How good was Sir Bobby Charlton as a player?

devilish said:
Thanks for your feedback

I remember a training video Charlton and a young Giggs did back in the day. What impressed me was how Charlton could still keep up with Giggs without making himself look silly. I mean the age gap between the two was tremendous and while Charlton was still fit for a man of his age his training was nowhere near to that of an active football player let alone someone as talented or as pacey as an 18 year old something Giggs

I remember saying to myself if this guy could do all that at his age then imagine what he could do in his prime
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Yes, I almost forgot about his very rapid acceleration. As mentioned, he had terrific balance and could go past a player on either side before they had a chance to react.
Silky smooth was a perfect description.

And he was held in such high respect by other players and of course managers. In the WC final, the West Germany manager put his number one player Franz Beckenbauer to try and mark Charlton out of the game. But Charlton still had a great game while West Germany missed their talisman.
 
Sir Bobby can dribble and tackle too. Scholes don't do that.
As for Maguire being English and United fans being biased, I think most United fans agree that he is not worth the money spent on him.
I have his autograph when I got it one time after a game at OT. After he had retired of course. A legend among the top legends of United.
Did he have his best game ever for United or for England in the WC semi final against Portugal?
 
One thing that always strikes me about Charlton - you look at his long rangers, then you see the kind of footballs they played with back then, and you can only wonder how he managed it. He must indeed have a foot like a traction engine. I can only imagine how hard he could have spanked a modern day football.
 
Foxbatt said:
Did he have his best game ever for United or for England in the WC semi final against Portugal?
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If we’re talking purely about performance his game against Mexico in 1966 was probably his best game of the tournament. Obviously, scoring 2 goals to win a semi-final is huge, but I’ve seen better games from him for United for sure.
 
devilish said:
Thanks for your feedback

I remember a training video Charlton and a young Giggs did back in the day. What impressed me was how Charlton could still keep up with Giggs without making himself look silly. I mean the age gap between the two was tremendous and while Charlton was still fit for a man of his age his training was nowhere near to that of an active football player let alone someone as talented or as pacey as an 18 year old something Giggs

I remember saying to myself if this guy could do all that at his age then imagine what he could do in his prime
Click to expand...

To build on this...when I wrote my book I interviewed a number of former youth players who were at United in the late 1980's and early 1990's.

Apparently the youth team went over to Switzerland to play in the Blue Stars Tournament in the late 1980's, something we did every May, and in one of last games Bobby Charlton played as a guest as a couple of players had knocks. He went over as one of the directors of the club along with Matt Busby, Eric Harrison of course and a few other senior figures. Anyway, as Charlton was getting ready in the changing room, all the youth players were having a bit of a giggle about it and were talking about having to play with ten men.

For the first 5-10 minutes of the game they hardly passed it to him...then Charlton demanded the ball and started running at the defence. This is against 18-19 year-old fit professionals. He was He started beating man after man and setting up countless chances for Giggs and others which they missed. All the United players were speechless and the opponents who were from Brazil didn't know what to make of it. Then the story goes that Charlton got angry with the United players for wasting chances so he got the ball in his own half, beat the entire Brazilian midfield and defence on a mazy run...dropped his shoulder and unleashed a shot from 35 yards that rifled into the roof of the net.

After the game every youth player shook his hand...there were no giggles. The players told me that even today, when they tell people about their time at United, they tell that story and how it was an honour to be on the same pitch as him.

All this talk of Charlton only being good against 1950's defences is a load of toss. He would be sensational in today's game.

When he turned out in that match he was 51 years old.
 
harms said:
If we’re talking purely about performance his game against Mexico in 1966 was probably his best game of the tournament. Obviously, scoring 2 goals to win a semi-final is huge, but I’ve seen better games from him for United for sure.
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Shame the world never saw the best of Bobby in the final, but Ramsey stuck him on Beckenbauer and that was that.
 
Mr. MUJAC said:
To build on this...when I wrote my book I interviewed a number of former youth players who were at United in the late 1980's and early 1990's.

Apparently the youth team went over to Switzerland to play in the Blue Stars Tournament in the late 1980's, something we did every May, and in one of last games Bobby Charlton played as a guest as a couple of players had knocks. He went over as one of the directors of the club along with Matt Busby, Eric Harrison of course and a few other senior figures. Anyway, as Charlton was getting ready in the changing room, all the youth players were having a bit of a giggle about it and were talking about having to play with ten men.

For the first 5-10 minutes of the game they hardly passed it to him...then Charlton demanded the ball and started running at the defence. This is against 18-19 year-old fit professionals. He was He started beating man after man and setting up countless chances for Giggs and others which they missed. All the United players were speechless and the opponents who were from Brazil didn't know what to make of it. Then the story goes that Charlton got angry with the United players for wasting chances so he got the ball in his own half, beat the entire Brazilian midfield and defence on a mazy run...dropped his shoulder and unleashed a shot from 35 yards that rifled into the roof of the net.

After the game every youth player shook his hand...there were no giggles. The players told me that even today, when they tell people about their time at United, they tell that story and how it was an honour to be on the same pitch as him.

All this talk of Charlton only being good against 1950's defences is a load of toss. He would be sensational in today's game.

When he turned out in that match he was 51 years old.
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What a wonderful story! Thanks a lot.
 
Mr. MUJAC said:
To build on this...when I wrote my book I interviewed a number of former youth players who were at United in the late 1980's and early 1990's.

Apparently the youth team went over to Switzerland to play in the Blue Stars Tournament in the late 1980's, something we did every May, and in one of last games Bobby Charlton played as a guest as a couple of players had knocks. He went over as one of the directors of the club along with Matt Busby, Eric Harrison of course and a few other senior figures. Anyway, as Charlton was getting ready in the changing room, all the youth players were having a bit of a giggle about it and were talking about having to play with ten men.

For the first 5-10 minutes of the game they hardly passed it to him...then Charlton demanded the ball and started running at the defence. This is against 18-19 year-old fit professionals. He was He started beating man after man and setting up countless chances for Giggs and others which they missed. All the United players were speechless and the opponents who were from Brazil didn't know what to make of it. Then the story goes that Charlton got angry with the United players for wasting chances so he got the ball in his own half, beat the entire Brazilian midfield and defence on a mazy run...dropped his shoulder and unleashed a shot from 35 yards that rifled into the roof of the net.

After the game every youth player shook his hand...there were no giggles. The players told me that even today, when they tell people about their time at United, they tell that story and how it was an honour to be on the same pitch as him.

All this talk of Charlton only being good against 1950's defences is a load of toss. He would be sensational in today's game.

When he turned out in that match he was 51 years old.
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Honestly I have never seen weaker defences then now. Chiellini is 37 and is still considered a top defender by today standards. The likes of Beckenbauer, Fachetti and Moore would eat the so called modern top defenders for breakfast
 
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Our best ever player, a titan of the world game, yet somehow still underrated. Just a ridiculously rounded game, one of the best strikers of a ball ever, off both feet, good in the air, a magnificent runner with the ball over distance.

Combine someone like Nedved with Lampard, and you get an idea of what he was.
 
11101 said:
Works both ways. Pitches back then were like farmer's fields and the balls were like solid blocks. Close control was near impossible and defenders could hack you down however they pleased. Even as recently as the 1980s, see the clip from Gary Lineker about how they relaid the pitch before the 1986 Argentina game and the turf patches hadn't settled and kept sliding under their feet. And that was a World Cup semi final. If you play on a modern stadium pitch it's like astro turf it's so smooth.

There was definitely more variation in standard back then but the best players then would still be the best players today.
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I really hate this phenomenon in sports fandom to denigrate previous generations accomplishments, especially when it is done to elevate the current era. Also ignores guys like Charlton spannings such time that he played in the era of Stanley Matthews through to Maradona.
 
Certainly the best English player ever and was voted best player of the 1966 World Cup. Apart from Ronaldo none of our current players are anywhere near Bobby.
 
Moriarty said:
Shame the world never saw the best of Bobby in the final, but Ramsey stuck him on Beckenbauer and that was that.
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Well it did kinda work out in the end I guess as both completely neutralized each other out of the game so I guess his man marking was effective
 
Sassy Colin said:
Seems trashing our players now seems to be ingrained in certain 'fans'.
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Don't get me wrong. Sir Bobby is and always will be a true legend and one of the best players we've had. I was a regular at OT in those days and he did have a reputation of shooting way over and into the stands and the crowd gave him stick for it. Not trying to tarnish his image. Just going against the grain a bit!
 
simplyared said:
Don't get me wrong. Sir Bobby is and always will be a true legend and one of the best players we've had. I was a regular at OT in those days and he did have a reputation of shooting way over and into the stands and the crowd gave him stick for it. Not trying to tarnish his image. Just going against the grain a bit!
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I was a regular back then too and you're right. But there again, you'd often see Best do sod-all for 90 minutes too, and I once saw Denis Law miss a penalty against Sheffield Wednesday. He just side-footed the ball straight at the keeper. He got a ton of stick for that. Those men were human, fallible, and getting on towards the end of their careers in the early 70s. But we had far more great moments with Bobby than we did bad ones.
 
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