Bobby Charlton

Bobby Charlton
Bobby Charlton 2010
Personnel
Surname	Sir Robert Charlton CBE
birthday	October 11, 1937
place of birth	Ashington ,  England
size	173 cm
position	Midfield , storm
Juniors
Years	station
	East Northumberland Schools
1953-1954	Manchester United
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1954-1973	Manchester United	606 (199)
1973-1975	Preston North End	38 (8) 00
1976	Waterford FC	3 (1) 00
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1953	England (school selection)	4 (5) 00
1954	England (youth selection)	1 (1) 00
1958-1960	England U-23	6 (5) 00
1958-1970	England	106 0(49)
Stations as a trainer
Years	station
1973-1975	Preston North End
1983	Wigan Athletic
1 Only league games are given.

Sir Robert "Bobby" Charlton CBE (born October 11, 1937 in Ashington , Northumberland ) is a retired English football player . He was part of the world championship team that won the title in their own country in 1966 and was voted Europe's Footballer of the Year in the same year . He was active for almost his entire career for the club Manchester United , where he became famous as an attacking midfielder in addition to his forays into the attacking center by his long-range goals.

As early as 1956, Charlton made his debut in the professional team of Manchester United and worked out a regular place in the two following seasons. During this time he was one of the survivors of the plane disaster that killed eight of his teammates in Munich in 1958. After winning the championship in the 1964/65 season , he became football world champion the following year. Following another championship in 1967 , he led his team as captain to win the European Cup in the 1967/68 season , where he contributed two hits in the final. To date, he has scored the most goals, together with Wayne Rooney , for Manchester United and, after Ryan Giggs, has played the most competitive games in Manchester United's history. From 1970 to 2015 he was the sole record scorer for the England team , then his record of 49 goals was set by Wayne Rooney on September 5th. Today he is considered by many experts as one of the best football players of all time.

After his era at Manchester United, he worked briefly as a player-coach at Preston North End from 1973 , but withdrew from there after only one season. After a brief stint at Wigan Athletic, he joined the management of his former club in Manchester in 1984, where he is still active in representative functions today.

Athletic career

Early in his career

Although his uncle Jackie Milburn had been a successful center forward at Newcastle United , mother Cissie would initially be the first person in Bobby Charlton's life to introduce him to football and become his coach. His older brother Jack worked as a miner early on and applied for a career as a police officer before turning to football.

On February 9, 1953, Manchester United's talent scout Joe Armstrong noticed Charlton when he was playing a game at his East Northumberland school. He was later to play in the English national school team and then joined United at the age of 15, although he had also had offers from numerous other clubs. His mother was initially skeptical of the uncertain prospects of a football career, so he initially began training as a technician. In October 1954, he took the risky step and became a professional player.

Charlton became part of the famous "Busby Babes", a generation of highly talented young players who came from the youth division of Manchester United in the 1940s and 1950s, which in turn was led by coach Matt Busby after the end of the Second World War was launched as part of a fundamental restructuring of the club. Within this system, Charlton worked his way up as the youth team's goalscorer over the reserve team until he finally got his first game in the first team against Charlton Athletic in October 1956 . At that time he was doing community service and later military service in Shrewsbury  - in the latter case together with his teammate Duncan Edwards  - following Busby's advice in choosing the location, as he continued to work on the weekends Should be able to play for his club.

Breakthrough at Manchester United

During his first season, Charlton appeared in 14 games for Manchester. He immediately won the English championship, but missed the first double of an English club in the 20th century with his team after a final defeat in the FA Cup due to unfortunate circumstances . The only 19-year-old Charlton was used in the final match in which United's goalkeeper Ray Wood in the clash with the striker Aston Villa  - Peter McParland  had to leave with a broken jaw on the field -. Although Charlton was considered a possible replacement for Wood - at the time substitutions were not yet allowed - Jackie Blanchflower completed the rest of the game as goalkeeper instead .

Charlton was also part of the first English team to play in the European Cup in its first season (previously the domestic FA was skeptical of the competition). There Manchester United reached the semi-finals , in which, however, Real Madrid moved into the final as winners on the two legs. After defending the title in the English championship in the 1956/57 season , Charlton reached the quarter-finals again with United in the European Cup and had to face Red Star Belgrade there . A 2-1 home win in the first game in Yugoslavia  - after two goals from Bobby Charlton - was followed by a 3-0 lead. Although the team from Belgrade was able to equalize to a 3-3 draw, United had qualified for the semi-finals after adding the two results and started their flight home in a correspondingly victorious mood.

The Munich disaster

→ Main article : British European Airways Flight 609

The aircraft taking off from Zemun - and occupied by the United players and the club staff - had to be refueled in wintry Munich . Although the weather conditions steadily deteriorated, after the refueling process the flight took off again, which was then canceled twice and resulted in the passengers having to leave the aircraft again to repair a technical defect.

After just ten minutes, the passengers were again asked to board the aircraft. In the emerging nervousness, Tommy Taylor and David Pegg decided to look for a supposedly safe place in the back and swapped seats with Charlton and his teammate Dennis Viollet , which only a short time later turned out to be a fatal decision for Taylor and Pegg should.

On the next attempt to take off, the aircraft broke through the fence at the end of the runway. A wing tore through a nearby house, set it on fire and part of the stern fell to the ground, where a tree and a wooden hut were hit. Charlton, buckled into his seat, fell out of the cabin and the goalkeeper Harry Gregg , who was lucky enough to be completely uninjured and carried out rescue operations on his own, initially believed that Charlton had not survived. Gregg spontaneously pulled him - together with Viollet out of the danger zone, in constant fear that the plane might explode. When Gregg returned to the scene of the accident to help the seriously injured Busby and Blanchflower, Charlton and Viollet came to and broke out of their seats.

Charlton sustained a few cuts to his head and was hospitalized for a week, mainly due to a severe shock. Seven of his teammates had fallen victim to the disaster, including Taylor and Pegg, with whom he - together with Viollet - had swapped places. Among the dead United players were the team captain Roger Byrne and Mark Jones , Billy Whelan , Eddie Colman and Geoff Bent ( Duncan Edwards also died two weeks after the accident). The crash claimed a total of 23 victims. For a long time, the increased ice formation on the wings was blamed as the cause, which had to be revised after a later investigation (apparently the slush on the runway made it almost impossible for the aircraft to take off safely).

Charlton was the first survivor to leave the hospital and returned to Manchester eight days after the accident - on February 14, 1958. During his recovery period, he played a little with youth teams in his area. Although he was only 20 years old, the events of Munich jerked him into one of the great hopes of completely rebuilding a team that Busby tried to put together for the rest of the season.

As expected, the decimated team was defeated in the European Cup semi-finals against AC Milan with a total of 2: 5 goals on both legs and fell further back in the English championship. Nevertheless, the team managed - as in the previous year - to move into the FA Cup final and was coached by Busby for the first time at Wembley Stadium. Despite a wave of sympathy for the United team across the country, the Bolton Wanderers won there  - after two goals from Nat Lofthouse  - 2-0.

Promotion to the top player in Manchester and in the English national team

At this time, Charlton completed his ascent as England's greatest young football talent when he was first called up to the England national team to compete in the British Home Championship against Scotland in Hampden Park . At the same time, this game marked the beginning of a long, eventful, record-breaking career as an English national player, recognized worldwide.

During the spectacular 4-0 win against Scottish arch-rivals, Charlton made a positive impression and turned a cross from left winger Tom Finney to his first international goal with a hard direct shot . On his second appearance for England, Charlton scored both goals to a 2-1 win in a friendly against Portugal . The successful first steps in the national team were followed by a difficult turn for Charlton when he returned to Belgrade for his third assignment . Charlton acted very nervously there in an overall very weak English team that lost 5-0 to Yugoslavia . Despite this setback, however, Charlton was subsequently appointed to the English squad for the 1958 World Cup in Sweden . There, however, he was not supposed to play a single minute, which caused astonishment and great criticism in the local press - despite his poor performance in Belgrade.

In the following years, Charlton continued to develop positively at both United and the national team. He was able to steadily increase his goal rate and scored some spectacular hits. In both 1959 and 1961 he scored three goals in the 8-1 win over the United States and in the 8-0 win over Mexico .

During the qualifying games for the 1962 World Cup in Chile , he played in the games against Luxembourg and Portugal and was then nominated for the tournament itself. He scored a goal in his 25th international match during the 3-1 victory in the group game against Argentina , but could not prevent the quarter-finals when England lost 3-1 to eventual world champions Brazil .

With Manchester United, Charlton was able to record further successes when he and his team defeated Leicester City 3-1 in the final of the FA Cup in 1963 - after previously defeating twice in this competition . Busby's long-term rebuilding program had finally reached its climax when United won two more championships with Charlton in 1965 and 1967 . In the intervening year, the World Cup also took place in their own country , for which England did not have to qualify as hosts. Although he couldn't win a trophy with his club, he was named England's Footballer of the Year and Best European Footballer in 1966 .

With Alf Ramsey , the English national team had a new coach, who for the first time was allowed to decide alone on the nomination of the players (up to the World Cup in Chile this had previously been decided in a special procedure in a committee of the FA). Ramsey sorted out some older players who had previously always had their loyal advocates on the committee (in addition to football skills and the current form strength, behavior on the pitch was always considered to be at least as important). Since Charlton had strengths in all three areas, his nomination was beyond dispute regardless of this paradigm shift. Charlton was the only remaining attacking midfielder around whom Ramsey built the future world champion. Before the start of the tournament, experts in Charlton expected to be able to see the rise to a star of the World Cup - due to the danger of scoring goals and the creative way of playing in the center - among the world's best players.

The world championship year 1966

The opening game of the tournament was also Charlton's 69th appearance for England and ended in a goalless 0-0 win against Uruguay . In their second game against Mexico , one of Charlton's most famous goals ensured that the English team found good form in the tournament.

Charlton picked up the ball in the center circle of Wembley Stadium, tricked an opponent with a body deception , pushed into a suddenly vacant space on the offensive and scored the opening goal with a long shot in the left corner. After England won this game 2-0, another victory followed with the same result against France and England moved into the quarter-finals.

There England beat a team from Argentina who were on the verge of fairness 1-0. In the semifinals, England faced the secret favorites from Portugal , in which Charlton showed an extraordinarily good performance. He scored the first goal after shoving the rebound ball into empty goals in a defensive move by the Portuguese goalkeeper against Roger Hunt , and scored his second goal after Geoff Hurst's assist . This made Charlton (together with Hunt) the best English goalscorer of the tournament at the time and should now meet the DFB selection in the final .

Although the game turned out to be one of the most spectacular games in football history, Charlton acted rather inconspicuously, as he neutralized himself in a kind of mutual coverage with the young Franz Beckenbauer . His teammates - including his brother Jack Charlton - nevertheless ensured the success for England and ultimately won the World Cup after 4-2 goals after extra time  - and three goals from Hurst (including the " goal from Wembley ").

Success in European football

With the game against Northern Ireland , Charlton already had his 75th international match and after two more encounters became the player with the second most appearances for England after Billy Wright , who had made 105 appearances and was still playing with the young Bobby Charlton when he was looked forward to his 100th game.

A good ten years after the events in Munich, Manchester United reached the final in the European Cup in 1967/68 and - although several other clubs had taken part in this most important European club competition in the past decade - should be the first English representative to do so. In a very emotional final, the team led by team captain Charlton beat Portuguese champions Benfica Lisbon 4-1 after extra time. Just a few weeks later, with his 45th international goal, Charlton took over the record set by Jimmy Greaves a year earlier with 44 in a friendly against Sweden . This was followed by a semi-final defeat for Charlton at the EM 1968 against Yugoslavia in Florence and a 2-0 win against the Soviet Union in the game for third place.

In 1969 Charlton was awarded the Order of the British Empire as "OBE" and he reached the 100-internationals limit against Northern Ireland on April 21 of the following year, where Ramsey named him England captain for the occasion. The 48th international goal in this game was followed a month later by his 49th and last goal for England in a preparatory game against Colombia  - as part of a tour of South America intended as high altitude training for the 1970 World Cup in Mexico . The inevitable nomination of Charlton for the World Cup itself then ensured that Charlton is the first and to this day only English player who was in the squad of four World Cups.

The world championship year 1970 and the withdrawal from active sport

England started in Mexico with two wins in the group stage and one loss to Brazil between the two successes. Charlton was used in all three games and was only substituted in the last game against Czechoslovakia for Alan Ball  - in the feeling of certain qualification for the quarter-finals with the aim of sparing.

In the round of the last eight teams, England faced the DFB team once again . Charlton controlled the encounter in midfield very well, kept Beckenbauer from his dreaded offensive runs and was partly responsible for England taking a 2-0 lead. When Beckenbauer hit the 1: 2 goal, Ramsey swapped the tired - and now aging - Charlton for Colin Bell , who immediately failed with a chance at the German goalkeeper Sepp Maier and finally served with a cross Geoff Hurst, who in atypical manner could not take advantage of this great opportunity to hit. The German team, whose strength had always been in catching up games that were believed to be lost, turned the game with two more goals - Uwe Seeler's 2-2 equalizer with the back of his head was followed by Gerd Müller's winning goal in extra time. England were eliminated from the tournament and after 106 international matches and 49 goals, the now 32-year-old Bobby Charlton asked his coach Ramsey not to consider him in the future. This step was followed by his two years older brother and now 71 times England national player Jack Charlton.

Contrary to a widespread opinion in public opinion, the replacement of Charlton in the game against Germany, according to experts, was not fundamentally responsible for the turn towards England's defeat. Beckenbauer's follow-up goal took place at a time when Charlton was on the field and, according to a statement by Charlton during a documentary by the BBC , the latter confirmed that his substitution - also in view of the situation of the already accepted goal - had no additional negative impact on that Had game. His record for the number of English internationals, with which he was also the world record holder , lasted until 1973 when Bobby Moore surpassed him. Even today he is in fourth place behind Moore, David Beckham and Peter Shilton , who started his England career exactly after Charlton had finished it. His goal scoring record lasted until 2015 when he was replaced by Wayne Rooney .

In the early 1970s, Manchester United was in a sporting crisis and was often in relegation battle. Within the team there were considerable communication problems with the other top players George Best and Denis Law , who expressed themselves, among other things, in the fact that Best refused to take part in a friendly game in honor of Bobby Charlton (in order to enjoy a - usually tax-free - "testimonial matches ”are taken as a benchmark in British football for at least ten years at the same club - along with other honorable achievements) and noted that otherwise he would have felt“ hypocritical ”. Charlton left after the end of the 1972/73 season and a total of 249 goals in 758 games, his long-term club. To this day, he is considered the club's record goal scorer; he held the record for most competitive appearances until 2008, when Ryan Giggs overtook him in the Champions League final. Charlton played the last game for United against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge , before which Charlton, a passionate smoker, received a cigar box as a farewell gift from the Chelsea club chairman.

Style of play

Charlton began as a winger on the wing in his early phase at Manchester United , but over time he developed more and more into a central striker who came from midfield and resembled the style of play of Alfredo Di Stéfano , whom Charlton already admired as a youth player and in tried to copy the following period. This clearly differentiated him from a conventional - and more physically oriented - center forward .

His style of play also benefited from his great strength in long-range shots. He had already trained a shooting technique that was equally powerful with both feet from an early age. The imperative of fairness, which is always high in English football, was presented particularly ideally by Charlton, as he rarely committed foul games and only rarely had to be warned by the referee .

After the football career

Charlton hired Preston North End in 1973 as a player- coach and worked there with his former teammate - both at United and on the national team - Nobby Stiles . However, this engagement lasted only a short time and ended immediately after the club's relegation from the second-rate Second Division . After his ennoblement to "Commander of the British Empire" (CBE) in 1974, as a result of which he was given the personal title "Sir", Charlton worked for several years at irregular intervals with the BBC and commented on football matches as an expert. He also came back in 1975 for the Irish club Waterford FC when they lost to Finn Harps in the FAI Cup .

He finally moved to a director post at the club Wigan Athletic and even looked after the team as a coach on an interim basis. After a short interlude in South Africa as a player, he then worked in a variety of professional fields, including in the jewelry and travel business. He also opened several football schools in Great Britain, the United States, Canada , Australia and China . In 1984, his old club, Manchester United, offered him a position on the board , which in addition to his knowledge of football also required his illustrious name - especially after Busby's retirement from the post of director in favor of the presidency. Charlton accepted the offer and is still active for the association in a representative function - mostly as a kind of "ambassador" in all parts of the world.

Charlton supported the application process of the city of Manchester for the Summer Olympics in 1996 and 2000, as well as for the Commonwealth Games in 2002 , the English application for the Football World Cup in 2006 and finally the Olympic Games in London in 2012 . In 1994 he was beaten to a Knight Bachelor degree by the British Queen and has since been allowed to call himself "Sir". In addition, he was inducted into the newly established English Football Hall of Fame in 2002. Charlton also received an honorary doctorate from the University of Manchester .

successes

• World Champion : 1966
• European champion cup : 1968
• English champion : 1957 , 1965 , 1967
• FA Cup winner : 1963
• Charity Shield winner: 1957, 1965 *, 1967 * * (shared title)
• Europe's footballer of the year : 1966
• England's Footballer of the Year: 1966

Trivia

Bobby Charlton (1966) and two British mannequins

• Bobby Charlton has been married to his wife Norma since 1961. They have two daughters, and Suzanne Charlton is best known to the public as she works for the BBC as a "weather announcer".
• When Charlton was already struggling with increased hair loss in the early 1960s and tried to hide this by letting the remaining hair grow long and combing it over the bald areas, he justified the - somewhat involuntarily, but still under this today Known name - "Bobby Charlton Comb-Over" style.
• In his entire football career, Charlton never suffered an injury.
• At the German Football Culture Prize 2011, Bobby Charlton was awarded the Walther Bensemann Prize .

literature

• Michael Crick: Manchester United: The Betrayal of a Legend , Pan Books 1990
• Bobby Charlton: My Manchester United Years , Headline 2007

Web links

Commons : Bobby Charlton  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Bobby Charlton in the weltfussball.de database
• Bobby Charlton in the database of FIFA (English)
• International Football Hall of Fame: Bobby Charlton

Individual evidence

1. ↑ thefa.com: "Rooney equals record as England reach Euro 2016"
2. ↑ Rashford receives an honorary doctorate from the University of Manchester. July 15, 2020, accessed July 19, 2020 . 
3. ↑ Sir Bobby Charlton receives Walther Bensemann Prize kicker-tv , accessed on August 15, 2018