NOBODY KNEW IT at the time, but 40 years ago today, the FAI’s appointment of a new manager to the Republic of Ireland’s international football team would turn out to have an effect that reached far beyond the realms of sport.

That announcement raised quite a few disapproving eyebrows at the time. For one thing, it was the first time for the job to be given to a “foreigner,” and besides that, the soccer-writing fraternity were not exactly happy, the suggestion being that there were other names with more impressive credentials.

We all know what happened. There’s no need at this remove to recite the story of Ireland’s progress to Italia ’90 and beyond. But those stirring years remain bright in the memory of a whole generation. They may not be able to name more than a few players, but everyone knows the name of the manager.

He became the most popular Englishman in Ireland — and his legend lives on to this day.

At home with Jack

But when I met Jack Charlton, all he wanted to talk about was fishing. That may be a slight exaggeration, but in his home outside Newcastle, which I was privileged to visit at the height of his Irish reign, there were framed photographs of Jack’s fishing exploits and a prominent Bord Fáilte poster of him standing waist-deep in some Irish river, looking beatifically happy as he cast his line. Not a football photo in sight.

Ireland was on the rise again, having qualified for the later stages of the 1994 World Cup in the USA. I was working for the Sunday Press, which had commissioned a weekly column from Jack. (It was largely written by the sports editor, the late Michael Carwood.) Someone had the idea of getting an “at home” article, a personal piece far removed from sport-speak. I was deemed ideal.

With a local Newcastle photographer, I arrived at the Charlton home at about noon. Our ring of the doorbell was answered by Jack’s wife, Pat, who warmly welcomed us in and shouted up the stairs, “Come down, Jack, the lads from paper are here!”

One of Jack’s sons was standing in the hallway with a pair of trousers draped over his arm. He was pleading with his mother to mend the garment: it needed either a button sewn on or a seam stitched, and he continued to make his case as she showed us into the front room. Mrs Charlton explained that he was working as a croupier, so these were clearly special trousers. As she departed with them over an arm, she called up the stairs again to her husband to come down. A normal, everyday scene in a normal household.

I looked around the big lounge/sitting room. The framed photographs and a large silver trophy were all to do with fishing, as was the poster I mentioned earlier.

The room seemed to darken slightly. I turned, and there was Jack Charlton in person, leaning into the room with one arm draped along the top of the doorframe. He had to mind his head as he came in.

I was admiring the poster, so he began at once to reminisce about his Irish fishing trips. He was hard to stop!

Grandparents rule

Friendly and with a wry sense of humour, Jack patiently answered all my questions as though he hadn’t heard them before. The smile vanished when I made a jocular reference to the Irish team being based on the British descendants of Irish emigrant grandparents. Charlton had made ample use of the so-called ‘Granny Rule’ to boost the team during his tenure in charge, prompting criticism from some quarters.

“We did what we had to do, and we kept to the rules”, he said severely.

I felt a bit like an unfortunate opposing forward who had accidentally tapped him in the ankles.

Rapidly backtracking, I brought up the glorious Italia ’90 experience. He was still bemused by all the fuss and celebration that had caused. I tried to get it across to him what it had meant to the Irish people, and how it had given the whole nation an unimaginable boost.

“But we didn’t win anything!” he laughed, shaking his head. Clearly, to him, managing a national team was much the same as managing a club team: you either won or you came nowhere.

When he wasn’t engaged in either football or fishing, Jack said he did a lot of travelling around the UK, making guest appearances at and taking part in question-and-answer sessions with the fans who flocked to hear his stories. It’s sad now to think of the television documentary that showed him in his final years, unable to recall any of his glory days.

Talking about his upbringing in the Northumbrian mining town of Ashington, he said, “If it hadn’t been for the football, me and our kid (his younger brother, the former Man United star Bobby) would have been down the mines as soon as we were 12 years old.”

Unprompted by me, he diverted away from the football stories to complain quite bitterly that Bobby had not visited their mother in a long time. I didn’t know what to say, but the situation was clearly playing on Jack’s mind. He looked quite upset.

None of that was for publication, of course, but the moment stayed with me.

Jack kindly drove me back into Newcastle (our snapper had long departed). The car was a brand-new top-of-the-range Opel. (The car firm was sponsoring the Irish team thanks to an inspired decision by its then managing director, Arnold O’Byrne.)

“Have I given you enough?” Jack asked as I got out.

He certainly had.

Éanna Brophy is a former reporter and columnist with The Sunday Press.

Written by Eanna Brophy and posted on TheJournal.ie