From modest beginnings to a career like no other, Charlton, who has died aged 86, came to symbolise the best of English football. He was world renowned yet never forgot his roots
he body leaning forward, the hank of blond hair flopping to one side of an already thinning pate, the white-shirted figure seems to glide – the hips not moving an inch from the horizontal plane – as the acceleration carries him over the pristine turf, arrowing down the pitch’s central axis as he crosses the halfway line, moving the ball forward with brisk touches of his left boot.
Not all of the goals Charlton scored – 249 for United in all competitions, 49 for England – had the flamboyance of that effort against Mexico in 1966, but almost all had drama and relevance. And anyone who was present for even one of them will still remember it, half a century or more later, because those goals were the signature of the man who, more than any other single individual, came to symbolise the best elements of the character of English football.
Apart from an ankle injury that delayed his first-team debut with United in 1956, five days before his 19th birthday, he was never injured throughout his career. Nor did he makes problems for referees. It probably helped that regaining possession in the tackle was something he happily left to a Nobby Stiles or a Pat Crerand.
For Bobby, football overshadowed birds-nesting, fishing and every other recreation of a childhood in a mining town surrounded by countryside. At his school, the football team played in crimson shirts with laces at the neck and shorts made from black-out curtains. He was marked out early and signed up to United’s ground staff at 15.
Charlton would describe his relationship with the game of football as not a vocation but a compulsion. Crerard, who played with him when they were both grown men, had an insight into that, too: “When he got the ball in the pre-match warm-up he was like a kid with a new toy. He was a great player, but he never got over the thrill of having the ball at his feet.”
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