David Gwilliam
Well-Known Member
I very much enjoyed "Sir Bobby Charlton at Eighty" which is available on the BBC Catchup Page.
Bobby is perhaps the greatest British player. He was not as talented as Duncan Edwards or George Best but they failed to fulfil their potential for very different reasons. Perhaps Stanley Matthews is the alternative choice but he never won a World Cup Medal.
Obviously Sir Bobby got emotional about the Munich air crash with the question "Why did I survive when others did not." However "survival guilt" has not poisoned his character. On the other hand Colin Webster who missed travelling with the team because of flu turned from a happy go lucky character into one with a hair trigger temper.
On paper Wayne Rooney and Gary Lineker were better goal scorers. However, Bobby was never a centre forward.. Most of his goals were great goals; they were not tap ins that other good players could have scored.
It is a pity that the vast majority of his goals were never filmed. Future football historians will be able to watch the complete performances of recent heroes like Jermaine Beckford and Phil Neville; we can only envy them.
Bobby is perhaps the greatest British player. He was not as talented as Duncan Edwards or George Best but they failed to fulfil their potential for very different reasons. Perhaps Stanley Matthews is the alternative choice but he never won a World Cup Medal.
Obviously Sir Bobby got emotional about the Munich air crash with the question "Why did I survive when others did not." However "survival guilt" has not poisoned his character. On the other hand Colin Webster who missed travelling with the team because of flu turned from a happy go lucky character into one with a hair trigger temper.
On paper Wayne Rooney and Gary Lineker were better goal scorers. However, Bobby was never a centre forward.. Most of his goals were great goals; they were not tap ins that other good players could have scored.
It is a pity that the vast majority of his goals were never filmed. Future football historians will be able to watch the complete performances of recent heroes like Jermaine Beckford and Phil Neville; we can only envy them.
