My Manchester United Years: The Autobiography

by Bobby Charlton

  The company had three shops, and though in time the business would become difficult, especially with the arrival of the internet, I was grateful for the chance to do something which would give me both an income and also a little time to plot my future.

  It didn’t take long to realise, however, that I wasn’t going to make a fortune out of the travel business, and that I had to shape something more for myself. Though football management hadn’t worked for me, no more than it would for the majority of my World Cup team-mates with the notable exception of my brother Jack of course, the game itself was impossible to push away from the centre of my thoughts. Somehow, I never stopped hoping I would get to be part of football again, and then perhaps my world would return securely to its axis.

  Freddie Pye had opened the first door for me, then, by chance, the BBC took me through the second. They invited me to do some commentary and features during the World Cup of 1978 in Argentina. When I was there I was asked, with Alfredo di Stefano, to present an award at half time during one of the games. This coincided with a remarkable coaching session involving some young boys, who displayed astonishing ball skills.

  The BBC made a short film of di Stefano and me watching the lads, and when I returned home people were saying, ‘Wow, I saw you on television with those little South American kids. Weren’t they fantastic?’

  I agreed but added, ‘There is no reason why our boys couldn’t be like that.’ This is how the Bobby Charlton Soccer School was born; how I found a way to be a working part of football again.

  The more I thought about it, the more I could see how there was a vacuum in the way we taught our kids to play football. There was a missing element – the fun, the sheer enjoyment of playing the game. I remembered my grammar school days when our sports master was really the geography teacher. He was a good man, but undoubtedly he did the job under sufferance. It wasn’t his passion. Freddie Pye was once again a great supporter. I asked him if he would be interested in helping me form a company and he readily agreed.

  My business sense might not have been particularly well developed, but I could see clearly the potential of a project that could be organised for the five or six weeks of summer school holidays when, I thought, so many parents must be fed up with so many people telling their kids what not to do.

  The surge of excitement was tremendous, the strongest I had felt since I had put away my boots. I contacted Ray Whelan, a staff coach at the FA, and he gathered together some of his lads. I told them, ‘I want to do something for the kids in this country, but in my situation it has to be commercial. It’s got to be a proper business, but there is one thing we have to guarantee … that you will make sure these lads improve as footballers – and enjoy themselves at the same time. I insist they have a good time.’

  Perhaps inevitably, I received a lot of hostility from the Football Association: how could I dare to do this? I wasn’t a qualified coach, I hadn’t gone through the system. But I told myself once again, as I’d done before joining Preston, that I was not without a little background, I had played a few matches, had been around people like Matt Busby, Alf Ramsey and Jimmy Murphy, and maybe I could pass on a little bit about the meaning of football. At the FA no individual came out against me openly, but it was made quite clear there would be no co-operation – and certainly no blessing. Indeed, I heard later that messages went out from the old Lancaster Gate FA headquarters saying that the Bobby Charlton Soccer School was an outlaw organisation, and could not be supported by anyone attached to the ruling body.

  It was not a deterrent. We organised rooms and playing fields at the universities when the students were away, and I stressed that everything we laid on for the boys, including prizes, would be to do with either watching or playing the game. One night we put on a film featuring Diego Maradona and it was great to see so many enthralled faces.

  I had a standard speech at the start of a week’s session. I told the boys that I was not their father or their teacher, but if anyone was caught swearing or stealing, or doing anything to be ashamed of, his parents would be asked to take him home immediately.

  It was magical to see it all take off. Quickly, we expanded into the Easter holidays as well, and Ray Whelan had no difficulty in hiring qualified coaches, mostly schoolteachers eager to earn some extra money. There was no shortage of big sponsors like TSB, British Gas and Sharp, and soon we were able to offer scholarships through the sponsors. Prizewinners got the chance to play under the supervision of Real Madrid and Barcelona coaches. A young lad from Essex won one of the prizes and his reward was a trip to Barcelona, where Terry Venables was the manager. Terry was taken with the boy’s skill, and when he moved to Tottenham he tried to sign him. The boy was David Beckham.

  Reflecting now, I suppose part of my enthusiasm for the school was that it took me back to my boyhood; I remembered it so well, and as football was so much part of it, it was as if I was winning some of it back. I could identify so easily with the pleasure of the lads when they worked on some exercise that they enjoyed, and I was thrilled with their response to my idea of installing six tests at different stages of the week, with points going into an aggregate that would produce the big prizewinner. The tests were about skills, just skills. You got extra points if you put the ball in the top corner of the net, if you passed the ball so accurately you hit targets with both feet, and especially popular was a juggling exercise.

  Influencing all my ideas for the school was the memory of my own feelings when I was young. I used to daydream about what might happen – and what I might say – if by some miracle I met somebody like Len Shackleton. There was also the reality of all I had gained from the time given to me by Wor Jackie Milburn. So I asked what all these kids coming to school really wanted from me, what did they expect? The answer was that they would want to see a lot of me, not just at the start and finish of the week but all the way through. So I went every day. I loved it.

  The potential, first created for me by that little passage of film made in Argentina, was clearly immense. The exchange scheme with Real Madrid and Barcelona was expanded to Benfica, and then it seemed that we could go almost anywhere in the world. We went to America, to Australia and then, most excitingly, to China. While we were there we were told that the football authority wanted to send a squad to Britain to prepare for the World Youth Tournament, which was being held in Scotland the following year. I talked to Coca Cola and British Airways, and they agreed to sponsor the trip. I organised some games for the squad, and one of them was at the ground of Witton Albion. I was late for the game, arriving at half time. When I went into the dressing room I was amazed to see all the Chinese lads sitting on the floor, sticking acupuncture pins into their knees and their ankles.

  I had the idea of setting the six tests for the Chinese boys, and offering the prize of three months in Manchester with United for the lads who finished in the top two places. I had talked to Alex Ferguson and he had approved the idea. Impressively, every member of the Chinese team, even the goalkeeper, beat the best score achieved by any British boy, including the 1988 winner David Beckham. One of the winners, a little lad called Su Mao Zhen – of course we knew him as Sue – eventually became a Footballer of the Year in China and now he is involved in their Olympic programme. Unfortunately, he broke an ankle while in Manchester and had a pin inserted. When he returned home, the Chinese doctors wanted to remove the pin but he insisted it stayed. Later, he handed me a little book that told the story of his three months with Manchester United.

  It was a wonderful adventure in football for ‘Sue’ – and one of the many rewards that flowed to me from a business which was successful in every way I could have wanted. Eventually, the operation became tougher because a lot of local authorities looked at our business and said, ‘We can do that.’ When one of the companies who took us over, Conrad PLC, the leisure activity firm, were in turn bought out by Sheffield United, it signalled the end of my connection in all but name with the Bobby Charlton Soccer School. It was a sad
ness, but there was really no alternative. I couldn’t be a director of Sheffield United as well as Manchester United.

  It was in 1984, eleven years after I’d left with my heart in my throat, that I received the invitation to return to United as a director. Apart from the soccer school which had given me such pleasure and reward, my focus on professional football had necessarily shifted about in the years since I had parted with Preston. I had scored eighteen goals in thirty-one games for my friend Shay Brennan’s Waterford United in Ireland, had played a little in the South African league and was then a director and, briefly, caretaker manager at Wigan Athletic. From time to time I was a pundit for BBC television. I had enjoyed it all because it kept me involved in the game; it maintained the flow of my lifeblood. But nothing had touched me quite like the call from Old Trafford – the one that asked me to come home.

  25

  COMING HOME

  THE FIRST OVERTURE for a return to Manchester United came a few years before I joined the board in 1984. It was made by the chairman Louis Edwards, who had been such a strong supporter of the Old Man. He came up to me after a game, put his arm around my shoulder and said, ‘Come back to Old Trafford, Bobby … come back to where you belong.’

  I had felt a flush of the old excitement, as though time, having in some ways stood still, was ticking again, but I could see straight away it wasn’t right. It was a warm sentiment from the man who had long held the title ‘Champagne Louis’ for the enthusiasm of his celebration of our triumphs in the sixties, but it was also a little foggy. Maybe a sentimental whim, a longing for a return to happier, less complicated days, I speculated. I had to ask the hard question: ‘Doing what, Mr Edwards?’

  The chairman replied, ‘Well, you could do the public relations.’ I told him I couldn’t see myself in that role. I was a football man, and if I had value to the club I felt it was in putting my playing experience at the disposal of the board of directors. As a manager at Preston, and in all my years as a player at United, I had learned that the men who really knew how to run a club, who understood all aspects of the challenge, were almost invariably those who had grown up within the professional football ranks. The supreme example for me was, of course, Sir Matt Busby. They are the ones who have learned in all their years in the game something that quite often escapes the most successful businessmen. It is quite fundamental: football will never be quite like any other business. This was something that was not often reflected in the boardrooms of the game, I told Louis Edwards – and when I think about it today, it seems remarkable that of all my contemporaries I can think of only two who graduated to the place where the big decisions are made: Dennis Tueart, a Manchester City director, and Martin Peters who had a spell on the Tottenham board.

  As it happened, my return came four years after Louis had died and been succeeded by his son Martin. In 1984 United were probably more buoyant than they had been at any time since the Old Man had surrendered the reins. Unlike his quiet predecessor, Dave Sexton, Ron Atkinson did not appear so susceptible to the expectations that had besieged all of Matt Busby’s successors. Sexton was a deeply impressive football man. He had the respect of his players and there was no doubt he knew more about coaching a team than I ever would, but even from a distance you could see that the need to win trophies facing every United manager was a particularly heavy burden for him. Dave Sexton was an introvert. Ron Atkinson was not. He was happy with the nickname Big Ron, and as confident with the media as Big Mal Allison had been while transforming our rivals City back in the mid-sixties.

  Ron was flamboyantly self-confident, believed in having players of quality, was plainly happy with a squad which included Bryan Robson, Norman Whiteside, Paul McGrath and Gordon Strachan – and there were times when the performance of his team was so good, and so in keeping with United’s tradition, that on several occasions I said during board meetings, ‘I think we should put our appreciation of the team’s performance into the minutes.’ Later Ron said we did not get along, but I was never conscious of any antipathy, and certainly I was never aware of any particular friction between us when he appeared in the boardroom.

  I liked the adventure of his football and there was plenty of evidence that United were moving back into the elite of the game. He won his second FA Cup in my first year on the board, and if the club ached for its first title win in nearly two decades it wasn’t as though the goal now seemed so remote.

  However, one hard truth of football is that potential, even when it is backed by sometimes spectacular promise, has a limited shelf-life. There is also the argument, much favoured by my brother Jack, that however good a manager, his best effect is limited to just a few years; after that his style can become a little too familiar. The fear is that players start to say, ‘Oh, we’ve heard all that before.’

  I don’t know if this was the reason, but in 1986 – five years after his appointment – it seemed that Big Ron had hit a wall. In 1985, he appeared to be flying, winning the cup again after the triumph of 1983 and then launching a brilliant campaign in the new season. Ten successive league wins swept us to the top of the table. However, the spring was filled with disappointment and we finished fourth. Then the new season brought no encouragement, a string of poor results leaving us fourth from the bottom.

  Some time before the plunge I had had a discouraging experience, seeing something that made me worry about the future of the club. It came when I went to a reserve match at Sheffield United. It’s not always easy judging players in reserve football, but the overall effect was depressing. As we drove back over the Pennines, I thought to myself, ‘Well, I can’t see any of these lads ever being in the first team.’ That had sounded a warning; then, when the results went wrong again, it was something I went back to in my mind. Where were the young lions who were going to give us new life, new impetus?

  There was talk of a drink culture building among lads like Paul McGrath and Norman Whiteside. In the boardroom the talk, predictably maybe when you consider the extent of the slide away from so much promise, was of a new manager. Some of it concerned Terry Venables, who was coming under pressure at Barcelona after the brilliant feat of leading his club to a title triumph over Real Madrid. I respected Terry, of course. He had an impressive record as a coach and a manager, a big aura, and after his time at Barca there was no question about him being intimidated by the challenge at Old Trafford. However, once the decision to part with Ron Atkinson was made, I was quite open – and emphatic – about who the new manager should be. ‘It has to be Alex Ferguson,’ I declared.

  That summer I had been doing work for the BBC at the World Cup in Mexico. Alex was the caretaker manager of Scotland after the sudden death of Jock Stein at Ninian Park in Cardiff during a qualifying game. At the Scotland–Uruguay match he was on the touchline before the game, saw me and came over to talk through the fence. We discussed the tournament prospects for a while. It was a brief but enjoyable exchange. He seemed to be filled with intensity and pride that he had been chosen by his country to step into the shoes of the great man. When we parted we said that no doubt we would see each other back home during the course of the season.

  He had been doing a brilliant job at Aberdeen, one that I had followed more closely than most in the English game because of my interest in Scottish football, something that started when I was a boy growing up so close to the border. I had seen him in action, driving Aberdeen to performances that smashed the stranglehold of the Old Firm, and I had heard the stories of how he had tackled his first managerial stints at East Stirling and St Mirren. He had gone into the streets with a microphone to whip up the fans. He was part-evangelist, part-fighter and there was never any doubt about either his ambition or his ability to inspire his players.

  An encouraging sign for us at Old Trafford was that he had made it clear that if he was ever to leave his Aberdeen fortress it would not be along the road to Glasgow for one of the two big jobs in Scottish football, Rangers or Celtic. He didn’t think he would be improving himse
lf at either Ibrox or Parkhead. But what about Old Trafford? Well, he had more than hinted in one newspaper I read that this would be quite a different matter.

  In the boardroom there was a strong feeling for Venables. I said that I understood it well enough. Terry was a marvellous coach who as a player had represented his country at every level. He was another football man of high profile and character who commanded attention and respect in his players. Some of our directors emphasised Terry’s confidence, his easy manner in front of the television cameras. He would be more than a football manager. He would be a personality who refused to be dominated by all that had happened in the past.

  I conceded all of that, but then I made the case for Alex Ferguson. I pointed out the unique scale of his achievement in Scotland; no domestic club could think seriously of taking on the Glasgow powers and beat them, but that was the mission that Alex had declared on his first day at Aberdeen.

  Aberdeen were not supposed to beat Real Madrid in the final of the Cup-Winners’ Cup either. I asked my fellow directors if they had seen Ferguson on the touchline when Aberdeen scored their great victory in Gothenburg. I said he had lived passionately every moment of the game, charging on to the pitch, filling his players with his self-belief. ‘Never mind, Real Madrid,’ he seemed to be saying. ‘This is my team, this is Aberdeen.’

  I do not want to make too many claims for myself as I look back on this phase which would be so vital to the shaping of a new United. Ferguson was operating so brilliantly and passionately in north-east Scotland, not on another planet, and I wouldn’t begin to say that I had discovered a talent that was not visible to anyone who cared to look. Certainly I didn’t feel I was fighting an uphill battle on behalf of Ferguson. I just felt it was necessary to make an old player’s point as strongly as I could; an old player, that was, who had long experienced the special demands and forces of Old Trafford.