his managerial career. When Jack arrived at Leeds in 1950, Buckley was past his best. But signs of the old dictatorial spirit still lingered. Bobby Forrest, who joined Leeds at the same time as Jack, recalls: ‘When we were training, Major Buckley used to sit in the old stand with a megaphone. If you did anything wrong, you’d get a real blast. The language was unbelievable. If I played a ball and it was cut out, he would scream, “You’re fucking useless, Forrest.” The residents nearby would regularly complain and eventually Leeds had to take the megaphone off him.’ Buckley could be witty as well. In one dressing-room talk he admonished his centre-forward: ‘Jesus Christ was a clever man, but if he’d played football he would never have found you.’

      As a member of the ground staff, Jack also experienced the sharp end of the major’s tongue. On one occasion he was on the Elland Road pitch with another boy, carrying out the monotonous task of removing weeds and replacing them with grass seed. For once, the cold heart of the major softened, for when he saw the two lads, he promised them each five shillings for every bucket they filled with weeds. When the boys had finished, they had filled six pails, so, with characteristic impertinence, Jack walked straight up to the major’s office.

      ‘What the hell do you want?’

      ‘My 30 bob for the buckets of weeds.’

      ‘Get out of here! You’re already getting paid to do that work. Don’t ever let me see you up here again with your buckets.’

      In fact this kind of menial task was typical of the life of the ground staff. ‘It was a hard apprenticeship,’ said Jack in a 1968 television interview. ‘You were basically a lackey, cleaning out the toilets, sweeping the terraces, painting and oiling the turnstiles, cleaning piles and piles of boots, putting studs in them, pumping up balls and brushing the car park.’

      Traditionalists would say that such a routine taught the teenagers discipline, but Jack’s friend and fellow manager, Ian Greaves, thinks it was a nonsense. ‘I found it really odd the way these clubs exploited the future stars. It stuck with me for years. There is no way СКАЧАТЬ