Bobby Charlton, who has died aged 86, was the quintessential English footballer, among the very best the country has produced and certainly one of the best-loved. He was synonymous with Manchester United during a 20-year association with the club.
As such, his was perhaps the greatest of careers, encompassing as it did the Busby Babes era of the 1950s, the Munich air disaster and its aftermath, and the subsequent rebuilding that culminated in Manchester United becoming the first English team to win the European Cup in 1968.
Two years earlier, Charlton had won the World Cup with England. Geoff Hurst's hat-trick dominated coverage of the final against West Germany, but Charlton's goals had helped England through the earlier rounds, most notably in the semi-final against Portugal, when his penchant for scoring with ferocious long-range shots had been maintained.
This story is from the October 27, 2023 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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This story is from the October 27, 2023 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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