‘Sir Bobby’ survived the air disaster and became the hero of Wembley in 1966

More than three years after his older brother, the youngest Charlton also died of dementia, at the age of 86. The tall defender Jack has headed his entire football life, the small (attacking) midfielder Bobby was famous for his devastating shot. Together they won the first and last English world title in 1966 in front of their own audience. The brotherly hug afterwards was short and sweet. They certainly weren’t friends.

Bobby Charlton was the better footballer of the two miner’s sons. Perfectly ‘two-legged’ too, he sometimes trained with a slipper on his right foot, so he could better develop his left foot. He won the European Cup 1, the predecessor of the Champions League, with Manchester United in 1968. He scored two goals in the final against Benfica man of the match.

A year later he was knighted Sir Bobby. His teammates Denis Law and George Best led too dissolute lives to be ennobled. All three of them received a statue in front of the stadium in Manchester. But Best and Law were missing from Charlton’s farewell match; they “didn’t want to be hypocritical.”

Years of arguing

The neat, serious and, according to many, arrogant Bobby was also the opposite of his rustic (drinking) brother Jack Charlton, nicknamed ‘The Giraffe’ because of his long neck. Their private life was dominated by a years-long feud between Bobby’s wife and their mother. Only when mother Charlton died did the brothers (without wives) occasionally contact each other again.

Bobby Charlton has been a board member/consultant at United since 1984. After retiring as a player, he was already a regular guest in the grandstand of Old Trafford, the home stadium of the Mancunians , which he had served from 1956 to 1973. He played a total of 606 games for United, a record number that would not be bettered by Ryan Giggs until some four decades later. Bobby Charlton played at four World Cups and played 106 international matches – also a record, but that was already broken in 1973 by teammate Bobby Moore. Bobby Charlton scored 49 times in the national shirt – a record that was only broken in 2015 by Wayne Rooney.

Besides his shot, his dribbling, his fighting spirit and his many titles, Bobby is remembered as one of the Busby Babes who survived the Munich air disaster. In the winter of 1958, a plane carrying the entire Manchester United squad broke in two on a snowy, slippery runway. There were 23 deaths, including eight players. Young Charlton had changed plane seats at the last minute during the layover from Belgrade. He only had scrapes and cuts.

Trainer Busby also survived the disaster. Together they slowly but surely built a new team that won two league titles in 1965 and 1967 before winning the top prize in 1968. The European Cup victory at Wembley was ten years after the air disaster, with all the emotions that entailed.

Bobby Charlton on the ball in 1969.

Heading and dementia

In the meantime, discussions about dementia among former international players are keeping people busy in England. Jack and Bobby belong to a sad list of fallen world champions. Nobby Stiles, Martin Peters and Ray Wilson also suffered from dementia and could not remember anything on the 50th anniversary of the famous World Cup final at Wembley in 2016. The Charltons were still fully conscious at the time, although Jack would undoubtedly have been drinking afterwards.

After the anniversary celebration in 2016, the syndromes led to special attention and investigation by the English Football Association. Under the leadership of former goalkeeper Gordon Banks, who died in 2019 (not from dementia), the disease was brought into extra attention. Neuroscientists worldwide agree: hitting many heads against then heavy leather balls was bad for your health in any case.

Is it a coincidence that three (and with Jack and Bobby Charlton later five) of the eleven world champions developed dementia? All those headed duels in all those years of top football – defender Jack Charlton in particular had a patent on it – had to lead to brain damage, many neuroscientists reason. With one caveat in this story: the 1.70 meter tall Bobby was certainly not a head specialist.