Английн хөлбөмбөгийн домогт тамирчин Сэр Бобби Чарльтон Манчестер Юнайтедын түүхэн дэх шилдэг 25 тоглогчийн жагсаалтыг тэргүүлэв.
Мюнхений онгоцны ослоос амьд гарсан Сэр Бобби Чарльтон Манчестер Юнайтедын бүрэлдэхүүнд 758 тоглолт хийж, 249 гоол оруулсан амжилтаар клубийн түүхэнд бичигддэг. Тэрээр 1968 онд Европын цомыг хүртсэн анхны англи багийн ахлагчаар ажиллаж, 1966 оны Дэлхийн аварга шалгаруулах тэмцээнд Английн шигшээ багийн хамт түрүүлж, тухайн ондоо Европын шилдэг хөлбөмбөгчнөөр нэрлэгдэж байв. Сэр Алекс Фергюсон түүнийг хоёр хөлөөрөө жигд тоглодог, талбай дээр чөлөөтэй шилжилт хийдэг, сэтгэл зүйн асар их тэвчээртэй дэлхийн жишиг тоглогч хэмээн тодорхойлсон байдаг.
Багийн андууд болон дасгалжуулагчдын дурсамжид тэрээр талбай дээрх уран гоё тоглолт, даруу төлөв зан чанар, хөлбөмбөгийг чин сэтгэлээсээ хайрладаг нэгэн байсныг онцолжээ. Түүний Манчестер Юнайтедад оруулсан хувь нэмэр нь зөвхөн талбай дээрх амжилтаар хязгаарлагдахгүй бөгөөд зодог тайлсныхаа дараа ч клубийн гол элч төлөөлөгчөөр ажиллаж, 2023 онд 86 насандаа таалал төгсөх хүртлээ Олд Траффорд цэнгэлдэх хүрээлэнгийн байнгын зочин байсан юм.
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Who are the greatest players in Manchester United’s history?The Athletic gave Andy Mitten the task of compiling his top 25, and we are counting them down this summer, in reverse order. Here he has reached No 1.
He explained his thought process here.
“The truth I have lived with since February 6, 1958: that everything I have been able to achieve since that day — including the winning of the European Cup and the World Cup — has been accompanied by a simple question: why me?” wrote Sir Bobby Charlton in his autobiography.
“Why was I able to run my hands over my body and find that I was still whole when Roger Byrne, Eddie Colman, Liam Whelan, David Pegg, Tommy Taylor, Mark Jones and Geoff Bent lay dead, and Duncan Edwards, who I loved and admired so intensely, faced an unavailing battle for his life? Why had I been picked out to inherit so much of what they, in the first surge of brilliant youth, had achieved so beautifully?”
Charlton survived the Munich air crash largely unhurt physically, if not mentally. A decade later, he led United as they became the first English club to win the European Cup. In the dressing room afterwards, he vomited twice. At the post-match party, he excused himself. He’d lost some of his best friends a decade earlier in pursuit of European success and was in the mood for reflection, not celebration. United goalkeeper Harry Gregg, a hero at Munich, said Charlton changed a lot after the tragedy, that his game wasn’t quite the same, and neither was his personality.
Bobby Charlton embraces Matt Busby after winning the 1968 European Cup (PA Images via Getty Images)
The intervening years were kind to this son of Ashington, near Newcastle, who had risen through United’s youth ranks to become the best player in the league. And more. Bobby Charlton was crowned European Footballer of the Year in 1966, ahead of two other greats, Eusebio and Franz Beckenbauer. He also finished as runner-up in 1967 and 1968. In 1966, he’d helped England win the World Cup on home soil, with his brother Jack also playing in the team.
Charlton was renowned globally. When United landed in Buenos Aires to compete in the 1968 Intercontinental Cup against Estudiantes, the public address speaker at the airport announced that ‘El Supremo’ had arrived.
When Nemanja Vidic celebrated United’s triumph in the 2008 Champions League final, he couldn’t relax until he’d fixed his non-English-speaking father a meeting with his hero, Bobby Charlton.
“Bobby Charlton, who played 758 games (second only to Giggs) for club and 106 for England, including appearances in the final stages of four World Cup tournaments, illustrates what I mean as ‘world class’,” said Sir Alex Ferguson in his 2013 autobiography. “Bobby seemed to float about the field, was two-footed, could play on the left, right or in the centre, and had an inner confidence and steely resolve. Bobby, despite all his accomplishments, has always been a modest, humble man.”
In Manchester in the 1980s, ‘Bobby Charlton’ meant the soccer school he owned, where he’d turn up and dispense advice. David Beckham was one such recipient.
As a twenty-something fan who went home and away, it felt to me that he wasn’t the cool option. Charlton was a director, someone who contributed to unpopular decisions (such as keeping Ferguson when most fans wanted him sacked). He was straight and sensible and not a fixture in tabloid pages like George Best.
Then I saw him on a plane packed with United fans on the way to Lisbon for Eusebio’s 1992 testimonial (and Eric Cantona’s first United game) against Benfica. Charlton pulled the curtain back from first class and came down the plane, chatting with normal fans and signing autographs. My view of him became more favourable, but fans seldom sang about him like they did his team-mates Best, Denis Law and Brian Kidd.
Consistently praising the Glazer family was always going to rub many fans up the wrong way, but make no mistake, Sir Bobby Charlton is the greatest player to have played for Manchester United.
The statue of George Best, Denis Law and Bobby Charlton outside Old Trafford (Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images)
“Bobby was an honest player and football was his life,” his United team-mate Paddy Crerand told me. “We used to meet on a Saturday morning and he was like a cat with two tails looking forward to the match. When he had the ball in the pre-match warm-up, he was like a kid with a new toy. He was a great player, but he never got over the thrill of having the ball at his feet.
“Bobby was an artist of a player and looked like a ballerina compared with a clogger like me. Other players could do the same things with a ball as Bobby, but he always looked twice as good when he did them.”
His bullet shot was effortless, with little or no backlift, never breaking his elegant sprinter’s stride. Only Wayne Rooney scored more goals for United than Charlton’s 249.
Charlton was a three-time FA Youth Cup winner with United, then a hero and title-winner in the Busby Babes. He again came to the fore after Munich, instrumental as United finally lifted the title again seven years after the disaster.
That season, 1964-65, United finished on the same number of points as Leeds United because Aston Villa beat them 2-1 in the final game of the season. “We might have lost (the title),” said Crerand. “But Bobby Charlton scored one of the greatest goals I’ve seen in my life after beating five players. We’d won the league on goal difference — that annoyed Leeds.”
Crerand and Charlton were close on the pitch in United’s middle, and Charlton helped him settle when he arrived from Scotland.
“Bobby and Norma Charlton invited us out to dinner on one of our first weekends in Manchester,” he explained. “I’d always respected and admired him as a player. He was quite shy, so I appreciated him inviting us to a pub in Flixton, near where he lived. Bobby asked me what I wanted to drink and I asked for a sherry. I wasn’t into alcohol and I didn’t even drink sherry, but I thought it would be a sensible choice.
“He did a double take, thinking that I was such a big Glaswegian drinker that I drank neat sherry instead of beer. We had a smashing night, but I hardly drank anything. Harry Gregg collared me on Monday morning and asked me how Saturday night had gone. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Why?’. ‘Because Bobby was s****ing himself that you would go potty if the waiter spilt something or someone said something to you’.”
“Bobby was great to play with,” said Crerand. “We were completely different characters. He was quiet, I wasn’t. People considered him dour. He could be, but the public image of Bobby was not the real him. He was not an outgoing man, but he was a nice fella who loved United as much as any fan.
“Bobby was only comfortable with certain people. When you saw him with his mates like Shay (Brennan) and Nobby (Stiles), he was a totally different person: funny and happy-go-lucky. He was a practical joker who used to come into training and start raving about a film he had seen the night before. He would build it up so much that you couldn’t wait to get to the cinema quick enough.
“So I’d take Noreen along and before long she would tell me that she was unimpressed. And soon you realised that it was one of the worst films that you had ever seen. The next morning, Bobby would be grinning from ear to ear. He knew that the film was awful, but wanted to rope others into seeing it to share his punishment. Bobby was easy to get back — all you had to do was deprive him of a cream cake. Other players wouldn’t eat them in case they put on weight, but Bobby loved them.”
Sir Alex Ferguson and Sir Bobby Charlton before a 2007 Champions League game (Matthew Peters/Manchester United via Getty Images)
Charlton also knocked back a tot of sherry or whisky before going out on the pitch to aid his breathing.
His team-mates remember his wise counsel for younger players. “Bobby Charlton drummed into me as a youngster. ‘Don’t think you’ve made it’,” said Kidd. “‘You’re not here to make the numbers up’.”
All over the world, his name became a byword for English gentlemanliness. Charlton became United’s main ambassador. After the publication of the Hillsborough report in 2012, it was he who took a wreath to Anfield. It comprised 96 roses, one for each Liverpool supporter who died. And he continued to watch United at Old Trafford — where the main stand bears his name — up to his death in 2023, aged 86.
“You see Bobby after a victory and his eyes are blazing, he’s rubbing his hands. He loves it. I want that,” said Ferguson in 2013. “I want to be able to attend European ties and tell people: I’m proud of this team, this is a great club.”
Bobby Charlton was the greatest ever English footballer and he played for Manchester United.
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