Sir Bobby Charlton - Mr. Manchester United

Sir Bobby Charlton

A purist, a lover of the simple things, he is a man who turned despair into something extraordinary, an ambassador of football,  he continues to be the figure they all aspire to emulate. Nobody embodies the values and ethos of Manchester United better than Sir Bobby Charlton.

Nearly forty years have passed since he last played there, and he no longer glides around Old Trafford like he once did, and most of us are too young to have ever seen him play, but those that did, and those that remember him, find it impossible to forget just how good he was. Today, when he turns 76, he is still adored all over the world.

Bobby Charlton was born in  a large coal mining village of Ashington, Northumberland in October 1937.  He was the  nephew of the great Newcastle striker, Jackie Milburn, and his father, grandfather and three uncles were all professional footballers themselves. He was brought up in this great football family where even his mother, Cissie, was just as mad for the game. It was this unadulterated love for football embedded into the family DNA which offered an alternative to traditional working life at Ashington.

Back in the 1950′s, Manchester United manager,Sir Matt Busby, could foresee that youth was an undervalued asset in football which could give him the edge. And therefore, he started a new youth policy which originated from the backstreets – lads in his own image, lads that were hungry for success.

It was not long before Matt Busby’s eagle eye for talent identified the phenomenon of Bobby Charlton at the age of  16 yrs, when he signed him up for Manchester United in June 1953.

“I dreamed of being a footballer, all my family was football mad, all my uncles were footballers, and the best thing I ever did – was when I signed to play for this (Manchester United) club. It’s just magic, absolute magic!”

– Sir Bobby Charlton

For the initial years, Charlton fine-tuned his skills at United’s youth academy under the watchful eyes of assistant coach, Jimmy Murphy,  which saw him win the FA Youth Cup in 1954, 1955 and 1956.

His continued progress was not left unnoticed by Sir Matt Busby, who handed him his first league start in October 1956 vs Charlton Athletic.  The rest, as they say, is history. More than fifty years on from his debut at the big stage, his legacy continues to live strong in the hearts of everyone associated with the beautiful game.

Within minutes of his debut, the United faithful realized that they had seen something special in this young lad from Ashington. Despite carrying an injury, he made an immediate impact by scoring twice on his league debut , and thereby, winning the hearts of  the people in Manchester.

In his first season, Charlton scored ten goals and helped United win the league title , which also enabled them to become the first English team to go on and play in Europe.

At their first attempt, United went on to reach the semi finals where Bobby Charlton scored in a defeat against Real Madrid. But this only whetted the appetite for Busby and his babes for the European competition. The following season, 1957/58, United were on course to reach the semi finals again with Charlton scoring twice in Belgrade. What followed, however, was to change the futures of Bobby Charlton and Manchester United forever.

The tragic Munich air crash in February 1958 took away the lives of eight United first team players. Sir Bobby Charlton, however, was a lucky survivor. He stayed back for a few days in Ashington, recovering and regaining his strength.

There was a question for Sir Bobby that now had to be answered – What to do next? Was it possible to think of ever playing football again?

But when you’re a fighter since birth, and playing football is the only thing that you had ever known and dreamed of, there was ever going to be only one answer to the above question.

Bobby Charlton went into Munich as a young boy, but he came out of it as a man.  Every game that he played after that, he played as if he was playing  for his fallen colleagues.

Sir Matt Busby, too, recovered from his injuries and took up the challenge to re-build his dream, of which now Sir Bobby was the centerpiece.  He said, it would take him five years to re-build the team.

The prediction came true in 1963, exactly five years after the Munich air crash, when United’s new team won the FA cup. It was a new age built on timeless principles.

The new United was built around Munch survivors, Bobby Charlton, Bill Foulkes and Harry Gregg, but it was the addition of Denis Law and George Best, that made the re-construction special.