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

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СКАЧАТЬ paper and then get him to read out all the scores. ‘Even though he was dying, the most important thing was the football results,’ remembers Bobby. It was an attitude that the grandson inherited. ‘Football is my life. I eat, sleep and drink the game. When I wake up every day, I think of who we’re playing in the next match. I think of nothing else, apart from my family. I wish I could play until I was 70,’ said Bobby in an ITV documentary made when he was 30. The death of his grandfather hit him hard, for Bobby was a sensitive man who could be deeply affected by loss – as he was to show over Munich. ‘When he died, I felt as though I’d lost my best friend and there was a gap in my life which was not filled for a long time, even though I was young,’ wrote Bobby later.

      Bobby was also a keen spectator. When he and Jack were babies, Cissie took them along in the pram to Ashington FC, and they would leap up at the roar of the crowd after a goal was scored. Later, they were sometimes allowed to work as ball boys at the club. Historian Mike Kirkup recalls: ‘Their uncle Stan was playing for Ashington and he let them visit him in the dressing room or bring out the water magic sponge for the trainer. During the play, they sat behind the goals, which they thought was absolutely marvellous,’ In the Charltons’ youth, though Ashington FC had dropped down from the Third Division North into the North-Eastern League, there were still some big matches at the club. Stan Mortensen, the Blackpool and England striker, played at Ashington during the war, while in an FA Cup tie in 1950 against Rochdale, 12,000 people crammed into the ground, with some of them having to sit on the roof.

      It has been claimed that Bobby, as a child, was a Sunderland supporter. In her autobiography Cissie said that Bobby’s ambition was to play for the club, writing, ‘He was a great admirer of Len Shackleton’s team and would have jumped at the chance to join it.’ But this view is disputed by those who grew up with Bobby. Ron Routledge, the schoolmate who went on to play for Sunderland, told me, ‘I don’t know where all this business about Bobby and Sunderland comes from. It’s just not true. Never once was he involved with Sunderland. We all followed Newcastle and I went with Bobby to most of the home games at St James’ Park. I suppose some people might have thought that Bobby modelled himself on Len Shackleton, the Sunderland striker – for they had the same body swerve – but he didn’t. Bobby was always just Bobby.’

      Jack also remembers going to Newcastle with Bobby. ‘Me and our kid would go to Newcastle to see Jackie Milburn. My father put us on the bus, and we’d get off at the Haymarket and go for something to eat at the British Home restaurant. Then we’d go and queue at St James’ Park. We’d always leave it to the last minute so that we could get passed over everybody’s heads in the crowd, ending up right at the front.’ As usual, the difference surfaced between the brothers, for Jack was far more partisan in his support of Newcastle. He once told Mike Kirkup, ‘I’ve always followed Newcastle United. To this day I’m a Newcastle fan and I was brought up black and white eyed. I don’t think you ever change. Even when I was a player, the first results I looked for were those of Newcastle. When you’re a Newcastle fan as a boy, you’re a fan for life.’ Indeed, one writer told me that he was recently in Jack’s home during a Newcastle game which was being shown live on Sky TV. Just before the kick-off, Jack went down on his knees in front of the television screen in a mock act of worship to his beloved Magpies. Yet Bobby never felt the same attraction to Newcastle. ‘I don’t remember him ever being a great Newcastle supporter,’ says Bobby’s schoolfriend Evan Martin, who went with him a few times to St James’. Bobby himself says that after Manchester United won the FA Cup Final in 1948, they became his favourite team, though he always liked to watch good football wherever it was played.

      And no-one played it better than Bobby Charlton. His natural talent was so enormous that anyone who saw him, even as a child, knew that he was destined to become a professional footballer. Ashington locals still speak with awe about the sight of the young Bobby, sailing past opponents twice his age and then producing a deadly shot from outside the box. Walter Lavery remembers: ‘He stood out like a beacon. He was different, far above the rest of the young players, believe me. He was as near a genius as you could get. He was a great dribbler, with a real sense of style, even when he was young. He could run fast with the ball. He had techniques that the rest of us lads did not even realize existed until we went to professional clubs six years later. That gave him this special aura. Now don’t get me wrong, he was a good mixer with the other lads. But, for all that he was in your company, you always had a sense that his mind was elsewhere, thinking about football. He knew that, with his talent, he was going to get away. And he was so passionate, competitive. I remember going to watch a school game one Saturday morning, and I caught sight of Bobby arguing with the referee.

      “What’s the matter over there?” I asked a spectator.

      “It’s young Chuckie. His team is winning seven-nowt and yet he’s been arguing with the ref for the last five minutes that they should have been granted another goal.”

      That was so like Bobby. He wanted to win all the time.’

      Rob Storey agrees. ‘Bobby was always small for his age and went by the name of “Little Bobby”. Maybe it was because of the low centre of gravity that he could control the ball so well. When we were playing in Hirst Park, everyone always wanted him in their team, because he was so much better than the rest of us, even though he was younger than most.’ Evan Martin, who later went to grammar school with Bobby, recalls seeing him in a junior match: ‘Bobby was only seven years old then, but already he was running rings round lads who were 11. He had terrific speed, one-touch skills and lovely balance. My father, who was a football fanatic and was also watching, turned to me and said, “Watch that kid Charlton. He’ll make a name for himself.’”

      Bobby’s talent was in direct contrast to Jack, who failed to shine amongst his contemporaries, as Rob Storey remembers: ‘In all honesty, he was little better than me. Physically, he stood out a mile because of his height and long neck, but, when it came to football skills, though he was a solid full-back, he was so inferior to Bobby that it was an embarrassment.’ Jackie Lothian says their destinies could not have looked more different. ‘We all knew that Bobby would be a footballer, but we never thought Jack would be one. He was no better than anyone else. You see, he had no motivation. The thought of a career in the game had never entered his mind.’

      Jack had the same character on the field as he was to show at Leeds, aggressive, uncompromising. But rather than playing centre-half, he was generally a full-back in his early games. And Bobby Whitehead says that this was his biggest problem. ‘Being tall, he was good in the air but, at left-back, I think he was out of position. I kept him out of our school team for a few games when I was 14 and he was 15. But when we had a Cup match, our usual centre-half was off sick, so Jack moved in there. My father, who was watching, said afterwards, “That’s the lad’s position. He had a brilliant game.’”

      Perhaps the greatest myth about the Charlton upbringing in football is that Cissie taught Bobby how to play football. Folklore has it that, to quote Bobby, ‘Being a Milburn with football coursing deep in her veins, she took me out on the slag heaps of Ashington and showed me everything from selling a dummy to scoring from 50 yards.’ But this tale is untrue. For Bobby was a totally instinctive footballer, with a natural sense of how to play. Moreover, though Cissie provided exactly the right environment for her football-crazy son, she only once gave him direct, personal coaching. This happened when he was already 15, was at Manchester United and had played for the England Schoolboys. After one of these schoolboy internationals, Cissie had been talking to the chairman of the selectors, who said that Bobby’s slowness on the turn was a serious weakness. When she returned to Ashington with Bobby, she decided to give him some specialized training. Adopting the methods that her own father, Tanner, had used when coaching sprinters, she took Bobby to Hirst Park early in the morning and had him running backwards and forwards until his speed on the turn gradually increased. ‘I suppose that to a stranger it may have looked odd to see a 15 year old training like that with his mother, but this was Ashington and everyone knew I was football mad,’ she said.

      Cissie’s СКАЧАТЬ