'Chase the b*****ks off them'... football shares its memories of the playing and managerial days of Jack Charlton for new biography

LEEDS UNITED

Norman Hunter: “Being a Geordie, like Jack, he really took me under his wing and he liked to look after me. He was always the boss, always the one that was in charge and of course, looking back, he was never wrong and it was never his fault but we learned a lot from him because he was the linchpin.

“When he really and truly put his mind to it, 100 per cent, I don’t think there was a better centre-half around at that time. But getting him to put his mind on the job all the time was difficult. I used to like it when a centre-forward bashed him or battered him in the first five minutes because then he got angry and he would be superb.

“I was a bit younger than Jack and his big mate was Billy Bremner, and the younger lads like myself, Terry Cooper, Paul Madeley, and Mick Jones used to love winding Jack up. And it never did take much really but you knew, when the bottom lip started to quiver, then it was time to get out of the road because he was going to blow.

“Jack and Gary Sprake had a love-hate relationship. There was a mutual respect but they were always very close to exploding. I remember Sprakey coming out for a ball once, and he shouted ‘MINE… JACK’ and then ‘JACK… YOURS’ and when he came out, he punched Jack and the ball.

“Jack fell on the ground. I went over, Jack had broken his nose and there was blood everywhere. He said to me, ‘Why doesn’t that stupid **** shout for the ball?’ He played for six weeks with a broken nose and I remember to this day the gaffer said, ‘You'll be all right Jack,’ and we’d say, ‘Go on big man… head that one… head this one’ and he did. And if he didn’t head it with his forehead, it would invariably hit him on the nose and you’d hear him swearing.”

Duncan Revie (son of Don Revie): “It’s neither here nor there, but the correct pronunciation of our surname is ‘Ree-vie’, and for some reason, Jack always insisted on saying ‘Rev-vie’. But then he didn’t know the names of half the players in the Ireland team, so I guess we were lucky he remembered!

“I’m only speaking anecdotally, but they had two major conversations. The first when my dad was playing alongside Jack and told him if he was manager, he wouldn’t play Jack because he didn’t take his football seriously enough.

“The second was after my dad had taken over, and he sat him down in his office and said, ‘Listen, you silly bugger, if you play the game properly, you could play for England’. Jack didn’t really believe him when he said it.

“After the ‘66 final, my dad went into his office, and Jack’s medal was on the table. Jack had left a note. ‘That’s for you boss.’

MIDDLESBROUGH

Graeme Souness: “When Jack came, I was in the reserves and used to drive him mad, telling him I should be in the team from the age of 18 onwards.

“He said, ‘Look, you’ve got the talent, but I have seen hundreds of players like you in the history of football that have had talent and have not used it and wasted it’. He said, ‘There are two doors for you. There is one you can walk out of to use your talent, make something of yourself and perhaps be a player one day. The other one is to throw it all away.’ “He was not an arm-round-the-shoulder manager; it was blunt, straight to the point. He said what he had to say in a very basic and straightforward manner. It was great for me at the time.

“He liked aggressive players. And he liked everyone to have a right go. Aggression in football comes in many different guises. It can be the goalkeeper commanding his box or the centre-forward running at full throttle in a race for a through ball and knocking people out of his way to get there. He liked aggression in midfield and I enjoyed playing for him.

“I needed strong management and he gave me that. He knew in those days we liked a night out. And sometimes we bumped into him in the same places. He enjoyed himself as well. There was a time for that, and a time to work hard. And we were all terrified of him, so we did as we were told.”

David Hodgson: “We were on the pitch next to the first team when Jack played in one of his last five-a-sides with the first team. John Craggs put him on his arse, right in front of the TV cameras. Almost as soon as he hit the ground, Jack got up and ran after Craggsy, who thought he was joking. But he wasn’t.

“Jack was going mental… shouting and screaming at him, and would not give up running. He must have chased him for 20 minutes, with the cameras still filming the whole thing.”

NEWCASTLE UNITED

Peter Beardsley: “We played Arsenal away midweek in his fourth game, when we were top, and we got absolutely battered. And we were going to Old Trafford on the Saturday.

“As we were leaving Highbury, he said, ‘I’ll see you at Old Trafford on Saturday lads’. And we were all looking at each other thinking, ‘He’s taking the piss… isn’t he?’ But he says, ‘I’m off grouse shooting’.

“We really thought we’ll see him tomorrow, or we’re bound to see him at training on Friday. But no, sure enough, we didn’t see him until the Saturday when he came into the dressing room at quarter-to two. He didn’t even come to the pre-match meal at the hotel.

“People think I had a problem with him, but I really didn’t. He’s a smashing fella. I didn’t agree with his philosophy in terms of what he wanted and how he wanted to play the game, but I never had a problem with him. I loved him to bits.”

Chris Waddle: “He took us to Benidorm after we had been knocked out of the cup. We were away for five days and after three days everyone was skint. Jack was sat in the bar and the lads told me to go to him and ask for a sub to see us through the last few days.

“They said, ‘He likes you… you go’. So I went over, he saw me and said, ‘Hello Chris lad, how are you? Do you want a coffee?’ “So we had a coffee and sat chatting for ten minutes, and eventually I got round to the subject of him lending me some money. But when I asked him for a couple of hundred pesetas – about 50 quid – he spluttered… ‘You are fooking joking?’ Then sat patting his pockets and said, ‘Anyway… I’m fooking skint’.

“So I pleaded with him, and promised to pay him back. And he took off his flat cap and bundles of notes fell to the floor. He picked up about 100 pesetas, handed it to me and said… ‘Now, piss off’’.

“The rest of the lads were round the corner watching us, pissing themselves, and when I showed them my 100 pesetas, the others decided to have a go. So over the course of the next day, one by one, they went through the same routine before he took the money from under his flat cap and told them to scatter.

“In the end, eight of us borrowed some cash. When we returned to training the following week, he pulled me to one side and said, ‘Hey Chris, did I lend you some money in Spain?’ “And I said, ‘Who… me gaffer? No gaffer. It wasn't me’. And he said, ‘Well I lent somebody some bloody money but I can't remember who it was. And I’m down 600 quid’. And then he pulled in every one of the lads asking the same question, and everyone denied it.”

IRELAND

Niall Quinn: “I walked into the reception of the hotel and Jack was holding court with a few journalists. As I came close to the group, Jack turned to Maurice Setters and said, ‘Bloody hell, Maurice. We haven’t picked that lanky buggah… have we?’ “‘Think we had to,’ said Maurice. And there it was. Elated to deflated in one nanosecond. And it was done in front of the public so you could see the journalists all thinking… ‘Christ… now Quinn doesn’t even know he’s been picked’.

“But that was just his way. His whole leadership model was just to make the players feel great about themselves without telling them that they’re great.

“Whereas some managers would say… ‘you're great… you’re great, you’re great’, Jack might say… ‘you're fooking hopeless, but you might go and prove me wrong today’ and he’d laugh and you’d think… ‘I'll show him’.

“We used to play golf at the hotel in Monaghan where we used to stay. I was playing with Jack and Packie (Bonner) on the first green, playing for a fiver a man. Jack had a five foot putt to win the hole. And he put the ball in the hole by rolling it with the putter along the ground and dragging it in.

“Packie and I stood looking at each other, as if to say… ‘what do we say?’ ‘Are you going to say anything?’ ‘No! Are you?’ Of course we were afraid to say a word, so we just walked off towards the next tee.”

Mick McCarthy: “I remember asking him about players taking off some nights. I said to him, ‘You know those two rooms you and Maurice used to share, top of the corridor; the only way in and out? You two must have heard us coming in at two, three or four o'clock in the morning, making noise, thinking we were being quiet. ‘Did you really never hear us?’ “And he said, ‘Of course we bloody heard you. But if I stuck my nose out of the door and saw you, I had to deal with it and what was the point? So we just left you to it.’ “Managing players. The penny drops. At your club, that’s two weeks wages and a serious offence. But he knew we were all doing it and he knew that on Wednesday we would play like hell and give him everything, and we always did.”

John Aldridge: “Jack used to tell me, when their defenders get the ball, you chase the b*****ks off them. I was the first of the line to chase; that was my job. We played in their half, and it was clever. They talk about the pressing game now, but that was how we played under Jack.

“He was very old-fashioned in many ways, but he was very clever. We knew as a team what he wanted and what he would not accept and if you did as you were told, you’d play… if not you’d be out.

“He treated you like a man. If he saw someone drinking a Coke, he’d say, ‘What are you drinking that s*** for? Guinness is better for you’. He didn’t mind lads having a couple of pints.

“On the Tuesday, I used to feel guilty if I’d had a skinful, so I’d be running my nuts off to get a good sweat on, and Jack used to b*****k me and shout across, ‘Aldo… stop fooking running… save it for the game tomorrow’. Sometimes I used to wait until he’d gone in just so I could do a bit extra away from him.

“Two days before we were due to play Italy, the lads were getting restless so Jack said we could have a couple of pints each when the Guinness truck came to the hotel in Rome.

“The Guinness was set up round the pool with all the media people hanging round, plus the Italian police who were guarding us. The cops couldn’t believe that the Ireland players were drinking two days before we were due to play Italy, and that the manager was in the thick of it.

“We started playing the penny game, which basically involved putting a penny on your forehead, hitting the back of your own head until the penny falls off. By this time, a couple of pints had turned to five or six. Jack heard the commotion, so came over and asked what the game was?

“And being the ultra-competitive person that he is, Jack said he wanted a go. So Jack took his coat off to get ready and sat down. Then, Andy Townsend placed the coin on Jack’s forehead - only he took it off at the last second, without telling Jack.

“And Jack was winding his arms up like a windmill to hit himself and was belting the back of his own head while of course the lad, and the Italian cops and the press, were absolutely pissing themselves.

“He must have hit himself about ten times, full pelt as well, and then twigged and tried to grab Andy and clip him round the ear.”

‘Jack Charlton The Authorised Biography’ by Colin Young, published by Hero Books, is available from major retailers from October 10.