1966

by Bobby Charlton

  It was inevitable that sooner or late Alf would make him captain and when he did so in Bratislava against Czechoslovakia for our third match after that bad night in Paris, Bobby’s performance, the easy way he carried himself, the certainty of his play, made the fact that he was a mere twenty-two years and forty-seven days old seem like some trick of the calendar.

  Just a year had passed since he made his faultless debut in the thin air of Lima en route to the Chile World Cup, and almost every step he had made for England since then had carried the weight of an extremely convincing job application. Every intervention, every easily stroked pass, seemed to be saying, ‘Look, this is what I do, this is who I am.’

  Jimmy Armfield’s misadventure in Alf’s second game, the loss to Scotland at Wembley, was almost certainly the manager’s first invitation to consider the question of the team’s leadership, and then when Jimmy was injured for the Bratislava game the door opened a little wider. In one way Jimmy was extremely unlucky because I don’t think his mistake could ever, however well he performed, be detached in Alf’s mind from the image of Jim Baxter, who dominated the match with his extraordinary combination of skill and the most refined arrogance, exploiting it with such triumphant glee.

  With Johnny Haynes no longer around, I had become the most experienced player with the greatest number of caps (forty-two) and it was perhaps because of this that Alf made a point of mentioning to me that he was considering giving the job to Bobby. Without offering the slightest impression that my verdict would ultimately do anything to shape his decision, he said he was interested to know my reaction.

  What did I think of this most composed young east Londoner? I said that there was something quite remarkable about him and it was reflected most in the way he seemed to just get better and better with each new performance for England. It was as if he was born to inhale the atmosphere of international football, that if for others it could be an examination in which they would never be able to feel completely at ease and in charge of everything they did, for him it was a source of oxygen.

  Bobby was, despite his lack of cutting pace, an impressive player in the First Division but at Manchester United we didn’t attach huge weight to his club West Ham’s reputation for sophisticated football. Yes, they had had some considerable success in knock-out competitions, beating Preston North End in the 1964 FA Cup final and going on to win the old Cup Winners’ Cup, and Moore had displayed good leadership and some fine skill and sound defence, enough to make him at that point England’s youngest Footballer of the Year.

  But it was only when he played for the national team that you got the full measure of his quality. He simply grew before your eyes.

  I said all this to Alf – and also made it clear that I had no ambition for the job. I had my game to play and often I found that enough of a responsibility. I was thrilled to be part of this reshaping of England and with such a strong sense that, finally, we were being given the right foundations. I liked the feeling of optimism in the dressing room, one that was already plainly building from game to game, and I believed the elevation of Bobby could only reinforce the development of such a mood.

  If Paris and Wembley had brought defeats, the significance of these setbacks had already dwindled in my mind. They were fast retreating into the past, along with all the other disappointments. Not least among them was that time when I found myself lost on the field in Belgrade and had to pay for it on the World Cup bench in Sweden. Now I felt an increasing conviction that my international career had a new edge, a new purpose.

  The appointment of such a youthful captain may have raised a few eyebrows at the time of the announcement but Alf could not have been more convinced that he had found a most powerful catalyst in the effort to win the World Cup.

  He said to me, ‘You know this Bobby Moore is quite something. He has set a mark for himself, he is so very confident and I believe the leadership of the team will be in very good hands. No, he is not fast but he thinks so quickly it doesn’t matter. It is always so clear, and reassuring, that he knows what he is doing.’

  It was the same level of confidence he had expressed when discussing Gordon Banks, saying, ‘I want you players to know that every match is important because it is telling me new things about your ability and your willingness to do things that are so important for the team.’

  One of the most remarkable aspects of Alf’s leadership, and personality, was his ability to separate any personal reservations, even resentments, about the style and attitudes of someone, from their ability to do the job that was needed. This was very relevant to the rise of Bobby because, it has to be said, he and the boss were not always the most natural of bedfellows.

  They certainly didn’t, for example, share the kind of empathy I enjoyed with Ray Wilson as we returned to our hotel room, to drink tea and reflect on the day. Nor the noisy amiability shared by Nobby Stiles and Alan Ball down the corridor. Alf and Bobby were of different generations – and different worlds.

  Bobby could be less than respectful in his response to some of Alf’s foibles. At times he mocked the manager’s clipped tone of voice and occasional faulty pronunciation, and never more so than on that famous occasion when Alf thanked ‘Seen’ Connery for his warm welcome when we visited the Pinewood Studios at a critical point in the World Cup finals. Bobby and Jimmy Greaves made little attempt to conceal their amusement.

  Once Alf angrily sent the trainer Harold Shepherdson to summon Bobby to the waiting bus after he had lingered in the hotel lobby with Jimmy. Bobby eventually arrived with a shrug of indifference over the impatience and irritation of the manager.

  Nor was Alf enamoured by what he considered Bobby’s sometimes flighty approach to the important, and indeed in his opinion fundamentally vital, aspects of team discipline, especially in the matter of curfew times.

  There was the notorious occasion early in Alf’s reign when Bobby and Jimmy were the inspiration for a foray by some of the players into the West End on the eve of a flight to Europe. It was one which I joined innocently enough. However, the drinks went down pleasantly in one of Jimmy’s favourite bars and we didn’t leave until well after Alf’s curfew of 10.30 p.m.

  We were relieved not to see Shepherdson and his fellow trainer Les Cocker standing sentinel in the hotel lobby but our relief was only passing. Alf had ordered a room check at the time of curfew and we were shocked to see our passports, normally left in the charge of a team official, resting on our pillows. The implication was huge and dark.

  We were in danger of being sent home, perhaps in national disgrace. This made for a night of considerable tension and the following day Alf didn’t hold back his anger. He said that if there had been time to call up replacements he would have done so. He had to be able to trust his players. This should be seen as a last warning.

  Yet if Bobby was disinclined to doff his cap to authority, he never pushed his rebellions too far. Above all, he respected Alf’s professional judgement, his reading of tactics, and he was not likely to jeopardise his place in the success that, in his well-considered estimation, they foretold.

  This was evident enough in the shadow of that first defeat in Paris, when Bobby was quick to say that he was impressed by Alf’s low-key reaction. ‘It was good that we didn’t get any of the ranting and raving you would have expected from some managers,’ said Bobby. ‘He seems like a man you can work with, someone who isn’t going to insult your intelligence on a regular basis.’

  This vital matter of mutual respect had developed very quickly and was perfectly expressed by the sight of Bobby leading us out against one of Europe’s strongest football nations in Bratislava. Bobby might not have been the most dutiful lieutenant in all aspects of the team operation but when it mattered most, when it was time to perform, there was not so much as a flicker of worry that he wouldn’t be at the evenly beating heart of our effort.

  Alf had been encouraged by a much improved performance against Brazil at Wembley, a 1-1 draw earned when Bryan Douglas
scored a late equaliser against the reigning world champions – a good, steadying result after the defeats by France and Scotland, despite the fact that both Pelé and Garrincha were absent.

  George Eastham had been awarded his first cap – and invited to make his considerable claims, as a highly skilled inside-forward, on a place on the road to the World Cup. Eastham, apart from his impressive creative touch, was a man of great strength of mind who had struck a huge blow for players’ rights when he successfully sued his club Newcastle United for their refusal to grant him a transfer to Arsenal.

  It was that time when so many players, including me, waited for their clubs to hand down their rewards, the most pressing one being inclusion in the end-of-season retained list; for us it was hard not to believe that we were lucky to play football for a living and that any improved terms that came trickling down had to be seen as a bonus. George, though, had a different cast of mind. He said that a player’s terms should be negotiable, along with his right to choose his employer. As it was, footballers had fewer rights than many of the people who filled the stadiums to watch them play.

  His mission statement was very impressive. He declared, ‘Our contract could bind us to a club for life. Most people called it the “slavery contract”. We had no rights at all. It was often the case that the guy on the terrace not only earned more than us – though there is nothing wrong with that – he had more freedom of movement than us. People in business or teaching were able to hand in their notice and move on. We couldn’t. And that was wrong.’

  When I heard these measured, dignified words it did make me reflect a little on my own willingness to leave my fate, financial and otherwise, largely to the instincts of fairness of my employers. Of course, I was happy at Manchester United, I loved the club and I was bound to it by some very strong emotional ties, but there were maybe times when I might have been a little more assertive. Certainly I remember going to a meeting of the players’ union, which was brilliantly led by the chairman Jimmy Hill and the astute, full-time secretary Cliff Lloyd, and being impressed and amused by a comment of Tommy Banks, the rock-like full-back of Bolton Wanderers.

  Someone told the meeting that they should remember they didn’t have to go down a mine to earn their living and Tommy shot back, ‘Yes, all right, but a miner doesn’t have to mark Stanley Matthews on a Saturday afternoon.’ That raised a smile even in someone like me who had spent his childhood under the shadow of the colliery and whose brother Jack had fled, so gratefully, the prospect of a working life underground when he was signed by Leeds United.

  When my primary school team was issued with a new team kit, the headmaster had me put on one of the bright crimson shirts and run into a classroom while he hummed the signature tune of BBC Radio’s Sports Report. I remembered the occasion warmly. When I jogged down the corridor I passed a cabinet containing some of the artefacts of the mining industry in which my father Robert worked all his life and, maybe, even at that early age I had a sense of running away from an unwelcome fate.

  So maybe at times I was a little too content as I proudly wore my United blazer and waited for a word or a nod from Matt Busby or Jimmy Murphy that perhaps the time was right for me to seek a raise in my wages. I didn’t know then that my success as a player down the years, and the celebrity it brought, would bring for me and my family so much security when I got involved in business after I stopped playing and decided, soon enough, that my future didn’t lie in a football manager’s office.

  That, I know, was one of my good fortunes, one that wouldn’t be shared by so many of my contemporaries in those days when we filled the big stadiums of England. I was bound to reflect on all of this with the news of Jimmy Hill’s death at the end of 2015 – and put a fresh value on his vision for the future, which included pushing for the psychologically huge addition of an extra point to the value of a win in league football, and respect for all his determination to improve both the game and players’ terms.

  George Eastham had a similarly sharp view of some of the injustices inherent in professional football life, certainly stronger than mine, despite the fact that my own family had strong connections with the professional game through my mother’s cousins, the Milburn clan led by the great Jackie. Maybe the difference was that George grew up as the son of a footballer, a distinguished one, too, his father, George, playing for Bolton Wanderers and England.

  A sense of injustice flared in young George and his determination to make his fight in the most significant way was mirrored in the fine work he produced on the field. He was a quick and clever player and did well against Brazil and in Bratislava. In all he played nineteen times, all the way to the World Cup finals.

  He had a talent that was both delicate and biting and if in the end he gave way to the more muscular presence of those such as Geoff Hurst and Roger Hunt, he never lost the respect of Alf. Also, after impressive stints at Newcastle and Arsenal he received a call that back in the sixties represented membership of a working roll of honour, Tony Waddington’s vintage collection of some of the finest players to grace the First Division at Stoke City, men like Gordon Banks, my old United team-mate Dennis Viollet, Jimmy McIroy, Jackie Mudie and, for a little romantic while, Stanley Matthews no less.

  Another who was involved in that Bratislava dawn of an England team with new and exciting horizons was Chelsea’s right-back Ken Shellito, who had emerged impressively in Tommy Docherty’s young Chelsea team. Shellito was a beautifully balanced defender, good going forward and sound in both the tackle and his positional sense, and while Armfield’s injury had given the captaincy to Moore it was also a great opportunity for the debutant Shellito.

  He played well, showing the composure which had become one of this trademarks, but all his efforts and his ambitions were destroyed soon afterwards when he suffered a sickening knee injury while marking Sheffield Wednesday winger Edwin Holliday. He never recovered. Tommy Docherty did bring him back into the team, and with a little time left for him to restate his claim for a place in the World Cup squad, but good fortune, as well as his old fitness, had plainly deserted him. He faced my United team-mate George Best in his most withering form and the result was hard on all those who had come to respect his talent so much.

  George Cohen, who won his first cap for England a year later, when Alf had finally decided that Jimmy Armfield, for all his skill and vision going forward, was not the answer to his needs defensively, later reflected powerfully, and movingly, on the fickleness of fate that can sometimes shape a professional career – and a life.

  He said, ‘In football it is the oldest truth that one player’s mishap is another’s opportunity and my good fortune in the unravelling of Jimmy Armfield’s distinguished international career was compounded by another stroke of fate. It was the career-shattering injury of Ken Shellito. He was considered the heir apparent to Armfield, and for some very good reasons. He was strong and skilled and had a very good defensive technique, and he got his one chance a year before Alf brought me into the team.

  ‘That game against Czechoslovakia was a perfect opportunity for Ken to make his mark – and to confirm Alf’s doubts about Armfield’s candidacy for another World Cup. Sadly for him, the Bratislava launching pad, which he trod impressively, fell apart when he was injured, and not only his international prospects but his professional career. Such are the sudden twists of football.

  ‘One man falls, another slips back, and the race that seemed to be over is suddenly wide open. Being brilliant is good. Working hard is important. But without the breaks you can disappear in one moment of bad luck.

  ‘There was no doubt I was trailing Ken Shellito, but then suddenly his name was scratched from the contest.’

  When I read those words from George many years after our playing careers were over – and his was ended so soon after the 1966 World Cup when he watched his torn knee swell up alarmingly after a freakish bounce of the ball while he was marking Liverpool’s Peter Thompson – I had another reason to feel a sense of wo
nder over my own good luck.

  It strikes me still with great force as I walk without any of the discomfort suffered by so many of my contemporaries. While they have faced surgery and months of painful rehabilitation, I have marvelled that I carry just one small piece of evidence of spending so many years risking injury while playing professional football at the highest level – a small scar above my ankle. It came to me in a reserve game at Old Trafford – and kept me out of football for less than a couple of weeks. And this, of course, has always been dwarfed by the fact that I was able to walk away from the Munich tragedy with no more than a small graze on my head.

  George lost his one-club career with Fulham in that disastrous flashpoint and when the football was over he was required to overcome cancer with great courage. He also had some setbacks in business but always he was the same character who did so much to justify Alf’s faith in him by calling him to the squad and then, nine months later, giving him his first cap against Uruguay two years before the unveiling of the World Cup at Wembley.

  Alf had given him the traditional welcome when he joined us at Hendon Hall, saying, ‘Welcome, George, I’m sure you know a lot of the players, just settle in and enjoy the experience. I’m sure you will do well. Just keep working hard as you have been doing for so long.’

  So here in the strong, amiable man from west London was a classic representation of the qualities that Alf considered so central to all his ambitions with England. Jimmy Armfield had so many assets to commend him as an international player and a captain with a fine understanding of the game and the people who shaped it. He had been touched by the genius, and the demands, of playing in the same Blackpool team as Stanley Matthews. He had loved the excitement of the international scene, the chance to compete with and against the great players and all the colour and rewards of worldwide travel.