My Manchester United Years [Audio Download]

Not since Arthur Hopcraft produced the sublime 'The Football Man' in 1968 has a book on sport moved me so profoundly. When it was announced that a Bobby Charlton autobiography was imminent, I feared that it would fail to do justice to arguably the most compelling sporting figure of my lifetime. In the event, it is a majestic work, capturing perfectly, and often poignantly, the essence of the man and his times. Footballing matters are dealt with faithfully and comprehensively, but perhaps the tale is at its most arresting when addressing human relationships. There are numerous delightful vignettes which offer evocative insights into household names and he confronts family issues with candour. Charlton emerges not only as a great sportsman, but also as a sensitive, intelligent, appealingly wistful soul. Quite simply, I love the book.

Ever since I was nine years old when I saw him score the two goals that helped Manchester United win the European Cup in 1968 Bobby Charlton has been my hero. He didn't have the dazzling ball skills of George Best and lets face it, with his prematurely bald head he looked more like a teacher that a footballer, but instead he simply exuded class and a certain dignity that no other footballer seemed to possess. I was very pleased to find then that his autobiography is exactly the same - classy, dignified but also very frank and honest.
Not surprisingly it contains absolutely no scandal but instead it is full of stories that offer telling insights into not just Bobby Charlton but also Manchester United, football and life in general in the fifties, sixties and seventies.
One of the chapters, in which he writes about the days when as a boy he used to go to watch Sunderland or Newcastle United with his older brother Jack is particularly excellent. His description of how they used to stand in a particular part of the ground so they can watch the skills of a famous player close at hand is very evocative. Also excellent is the bitingly frank chapter in which he tells of the breakdown of his relationship with his mother following her rejection of his wife, Norma.
As you would expect though, it is the Munich airplane disaster that dominates this book, just as it as dominated Bobby Charltons life since that day. The events of that day are described wonderfully well, as are Bobbys feelings of bewilderment and guilt that he should survive the crash barely harmed whilst his beloved team mates and friends had perished.
An excellent book then, and I look forward greatly to the next of the proposed volumes, where I presume he will move onto his playing for England and the World Cup win in 1966.

The boring tag attached by so many to Bobby Charlton has always frustrated me. Here was a man who played football with attacking Brazilian flair and never intentionally made a tackle in his life. A man with a thunderbolt of a shot who made the commentators voice rise when uttering his name. It was notable, if not remarkable in these commercial days, that he had never before published an autobiography.

Looming large of course over everything was the Munich air disaster. One couldn't help feeling that his rather dour, pre-occupied demeanour had emerged from that tragedy. It seems it was so. Here there are glimpses of the pre-Munich Charlton enjoying the company of his closest friends David Pegg, Eddie Colman and Tommy Taylor and his upward gaze to his hero Duncan Edwards. The world is truly at their feet. And then there is the crash. The heart is ripped out of the team but also the football heart to some degree silently seems to depart Bobby Charlton as well. He explains how he just can't understand how or why he survived, so unscathed, and his friends did not. It is something that will trouble him for a lifetime. The remainder of his life certainly however seems to have been driven by the need to bear witness to what was lost. Just one among many geniuses, Charlton bears testimony to the greatness of the others. "Here I am", he says, "see what I achieved and yet I was only ordinary among the Busby Babes."

Of course Bobby Charlton won the elusive European Cup with Busby at the helm, he won the World Cup with England and he played sublime football as one of the big three of Best, Charlton and Law. He deals in this book most passionately with Munich and with his family dispute with brother Jack and their mother - here one feels he is speaking from raw emotion. He does that less so with the rather club-justifying position on Beckham's departure and the sale of the club. However, there is a lot more here than in most football autobiographies and less platitudes, albeit with some skimming over of key events (for example, the battle for the commercial ownership of United, the controversy over the Munich survivors fund). He is clearly anxious for the record to show that his contribution to the Alex Ferguson reign is recognised too.

One feels Sir Bobby Charlton has worked out his self-imposed penance for surviving Munich by being the best he could possibly be, both for his beloved club and country. I only hope that in addition to his sense of duty he manages to draw some joy from the pleasure he gave to millions of us as an Englishman playing football the Brazilian way.