John 'Jack' Charlton (born May 8, 1935 in Ashington
Northumberland, England) was an England international footballer,
spending his entire career at Leeds United F.C. (May 1, 1952 to
May 16, 1973), for whom he scored 96 goals in 773 appearances.
Charlton was born in a mining village, and worked as a miner
before going into professional football. Considered one of the
greatest central defenders ever to have played the game, he was
nearly 30 years old before first playing in the England national
team, with his brother Bobby Charlton - the first case of
brothers playing for the national team. He won a winners medal
in the 1966 World Cup and in all made 35 appearances for England.
Following his retirement as a player, he enjoyed considerable
success as a team manager at Middlesbrough (1973 - 1977), where
he secured promotion to Division 1, and Sheffield Wednesday
(1977 - 1983), but was less successful at Newcastle United where
there was a poor relationship with the fans and Charlton decided
to walk away from the job. In 1986 he was a controversial choice
as manager of the Republic of Ireland's national team (the first
non-Irishman appointed), but he was astonishingly successful at
making the most of limited resources (soccer being a minority
sport in the Republic at the time, the popular code being Gaelic
football). Through a policy of employing simple tactics and
finding players mainly in the English league who had an Irish-born
parent or grandparent but hadn't considered themselves to be
Irish, the Republic qualified for the World Cup finals in both
1990 and 1994, famously defeating Italy in 1994.
Following his retirement from management in 1996, Charlton can
sometimes be found as a TV football pundit, though he also owns
a pub in Dublin, and is Deputy Lord-Lieutenant of Northumbria. |
