July 13 – English football is paying tribute to Jack Charlton, a member of the country’s 1966 World Cup-winning team who died on Friday at the age of 85.
Known as “Big Jack”, the uncompromising central defender, brother of perhaps the more celebrated Bobby Charlton, spent all his club career at Leeds United from 1952-73.
All Premier League games were preceded by a minute’s silence at the weekend as a tribute to Charlton, who famously featured at the heart of England’s defense alongside captain Bobby Moore.
“Jack was the type of player and person that you need in a team to win a World Cup,” said Geoff Hurst, who scored a hat trick in the 1966 final against West Germany, still England’s only major trophy.
After he retired from club and international football, Charlton became an equally iconic figure as a manager, upsetting all odds by taking the Republic of Ireland to the quarter-finals of the 1990 World Cup.
Awarded an OBE in 1974 and given honorary Irish citizenship in 1996, he was described by the country’s former Prime Minister Leo Varadkar as “Ireland’s most loved Englishman”.
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