Jack Charlton was born in the Northumberland mining village of Ashington in May 1935. Before his eighteenth birthday, on the 25 April 1953, he played his first game for Leeds United. Twenty years later, on the 28 April 1973, he pulled off his club shirt for the last time. Jack Charlton played 773 games for Leeds United, a record that is unlikely to be ever surpassed. Furthermore, no Leeds United player has ever played more times for England than Jack Charlton. He was, of course, a part of the England team that won the World Cup in 1966. In 1967 he was named English Footballer of the Year, and he won almost every honour in the game as part of the Leeds United team of the sixties and seventies that is arguably the finest club side that this country has ever seen.

After retiring as a player, Jack Charlton went on to become a manager. He won promotion for both Middlesborough and Sheffield Wednesday, and in 1974 he was named the English Manager of the Year and awarded an OBE. In February 1986, to many people’s surprise, including his own, he found himself being appointed the manager of the Republic of Ireland. Ten years later he had taken the Republic of Ireland to a European Championship, Two World Cups, being made both a Freeman of the City of Dublin and an Honorary Irish Citizen. In short, he had won the hearts and souls of the Irish people and proved himself to be one of the great international managers of modern times.

Jack Charlton is his own man. His integrity has sometimes being mistaken for awkwardness, but such is the price that many principled men pay for being true to their beliefs. Throughout his life as both a player and a manager, he displayed leadership, courage, commitment, and he always commanded respect. I leave the final words to his manager during his years with Leeds United, the late Don Revie. He wrote, in Jack Charlton’s testimonial brochure, ‘I shall be forever grateful to him and Leeds United will too. No club could have had a greater servant.’