Survivor, pioneer, winner – Bobby Charlton was the ultimate footballer

The Manchester United and England legend, who has died aged 86, saw it all and did it all in a remarkable career, from the low of the Munich air disaster to winning the World Cup in 1966

Bobby Charlton was the quintessential English footballer, among the very best this country has produced and certainly one of the best-loved. He was synonymous with Manchester United during a 20-year association that resumed after a couple of seasons as manager at Preston North End, and even though he briefly pulled on his boots again at Deepdale he is rightly regarded a one-club man in the traditional sense.

As such, his was perhaps the greatest of careers, encompassing as it did the Busby Babes era of the 1950s, the Munich air disaster and its aftermath, and the subsequent rebuilding which culminated in Manchester United becoming the first English team to win the European Cup in 1968. Two years earlier, Charlton had won the World Cup with England. Geoff Hurst’s hat-trick dominated coverage of the final against West Germany, but Charlton’s goals had helped England through the earlier rounds, most notably in the semi-final against Portugal, when his penchant for scoring with ferocious long-range shots had been maintained.

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