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Jack Charlton obituary: A World Cup winner and footballing hero with Leeds, England and Ireland
Jack Charlton, who has died at the age of 85, enjoyed a storied career across more than four decades at football's top table.
A solid defender, his hard work and dedication saw him win a World Cup winners’ medal alongside his younger brother Bobby, the more gifted of the pair, in 1966. He was also a key member of the Leeds side which consistently challenged for English and European honours in the 1960s and 1970s.
Although Bobby, who was later knighted, was the more celebrated of the brothers in their playing days – they fell out later in life before reconciling – Jack was a more successful manager.
He was held in the highest esteem in Middlesbrough after guiding the club into the old first division as champions. But it was on the international stage that he rose to prominence with the Republic of Ireland.
A nation which came to know him simply as "Big Jack" revelled in the success he brought. Mr Charlton guided Ireland to their first World Cup in 1990, with the team reaching the quarter finals.
Born in the Northumberland colliery village of Ashington on May 8, 1935, the eldest child of miner Bob and his wife Cissie, a cousin of north-east football royalty Jackie Milburn, Mr Charlton learned his football with Ashington YMCA and Ashington Welfare before joining the ground staff at Leeds in 1950.
He went on to make a record 629 league appearances as a defender for the Elland Road club before eventually retiring a few weeks before his 38th birthday in 1973.
Over more than 20 years at Leeds, broken up by a spell on national service with the Horse Guards, Mr Charlton won the First and Second Division titles, the FA Cup, the League Cup and the Inter Cities Fairs Cup twice and was named the Football Writers’ Association Footballer of the Year in 1967.
But it was with England, for whom he played 35 times, that he wrote himself into the history books as a mainstay in the country's only World Cup win.
He was nearly 30 when he made his full debut in a 2-2 Home Championship draw with Scotland in April 1965 and, a little more than a year later, played his part in the most famous day in England’s sporting history.
One of the abiding images of the 4-2 World Cup final victory over West Germany on July 30, 1966 is that of the 6ft 3in defender sinking to his knees at the final whistle before embracing his younger brother, although he would later admit he did not remember too much about it.
He said: “There’s a picture of me at the end down on my knees. I don’t remember if I was saying a prayer or just knackered.
“I had chased after Geoff Hurst to give him a hug and chased our kid [Bobby] to give him a hug and then collapsed to my knees, so I suppose I must have been knackered.”
Following his retirement as a player, he was appointed manager at Division Two club Middlesbrough in May 1973 and won promotion at the first attempt before ending his four-year spell on Teesside and then taking up the reins at Sheffield Wednesday.
He spent almost six seasons at Hillsborough and later had brief spells back at Middlesborough and with Newcastle before Ireland came calling in February 1986.
In almost a decade at the helm, Mr Charlton built Ireland into a real international force with as he made use of the qualification rules to boost his squad with players born outside the country and moulded them into a team which feared no one, even while sometimes struggling to remember their names.
Midfield schemer Liam Brady recalled: “Jack Charlton’s first words to me were, ‘You’re number eight, Ian’. I said, ‘Ian Brady was the Moors murderer, Jack’.”
It was at the World Cup in Italy that Mr Charlton enjoyed his finest moment as a manger, Ireland eventually bowing out to the hosts in the quarter-finals. They were at it again four years later as Ray Houghton fired them to a 1-0 win over the Italians at Giants Stadium in New Jersey, Mr Charlton’s men making an impression at a second successive finals. His resignation in December 1995 brought an end to a remarkable era.
Awarded the OBE in 1974, he was made a freeman of the city of Dublin 20 years later, and the affection in which he was held on both sides of the Irish Sea was reflected in the rapturous reception he received when he was presented to the crowd at the Aviva Stadium ahead of the friendly between Ireland and England in June 2015.
A man who combined his football with a love of outdoor pursuits – Mr Charlton was as happy fishing and shooting as he was in the dug-out – he suffered ill-health in later life but remained a charismatic and popular figure with football fans across the generations.
He is survived by wife Pat, whom he married in 1958, and their three children, John, Deborah and Peter.
With additional reporting by PA
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