Jack Charlton: the survivor who came, saw and left on his own terms
The beautiful contradiction of a football club is it is always changing, but also, it never changes. Leeds United in 2019 is a universe away from the club which Jack Charlton left in 1973 when he retired at the age of 38, and yet you can still sense him in the wooden seats of the West Stand, lining up for a corner in front of the Kop, or leaning against the crumbling brick wall out on Lowfields Road.
Jack Charlton is in the fabric of Leeds United and Elland Road still, a part of the club’s DNA who will forever bring loyalty, commitment and fighting spirit, but also a sense of mischief which provides that enduring quality of being the outlaws who like to win matches more than they like to win friends.
As an uncompromising centre-half, Charlton was unrepentant in how he went about his business, and in many ways was the walking personification of the methods of fear and intimidation Leeds used to overcome anything in their way. In terms of building a football club, Charlton represents the glue which held everything together, making 773 appearances and spanning generations from when John Charles was about to create his own legend, to when Don Revie was about to crown his.
Charlton came, saw and left on his own terms, typically self-assured and unapologetic, but in between times, he left a legacy which is sewn into the very essence of Leeds United.
It goes without saying one-club loyalty is a concept for a forgotten age of football, but even in the pre-Premier League era, Charlton’s consistent service to Leeds United was astonishing, representing 21 seasons at the club and a full 18, yes that’s EIGHTEEN, as a regular fixture in the side. For most of those, of course, he was a first choice centre-half, but Charlton’s career was not without its false starts.
Leeds United team pose for a group photograph at Elland Road. They are left to right Back Row: Paul Madeley, Mike O' Grady, David Harvey, Gary Sprake, Jack Charlton and Norman Hunter. Middle row: Albert Johanneson, Rod Belfitt, Mick Jones, Terry Hibbitt, Eddie Gray, Peter Lorimer, manager Don Revie. Front row: Paul Reaney, Terry Cooper, Johnny Giles, Billy Bremner, Jimmy Greenhoff and Mick Bates. July 1968.
As many players did at the time, Charlton came into the game with considerable life experience, despite his tender years. Hailing from the North East pit village of Ashington, and a family which presented no less than six players to professional football, he had already spent some time working the coal seams which held the community together, and also did two years of national service before becoming a first-team player at Leeds. He had even dodged an interview to become a police cadet to attend his first trial at Elland Road, and it was Charlton’s brusque manner and survivalist breeding which led to many confrontations with peers and authority alike.
Charlton was famously pinned by the throat against a wall by the great John Charles, after the cocksure youngster had reacted with trademark arrogance when asked to take up a specific position at a corner. It was the kind of audacious confidence which could be channelled one of two ways, but thankfully, the belligerent Charlton learnt how to rein it in and use his wayward antagonism as a positive.
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As a player Don Revie had a number of run-ins with the ill-disciplined Charlton, who would often race around the pitch with the ball attempting to do everyone’s job because he had no faith in his own team-mates. Somehow Revie saw a leader in Charlton, however, and as a manager, brought a focus to his game which led to him becoming the enduring stalwart of his great side.
Charlton made his Leeds debut in April 1953 in a Second Division fixture against Doncaster Rovers, and it was his emergence as a reliable centre-half which allowed John Charles to be moved into attack permanently to fully exploit the goal-scoring skills which were beginning to make his name. Charlton was an immovable object from thereon in, using the hard knocks of his upbringing as precious groundwork for navigating the brutal outlands of post-war professional football.
8th April 1972: Leeds United manager Don Revie presents Jack Charlton with a bottle of champagne and the Footballer of the Month trophy in the changing room after a match. In the bath behind them are fellow Leeds players Clark, Billy Bremner (1942 -1997), Bates, and Gary Sprake (standing). (Photo by E. Milsom/Evening Standard/Getty Images)
If Charlton was a fierce competitor surviving only on his gut instincts and what God gave him, it rubbed off on others, and as Revie assembled a team around him, Charlton became the experienced head, a veteran of over 500 first-team games before the club had even won a major trophy. It also brought belated international recognition, with Charlton winning his first England cap shortly before his 30th birthday, and winning the World Cup against West Germany just a year later.
That may well give a player a unique standing in the football world, at least until you consider Roque Junior can claim the same thing, and it certainly gave Leeds United a new status in the game, but Charlton was famously unconcerned about the trappings of fame and carried on as a model of consistency as Leeds began to accumulate medals and trophies of their own.
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Without doubt Charlton was an ungainly footballer, an over-harvesting of arms and legs. However, he was a committed and fearless player who excelled in the air, but also had an uncanny liking for running forward with the ball. He would baulk at the prospect of being compared to a modern day centre-half, in the ilk of Liam Cooper and Pontus Jansson playing themselves out of trouble via intricate passing triangles, but Charlton was far more than just a ruthless stopper. Indeed, he contributed 96 goals in his Leeds career, albeit many of them were the result of Charlton’s inherent nuisance value at corners and the slightly agricultural practice of planting the ball on his head two yards from goal.
In essence, Charlton did as much as anyone to build the Leeds United we know today, and as a player who respected no-one, was instrumental in carrying out Revie’s mantra on the pitch and instilling a ‘keep fighting’ ethic which took the club into unchartered waters.
Leeds players Bobby Collins Billy Bremner Jack Charlton April 1965 come home to Leeds Central station after their victory over Manchester United The Sun James Milne
Jack Charlton is rightly celebrated as one of the greatest players the club has ever produced, and that isn’t just earned through loyalty or even ability, it is earned from being the kind of character which doesn’t come around too often and is impossible to accurately define. They don’t make them like Big Jack anymore, and you can’t buy players like Big Jack anymore. Players like him just arrive, find their place, do their thing and go. And that Jack Charlton did his thing at Leeds United is something we should be eternally grateful for.
