Roy of the Rovers brought to life

Bobby Charlton was a genius on the pitch and a gentleman off it

- Keir RADNEDGE

Sir Bobby Charlton spanned multiple football generations. This may help account for the outpouring of sorrow, appreciation and gratitude on his death. His passing, at 86, was not unexpected but no less painful, above all for family and friends, but also for a game too often lacking in the qualities he epitomised.

Three years ago, his family had announced his dementia diagnosis, the fifth member of England’s 1966 World Cup winning XI to fall victim to “the long goodbye.” His elder brother and England team-mate Jack died from a similar condition in 2020. Sir Geoff Hurst is now the last survivor from that Wembley side of July 30, 1966.

Charlton’s death provoked an immense sense of shock and loss. Not only in England – for many years, the name “Bobby Charlton” was sufficient to generate happy smiles of welcome whenever English tourists travelled abroad, as they did far less frequently back then.

Charlton represented the best of all of us. He was the pride of England. He rose to teenage fame in a time when football was rarely seen on television, other than the FA Cup final and occasional snatches of England internationals or exotic ties in the new-fangled European Cup.

It was in this context that Manchester United’s Busby Babes, personifying the hopes of an optimistic new post-war generation, exploded on an English Football League whose standout heroes had been the likes of Wolves’ Billy Wright, Preston’s Tom Finney, Bolton’s Nat Lofthouse and, above all, Stanley Matthews.