Leo McKinstry - Jack and Bobby - A story of brothers in conflict

The second arose when Bobby had been picked to play for England Schoolboys. Amazingly, the headmaster, Mr James, refused him permission to travel down to Wembley for the game. ‘You’re a scholar, first and foremost,’ he said. The sports master, George Benson, was more understanding. Without the head’s knowledge, he sneaked Bobby out of the school and drove him to Newcastle station for the rail trip to London.

George Benson was not the only Bedlington teacher to admire Bobby. Another was Tom Hedderley, the French master who was also involved with sport. Now in his eighties and living in Newcastle, he gave me his recollection of teaching Bobby: ‘I will never forget my first sight of him. It was during a games lesson and, because it had been raining heavily, the football pitch was wet. We used heavy leather balls in those days, which were not waterproof. One of the balls came rolling out to this little kid, who was not the size of two penny-worth of copper. And he just smacked it. I can still see it, rising all the way from the edge of 18-yard area, thudding against the bar and then bouncing back halfway up the pitch,’ Tom Hedderley remembers one match, the final of the local Blake Cup, when Bobby’s tremendous local reputation worked against him. ‘We were playing Blyth and it was a needle match. Blyth had worked out that their only hope of winning was to stifle Bobby – and they succeeded, winning 1–0. In desperation, our lads kept giving the ball to Bobby to see what he could do. But every time he got it, there were about six Blyth boys straight on to him. It was just impossible for him to get through.’

Hedderley continues: ‘Bobby was naturally tremendously popular in school, but he never played on it, never became swell-headed. As in his later career, he was very gentlemanly on the football field. Everyone respected him, not only because he was a damn good footballer but also because of his nice nature. He was not an outstanding pupil, but he was in the upper stream for most of his time with us. In my subject French, for instance, he got by without showing any signs of being a linguist.’ Hedderley disputes the view that Bobby was especially withdrawn. ‘Yes, he did not like being thrust forward, but he was not reticent. I would have actually called him happy-go-lucky. He worked steadily, though it always seemed that his mind was on football. We talked about him a lot in the staffroom because we knew he was going to be someone special.’ Like others, Tom Hedderley saw the graphic contrast in Bobby’s parents. ‘His dad was a really nice fella. Sometimes, he used to come and watch on Saturday mornings. He was a very quiet man, the opposite of Cissie.’

Bill Hodgkiss, Bobby’s form master, told me that ‘Bobby was an average academic pupil, a well-behaved, popular lad who was never in any trouble. In fact, he was the sort of boy who would try and quieten down trouble rather than cause it. He was relatively quiet, not outwardly vivacious, but I would not have called him withdrawn.’

Hodgkiss, like everyone else, knew that Bobby’s only ambition was to play professional football. And, not long after his arrival at Bedlington, it became clear that he would soon achieve this goal. By the age of 14, Bobby was already the star, not just of his school, but also of East Northumberland District Boys and Northumberland County Juniors. News of his brilliance was now reaching top clubs across the country, and the first to act was the one Bobby eventually joined, Manchester United.

Ironically, it was Jack’s secondary modern school, not Bedlington, that helped to secure the interest of United. For the Hirst Park School’s headmaster, Stuart Hemingway, was a friend of the legendary United scout, Joe Armstrong, the man who secured so many of the Babes for Matt Busby. Having been told by Cissie about the lack of encouragement Bobby was receiving at Bedlington, Hemingway wrote to Joe Armstrong, urging him to come to the north-east to see Bobby. On 9 February 1953, Armstrong arrived at Hebburn to watch Bobby playing for East Northumberland Schoolboys. It was a bitterly cold day. A covering of ice lay on the rock-hard pitch. Oh, I can see it all now,’ recalled Armstrong nearly 20 years later. It was a thin February morning and I had to peer through the mist. Bobby didn’t do so much that day, but it was enough for me. He was like a gazelle and he had a shot as hard as any grown man, yet he was a kid of only 14.’

Armstrong was so impressed that immediately after the game, he approached Bobby and asked him if he would like to join United when he had finished school. Convinced of Bobby’s talent, he did not raise the question of a month’s trial, the usual condition for young players. To Cissie Charlton, who was also, inevitably, at the game, he said: ‘I don’t mean to flatter you, Missus, but your son will play for England before he is 21.’ Armstrong then informed Matt Busby, the United manager, of his new find. On his scout’s recommendation, Busby went to see Bobby play for England Schoolboys in a trial. He was just as impressed, marvelling at Bobby’s grace, power and physique. ‘I decided then that I wanted him for my team. He was a must, with his timing of a pass, his jinking run, his shooting. We needed no more qualifications,’ recalled Busby.

Within weeks of this trial, Bobby was in the full England Schoolboys team, prompting a flattering profile in the Newcastle Journal: ‘Bobby Charlton, a 15-year-old Bedlington Grammar School student, is the first member of the famous Ashington family of footballers to have received this honour. The young inside-forward, whose ambition is to become a sports journalist, is the second son of Mr and Mrs R Charlton of 114 Beatrice Street, Ashington and the grandson of the late “Tanner” Milburn. It is interesting to recall that “Tanner” Milburn prophesied some time before his death that, of all the footballers in the family, Bobby would be the finest. This prophecy looks like materializing as Bobby possesses a remarkable record in school football, equally at home in either inside-forward position.’ Bobby was part of a powerful young England team which drew with the Scots, beat Wales by four goals in Cardiff, and crushed the Irish by eight at Portsmouth. The most memorable game for Bobby was at Wembley, again against the Welsh, when, in front of 90,000 screaming young fans, he scored twice in a 3–3 draw. ‘When I walked out on to the pitch, the stadium engulfed me and I played the game in a sort of trance. It was over before I realized what was happening,’ he told the Daily Express. His first goal resulted from the kind of long-range shot which was to become his trademark, as he recalled. ‘I whacked it and then saw it moving away from the keeper all the time. I knew it must be a goal as soon as I hit it.’ His second goal was a poke through a mass of bodies, while he also made England’s third, crossing for Maurice Pratt to head home.

By now an array of clubs was after Charlton, including many of the biggest in the country, like Wolves, Arsenal and Sunderland. Kenneth Wolstenholme, the renowned commentator, told me: ‘I saw Bobby play for England Schoolboys and you could hardly get into Wembley for all the scouts who wanted to sign him.’ This pressure was kept up at all hours of the day and night in the Charltons’ home in Ashington. At one stage, no less than 18 top clubs were trying to take him on. Cissie recalled, ‘I’d be cleaning the fireplace in the morning and I’d look round and there would be another one standing behind me. There were times when we had one scout in the living room and another in the kitchen. The Arsenal scout, in particular, always seemed to be on the doorstep.’ In fact, Cissie was quite keen for Bobby to join Arsenal, because of the club’s reputation for looking after young players, while Bobby himself has said that he was attracted to the fame of a big London club. ‘I was very tempted to go to Arsenal. Since I was a northerner born and bred you would have thought that Highbury would be the last place for me. Yet the temptation was a very real one. Arsenal still has tremendous glamour and there’s almost a physical attraction in going to a club which boasts such names as Hapgood, Bastin, James, Male and the Comptons.’