"Football is not a matter of life and death, it is more important than that."
Two Brothers
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Jonathan Wilson, London Little Brown, 2022 ISBN 9781408714492
An absorbing biography of brothers Jack and Bobby Charlton which gives an insight not only into their lives but also into the world in which they played professional football, a totally different world from the modern Premier League. Jack died 2 years before the book’s publication and Bobby a year after it.
The contrast between then and now is shown in Jack coaching in schools in the afternoons and earning half his weekly footballer’s wage as a school coach. Imagine Erling Haaland having to top up his earnings in this way!
As a young professional at Leeds United Jack was required to polish boots, pump up balls, paint toilets before there was any thought of training. When Jack was first selected for England, he is described as bemused, knowing that he was not the best centre-half in the country. He even asked Alf Ramsay why he had been selected. Ramsay’s reply was that he wanted to play a particular system and that Jack fitted that system better than anyone else.
The story of Ray Wilson and Jack going shopping in North London on the morning of the 1966 World Cup final again shows what a different world it was back then.
The book records Bobby Charlton’s abiding guilt that he survived the Munich air crash, asking himself constantly “Why me?”
In terms of sport and faith there are two references to the faith of Manchester United player, Billy Whelan and his comment on the Munich plane that if death was coming, he was ready. There is also a refence to the Leeds United chaplain, John Jackson.
A very readable book.