Sir Bobby Charlton is one of the greatest English football legends and Manchester United, and he left in 2023 at the age of 86, after leaving an eternal legacy in the history of the game.
Robert Charlton was born on October 11, 1937, in the town of Ashngton, northeastern England, where his football talent seemed clear from his early childhood.
His older brother Jack described him as “having something special since he was five”, which was the talent that led him to become a global symbol of fitness, strength and discipline.
Bobby Charlton’s football career started early after joining Manchester United at the age of 15, and participated for the first time with the first team in 1956.
Just two years later, Charlton was experimenting with almost writing a tragic end of his career before she started, when they miraculously survived the disaster crashing of the team’s plane in Munich in 1958, which killed 21 people, including 8 of his teammates in the “Bazpe Pepz” team.
Charlton was only slightly injured, but he carried the pain of loss inside his heart for years, and he later wrote, “I sometimes feel guilty because I survived and continued to succeed, while those whom I loved left.”
But Bobby was not defeated.
The peak of the glory of Bobby Charlton was in 1966, when he played a pivotal role in England’s victory in the World Cup at home, and scored two goals in the semi -finals against Portugal.
Two years later, he crowned Manchester United with the Champions League title, scoring two goals in the final against Benfica, to become United to become the first English club to achieve the most prominent European title.
Charlton was characterized by his moral qualities as much as he was distinguished by his technical skills, as he never expelled during 758 games with Manchester United and 106 international matches with England, and was known for his humility, discipline and sporting spirit.
Defender Bill Volkswagen described him as “an unparalleled mixture of fitness, strength and accuracy, giving greatness something like beauty.”
Charlton scored 249 goals with Manchester United, and 49 in the England team, a number that has held more than 4 decades until Wayne Rooney was overlooked.
After his retirement in 1973, he went to training, and established an academy to develop talents that later included the star David Beckham, who later became one of the most prominent stars of Manchester United and England.
Charlton won the title of “Fares” of Queen Elizabeth in 1994, and until his last days, one of the pillars of Manchester United, where his statue stands with George Best and Dennis Lu outside the Old Trafford Stadium, in commemoration of the “Trinity” squad that rebuilt the club after the Munich tragedy.
In 2020, Bobby was diagnosed with dementia, the same disease that killed his brother Jack, before he died on October 21, 2023.
The day after the death of Bobby Charlton, the President of the International Football Association called him, Gianni Infantino, describing him as “legend”, while David Beckham said, “He was a truly national hero,” and Sir Alex Ferguson praised him, saying, “He is the greatest player in the history of Manchester United, and has no equal in the history of English football.”
Sir Bobby Charlton left, but he left a legacy that will not erase him, and he was associated with minds as a player who got up from the rubble, led his team towards glory, and remained a symbol in the hearts of the English fans.