England’s most successful footballer, a player who won all the major honours and was admired for his gentlemanly behaviour
Sir Bobby Charlton, who has died aged 86, was one of the greatest footballers England has ever produced. He was certainly the most successful, the only English player to win all of football’s major honours – the FA Cup, Football League and European Cup with Manchester United, and the World Cup with England, accumulating a record number of international caps and goals.
As captain of United in 1968, when they were the first English team to win the European Cup, and a key player in the 1966 World Cup-winning team, he was the embodiment of a golden age of English football. But he was also involved in one of the game’s darkest moments, the 1958 Munich air disaster, in which eight of his team-mates, three United staff and a further 12 passengers were killed.
