Bobby Charlton, an English footballer, dies at the age of 86

Bobby Charlton, one of football’s greatest players, who won the World Cup with England in 1966 in a glittering career tinged by the tragedy of losing eight of his Manchester United teammates in a plane crash early in his playing days, died on Saturday. He was 86.

His death was confirmed in a statement from Manchester United, who called him one of the club’s ‘greatest and best-loved players’. The statement did not say where he died or give a cause. In November 2020, it was revealed that Charlton had dementia.

Charlton was known for his shot and ruthless goals, even though he did not play as a traditional striker. He was England’s top scorer for 45 years, with 49 goals, until Wayne Rooney reached the milestone in September 2015. Charlton was also Manchester United’s top scorer for decades, with 249 goals in 758 appearances in 17 years, until Rooney also surpassed that figure. , in January 2017.

In addition to his scoring exploits, Charlton’s career was indelibly marked by a plane crash in 1958, shortly after he became a professional player. After a European Cup match against Red Star Belgrade, the plane carrying the Manchester United team crashed in heavy snow during a refueling stop in Munich. Of the 23 deaths, eight were players. Charlton, who was dragged from the wreckage by a teammate, was 21 years old at the time.

Just three weeks later, with United manager Matt Busby still in hospital in Germany, Charlton was back on the pitch. Because of his dignity in leading the Manchester United team through that dark period and his sportsmanship, commentators called him football’s first gentleman.

Charlton became director and ambassador of Manchester United in 1984. A statue of him, along with his legendary teammates George Best and Denis Law – together they were known as the United Trinity – was erected outside Manchester United’s stadium, Old Trafford, in 2008. In 2016, the club renamed the stadium’s south stand in his honor. Charlton is also credited with giving Old Trafford the nickname, the Theater of Dreams.

Robert Charlton was born on October 11, 1937 in Ashington, Northumberland, in the north of England, the son of Robert and Elizabeth (Milburn) Charlton. His father was a miner, but the family had football in the genes. Four of his uncles were professional players, and his mother’s cousin, Jackie Milburn, was a famous striker for Newcastle United; Bobby’s brother Jack became a professional player at Leeds and also represented England.

“There was nothing else in life, it didn’t seem to me, except football,” said Bobby Charlton in a 2010 Sky Sports documentary.

Charlton turned professional in 1954 and made his first appearance for Manchester United on 6 October 1956, at the age of 18. When he was called up to the first team by Busby, he had to hide the fact that he had an injury.

“I actually had a sprained ankle, but I wasn’t going to admit it,” Charlton said in a 2011 BBC documentary. He scored twice on his debut.

Manchester United won the league title in the 1956-57 season, with Charlton becoming a central player. The team was known as the Busby Babes after the manager, who had scoured the playing fields of England to find the best young talent to match his vision of football played with panache, pace and quick passing.

The success in the competition earned Manchester United a place in the European Cup, the predecessor of the Champions League, the following season. After a 3-3 draw against Red Star secured a place in the semi-finals, the plane taking the team home stopped for refueling in Munich. Amid terrible weather conditions, two takeoff attempts were aborted. On the third the plane crashed.

The team’s goalkeeper, Harry Gregg, crawled to safety through a hole in the fuselage and dragged Charlton and another teammate, Dennis Viollet, away. “I left them there dead,” Gregg told the BBC in 2011. ‘The biggest shock I had was when I turned around and Bobby Charlton and Dennis Viollet were staring at the rest of the plane exploding in the petrol dump. Just stare.”

Charlton returned home to recover from his injuries, which were relatively minor. He also had to deal with the psychological trauma of returning to the playing field without his lost teammates.

United rebuilt around Charlton. Busby recovered from his injuries and in the 1960s he began creating a new team. By mid-decade, Charlton was a mainstay of Manchester United and a linchpin of England as a country. prepared to organize the 1966 World Cup.

England started the tournament slowly, but in the second match, against Mexico, Charlton provided the inspiration with a trademark goal. Crossing the halfway line he penetrated into the opponent’s penalty area as the defender retreated and fired a shot into the top corner of the net with such languid violence that the ball almost tore the goalposts out of the ground.

“I hit it and it was as sweet as a nut,” Charlton said in 2011. “I thought, People will remember that because I will remember it for a long time.”

He won in the semi-final against Portugal scored two more goals to place his team in the final against West Germany setting up one of the most memorable games in World Cup history.

Charlton was told by England coach Alf Ramsey to shadow Germany’s best player, Franz Beckenbauer. What the English did not know was that Beckenbauer had received the same instructions in reverse order from his own coach.

“He was so fit,” Beckenbauer later recalled of Charlton. “He ran like a horse. It was very difficult to stop him. It was almost impossible.”

Beckenbauer and Charlton managed to largely eliminate each other, but the pulsating match went into extra time, when England took the lead 3-2 after a controversial goal from Geoff Hurst. The shot hit the crossbar and bounced down, and Russian linesman Tofiq Bahramov marked for a goal. Whether the ball crossed the line is still a subject of debate.

Buoyed by the lead, England scored a fourth goal, with Hurst hitting his third of the match in the dying seconds. As Hurst lined up his shot and fired it into the net, BBC commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme uttered perhaps the most famous line in English football: ‘Some people stand on the pitch and think it’s all over. It is now! There are four!”

Won with the trophy, Charlton and his teammates were celebrated as heroes. But the Charlton fairy tale had not yet turned the final page.

Busby had added Law, a predatory Scottish striker, and Best, a rangy, volatile genius from Northern Ireland, to his new-look Manchester United team, which still had Charlton as its base. In the 1967-68 season, ten years after the Munich disaster, Manchester United qualified for the European Cup again.

The team defeated Real Madrid, then six-time champions, in the semi-finals, and met Benfica of Portugal in the final at Wembley Stadium in London. Infused with the memories of the players lost a decade earlier, the occasion was steeped in poignancy.

“The most important thing going into it was that we were going to win the game,” Charlton said. “There was no alternative. We had to win that match.”

Charlton opened the scoring with a header, but the match went to extra time. Dejected with exhaustion, but determined to finally win the trophy that had cost the club so much, United’s players dug deep. Best put the team ahead, Brian Kidd scored a third and Charlton added the final blow with a fourth.

“We did it,” Charlton recalled in 2011. “When the final whistle blew, everyone rushed to Sir Matt. It was his players who were lost in Munich. It was his guys, his team and everyone in the entire audience, maybe even the entire country, was thinking a little bit about Matt Busby’s feelings that night.

Charlton is survived by his wife Norma, whom he married in 1961; two daughters, Suzanne and Andrea; and grandchildren.

He ended his career in 1973 with a record that can compare with the best in the world. In his later role as manager of Manchester United he provided a key link between the era of the Busby Babes and a new period of dominance forged by another Scottish manager, Alex Ferguson.

“Undoubtedly the greatest player of all time,” Ferguson said of Charlton in 2011. “It could float along the ground, just like a piece of tinfoil.”

Loved by Manchester United fans, Charlton was also appreciated by supporters of all teams around the world. He became the embodiment of the legendary, perhaps mythical, nobility of English football.

Hurst, his England teammate, said Charlton’s range became apparent when he spoke to people who did not speak English. “There’s only one bit of English they can say,” Hurst explained. “And that’s ‘Bobby Charlton.'”