Authors: Trevor Keane
‘Despite his criticism of me, Jack stuck with me and Willie at the back, and before the start of the season he made me team captain. The first game of the new campaign was against Portsmouth, and he held a team meeting beforehand. The press were all wondering who the captain would be, as none had been named yet. Jim Platt and Graeme Souness were being mentioned, but in the team meeting he said I was the captain. It was a big surprise, I can tell you. Over the years we had our rows, and we started off rough, but in the end we got on well together.
‘Being captain in those days was like being a shop steward. All the players would come to me and tell me their gripes, which were mainly about money, and then I would go to Jack and we would have a chat about it. He would listen to me, and then he would do what he thought anyway.
‘Jack did not like to spend money. I think the only player he signed when he took over was Bobby Murdoch, and he got him on a free from Celtic. He was a great signing, too, a real gentlemen of the game. He used to keep all his medals in a box
under his sink. It was strange, really. He had won everything with Celtic, and as a reward for his loyal service they allowed him to join Middlesbrough for nothing.
‘But players aside, there was a lot of change that first season. We had a new chairman, a new manager and a new captain. We also had a lot of young players, such as Graeme Souness and David Hodgson, in the team.
‘The thing with Jack was, and I saw this with Sheffield Wednesday and also with Ireland, he organised his teams to play a certain style of football, and he never changed his ways according to the opposition. It was always the same system, and it was drilled into the coaches. If other teams got the better of us, then so be it. But the system worked most of the time. If we lost on a Saturday, Jack would look at where we’d lost a goal and then have the coaches recreate the situation in training. We’d go over things and see where we’d gone wrong.
‘He was good at motivating players too, and it was a real family atmosphere. There was no rotation of players and large squads in those days. We used only thirteen players that promotion-winning season. If a player was injured or suspended, Jack would have a reserve player come in, and he would know the system, as that was what was used in the reserves as well, so there was always consistency.
‘Jack liked a big man up front with a runner beside him. He hated slow players. He liked the ball to be moved at pace. He put grafters in midfield and employed overlapping full-backs long before they were the in thing in football.’
Jim Platt was also a member of the Middlesbrough team of 1974 that won the Division Two title under Charlton: ‘Jack was a great manager, one of the best I played under. He could come
in at half-time and, rather than rant and rave, change things around and turn a defeat into a draw and a draw into a win. He could analyse a game and see where things were at. He was a very blunt character, although he always had the players’ best interests at heart.
‘He did a great job with Middlesbrough and then with Sheffield Wednesday and Ireland. I remember in his first season we won the title by a comfortable fifteen points. We set all kinds of records for number of wins and points. In those days it was only two points for a win. We actually started the season with a defeat at home to Fulham. We were murdering them, but they scored two late goals to beat us. Well, we had yet to see Jack angry, as pre-season had gone really well. He said, “Look, there are some games you can’t win and you have to settle for a draw. Six draws compared to six defeats can be the difference between promotion and heartbreak at the end of the season.” Those words really stood out for us throughout the season, and we only lost three more games.
‘Tactically, Jack was very good. He inherited a good side when he took charge, but the signing of Bobby Murdoch was an inspired addition. However, I’m not sure that Jack would be able to hack the modern game, especially dealing with agents. He was as tight as old boots. I remember when we got promoted we all went to his office at different times to ask for a rise. In those days we would have been on about £200 a week, and we went to him with the intention of getting £250. As soon as he saw you at the door he would yell, “What the bloody hell do you want?” And sure enough you would panic and ask for £230 and end up walking out with £210 and be glad of it.
‘One of the funny things about Jack was that he could not
remember names. He could remember the names of the first-team players, but if a new lad came in, there was no chance he would remember the fella’s name.’
Craig Johnston was one such youngster in the youth team who crossed Jack Charlton. To many people Craig will always be remembered as a Liverpool legend, but his career could have taken a different turn after his introduction to Jack Charlton at Middlesbrough: ‘Jack Charlton has been a crucial figure in my life. As a manager I have loved and hated him, sometimes at the same time, but I always respected him and who he was as a person. He was the manager of Middlesbrough when I came over to England first to try and make a life as a footballer.’
Craig was an aspiring footballer back in 1975 when, as a jet-lagged fifteen-year-old just landed in a far-from-sunny Teesside, having travelled on his own from Australia, he took part in a trial match: ‘Our side were getting beat 3–0 at half-time, and Big Jack Charlton walked in and savaged everyone in the dressing-room. He finally finished up by pointing at me and saying, “Where are you from?” I gulped and said, “Australia.” He then said that I was the worst footballer he had ever seen in his life and to hop off back to wherever it was I had just come from. Well, he didn’t quite use the word “hop” – it was actually a lot stronger than that.
‘I was shocked, ashamed and despondent. This was my introduction to football in England. At least I knew where I stood with the manager. The truth is, though, that he wasn’t wrong. I really was that bad. I then made it my lifetime’s ambition to prove him wrong. Some two and a half years later, after practising for eight hours a day and hiding from Charlton in the car park, a new manager called John Neil came in. I think John felt sorry for
me, as he took me under his wing, and shortly afterwards I made my debut in the first team. At seventeen and a half I was the youngest player ever to play for Middlesbrough, and this time there was no half-time tongue lashing, as I actually played pretty well. You can imagine my surprise when the very next day in the newspapers the headline was taken from a Jack Charlton quote: “I always knew ‘The Kangaroo’ would make it.” Thirteen years later I met Jack again at Jupiter’s Casino in the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia. We were both speaking at a gentlemen’s function. We talked openly about the Middlesbrough days, and he explained that I had too much energy but no skills. He also told me that he knew I was hiding behind the cars every day he came in to work but thought I had a lot of heart to hang around and still want to learn the game. That day I finished off my speech by telling the audience and Jack that if an over-keen Australian kid approached him on the beach for a trial, then he should please give him a second look before dismissing him so colourfully. The crowd loved it.
‘For me, Jack is a fascinating and remarkable character. He is essentially a man’s man. I could imagine him being in the military. But you knew that whatever he said it was coming from the right place and that he had a great big heart. You always had the impression that he wouldn’t ask you to do something he wouldn’t do himself. And he doesn’t so much talk as shout. A conversation with him is a very direct conversation. The dressing-room turned blue on many occasions if he wasn’t getting through to a player. It was definitely old-fashioned stuff, but it worked. There is a thorny and gruff Jack Charlton, but at the same time there is a real noble quality about him. He is a prince among men.
‘Many people these days are clones of what people think they should be. They are politically correct and extremely careful not to offend any sensitive souls. I think you can end up losing your own soul trying to be all things to everyone. Jack Charlton was not one of those people. He somehow respected everybody, but at the same time he called a spade a spade.
‘I will always believe that the FA missed a trick not hiring the likes of Brian Clough and Jackie Charlton. Jack got the most out of his players with a direct and simple plan of how to win a football match. The Irish players loved him, and the Irish public loved him. They don’t make them like that any more.’
Jack stayed for four seasons with Middlesbrough before leaving the club in 1977. After leaving Middlesbrough he applied for the England job but lost out to Ron Greenwood, before taking the reigns at Sheffield Wednesday, leading them to promotion from the Third Division in his second season in charge. The next three seasons saw Wednesday consolidate their position in Division Two without ever challenging for further promotion. In 1982 Jack decided to leave the post, having taken the Owls as far as he could ( Jack himself had stated prior to the 1981–1982 season that if Wednesday did not get promoted he would resign his post and true to word he resigned when the objective was not achieved). He returned for a short stint to Middlesbrough, before fulfilling a childhood dream by becoming manager of Newcastle United, the club he had grown up supporting.
Given his history with Middlesbrough and his status as a purveyor of what some people described as negative football, it was a shock that he took the Newcastle job. The Magpies pride themselves on playing attacking football, so it was no surprise
that dissent soon arose and less than a year after taking the job he resigned. A lesson can be extracted from the coming together of Jack Charlton and Newcastle. You only have to look at the case of Sam Allardyce, often criticised himself for the brand of football his team plays. Although he was successful in his time with Bolton, his attempt to turn a so-called big club such as Newcastle into a winning outfit proved unsuccessful, and he was never accepted by the fans. Newcastle want to win beautifully. The fans want to see four and five goals a game and have the ball passed into the net. Both clubs pride themselves on their forwards and not their defenders. At Newcastle, Big Jack, like Allardyce years later, did not give them what they wanted.
THE BIRTH OF AN IRELAND LEGEND
Newcastle’s loss was Ireland’s gain. After taking a brief break from the game, Charlton was approached to manage the Republic of Ireland. The story goes that Charlton had agreed to take the job before the money side of things was negotiated. ‘What about money?’ an FAI official asked.
‘Ah, give me the same as the last manager,’ Charlton replied.
When the FAI man informed him what Eoin Hand had earned, Charlton replied, ‘Bloody hell. I’ll want a bit more than that!’
The FAI had long been viewed as being behind their English counterparts. However, a lot of the players in the Ireland squad in the early 1980s were performing at a high level in England
and were becoming more accustomed to the professional approach being adopted by their club sides. The FAI could be accused of having too often taken the easy way out in terms of their management appointments, going for former heroes or men of the moment. By appointing Charlton a small statement was being made, not just to other European countries, but also to the players.
Jack recalls: ‘The FAI first approached me to take over at Christmas of 1985. At the time I had taken a break from the game after my spell at Newcastle. It was the first break I’d taken from football since first starting out. I had been offered other jobs, but I wanted to rest. However, when the Ireland job came along it was a chance to manage at international level. I knew international football from my time with England, and I was also an FA-qualified coach, so it was a good opportunity.’
When Charlton took charge of Ireland, soccer in the country was at a low ebb. The Hand era, although unlucky, had once again failed to deliver a major tournament, and football trailed GAA and rugby in popularity. However, Charlton, with a little luck, some tactics never-before-seen at international level, strong team organisation, and the crafty and imaginative stretching of the eligibility rules, managed to change that.
The now famous granny rule became a big part of the Charlton era and, when he was barely in the door, he set about getting the most out of the resources available to him. He approached players with even the most tenuous of Irish links to hook up with the Republic of Ireland team: ‘When I took the job I realised Ireland needed a couple of players who would help me play the game I wanted to play, so we got a few players. We did our homework and got all the paperwork filled in. The
papers were completed, and the government then arranged for their Irish passports to be released.’
In his autobiography Tony Cascarino claimed that he did not qualify for Ireland, writing that he was a ‘fake Irishman’. However, it was later confirmed that through adoption his mother had gained the right to Irish citizenship and he was therefore eligible. Jack dismisses the Tony Cascarino controversy: ‘It’s funny but a lot of people mention Tony Cascarino as being a perfect example of the grandparent rule. However, he actually made his debut before I was in charge, and he was a member of the squad before I took over. The likes of John Aldridge and Ray Houghton were brought in, but everything checked out for them.’
Bernie Slaven benefited from the grandparent rule, and he recalls his call-up to the squad very well: ‘I remember I was banging in the goals for Middlesbrough under Bruce Rioch at the old Ayresome Park, and the Scotland manager Andy Roxburgh was reported to be looking at me, but no call had come. After one particular game I told the reporters, more in sarcasm than anything else, that even though I was brought up in Glasgow I had Irish grandparents. I didn’t really think any more about it until I went to see a Newcastle game with my mate Stuart Ripley. We were going to collect our tickets at the ground when I saw Jack. I had never spoken to him, but he must have recognised me, as he said to me, “Aye, son, I hear Andy is looking at you. Hang on in there and you will get a cap against Wales.” All I thought was that Jack must be on the drink and had mistaken me for someone else.