Evil Bobby Charlton – or, Why I Feel Sorry for Professional Footballers

I’ll say this for C.S.Lewis: he knew how to coin a memorable book title. The Screwtape Letters. Surprised By Joy. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe… but my personal favourite was Till We Have Faces, the title of a short novel about the battle between sacred love and profane.  

It makes me think of this photograph, and of Bobby Charlton’s face in general: like Auden’s, Charlton’s face was cut deeply by character, belief and experience, but whereas Auden’s face makes me feel uneasy, untrusting and unsafe, Charlton’s inspires feelings of safety, warmth, humour and even a little national pride. He has the face of a good man. 

So when a photo catches him looking like a satyr who’s had sight his opponents cards, it makes you sit up a bit.. 

Period details aside, that grin there: he looks like every droning pub narcissist’s image of the modern football player. The overpaid, pampered primadonna. As a sport psychotherapist, I had some contact, at least, with the Premiership football world, and it’s a view of footballers that I despise. Bully for me. Like  throwaway comments about Tony Blair, the idea of the lazy, arrogant, womanizing footballer has become English weathertalk, and disagreeing with it, at least out loud, is just plain bad manners. 

It’s not about money for me. There are an awful lot of people who are paid more than they are worth for their effort and talent in the United Kingdom, and my idea of what constitutes unjustifiable pay starts rather lower than most.  

Nor is it about behaviour. Our sweet, traditional public libraries teem with admiring biographies of artists, musicians and writers, who got away scot free with everything they wanted to, the more so the more they struck the correct political postures.  

In any event, given the astonishing scrutiny players are under, it’s remarkable how many of them go through careers with no stain on their characters. Rewriting your own adventures from your teens and twenties in the style and syntax of the Sun, the Mail and the News of the World is an interesting and humbling exercise.  

In my own case, I don’t believe for one second that “if I had that sort of money, I could..” be a Charlton. Not today, because what you lose for the money are things that are not to be gainsaid for any level of financial return.  

Once you reach the level of fame that a footballer has, you have no boundaries; you are no longer entirely real – you can’t hurt, you can’t bleed. Demands can be made on you: autographs at best, but every top player has had serious problems with stalkers. From your perspective, the entire population of Britain has turned into a staring crowd whose eyes follow you everywhere you go. There are always people outside your house, and people are always trying to break in. Your workplace is always surrounded and you are harassed on the way in and on the way out. Even in the top restaurants, you never complete a meal undisturbed. Driving, people race your car, or cut you up, or shout at you as their windows slide down. Adulation comes at a huge price, but it’s not just adulation that players receive. In Scotland, this year, they have started sending bombs. 

I think that were I transplanted overnight into a country where the populace treated me in this way, I’d develop, rather quickly, a powerful sense of contempt, a contempt that would, I expect, corrode my own internal compass before too long. So many people have a strong opinion about footballers but it never seems to occur to them that those footballers might have an opinion about them.  

And that’s before we get to the issue of love and marriage.  

There is nothing new about young footballers, or young sportsmen in general, being extremely popular with women and taking advantage of the fact. In Robert Roberts’ recollections of Edwardian Salford, it was the boxers who ruled the local bars and pubs, and declared to any woman who would listen that their condoms were guaranteed not to break… not a terrific opener perhaps, but then it didn’t have to be.  

Nonetheless what’s happening to young footballers now has the makings of an especially unkind and perverse psychological experiment. The unique combination of wealth, physical fitness, fame and, in some instances, international glamour, seems to throw a switch in some women’s behaviour, in ways they might not themselves have expected. The sheer amount of unasked attention a footballer will receive in a nightclub or restaurant has to be seen to be believed, and fights have broken out between women simply because they have got in each other’s way in trying to get within calling distance.   

There is a reason why successful football marriages – to a truly striking extent – involve childhood sweethearts and fashion models. The childhood sweethearts predate the madness of fame, and can be trusted, as no one from later life ever will be trusted again, to want to know the player for himself. The fashion models have made their own money, so don’t need the footballer’s: furthermore, the world of a model – with the hours of travel, the intense discipline, the restricted diet and the public intrusion – is similar in many respects to a footballer’s, and certain things are understood.  

All of this goes some way to explain why, when polled, most footballers say that they were happiest at around the age of 14. That result has remained consistent since the end of the 1960s – the beginning of the period in which a player’s income would wrench him forever from the world of his upbringing, away from the friendly, familiar streets and faces. 

So, no: as the poet says, Give me my loaf-haired secretary..

James Hamilton blogs at More Than Mind Games.
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9 thoughts on “Evil Bobby Charlton – or, Why I Feel Sorry for Professional Footballers

  1. johngjobling@googlemail.com'
    malty
    July 13, 2011 at 08:55

    A stirring defence of a group suffering at the hands of fame and the media, you mention a name James. The News of the World, just remind me again….
    The post could cover not just footballers but anyone hurled into the bear pit that is the public spotlight, the next victim will be that young golfer, Harry Putter. Perhaps as well as phone hacking, mind hacking might attract some ire.

    The wor Bobby and Bobby and wor Jackie photograph, crap hairdo’s in the sixties and didn’t wor Bobbie have a duff hand.

  2. john.hh43@googlemail.com'
    john halliwell
    July 13, 2011 at 13:30

    Welcome back James: I hope this is the beginning of a new series.

    I suspect that even such a brilliant defence from one who has observed Premiership footballers at close quarters will fail to convince any of those identified in the fourth paragraph of the post. I would expect that for every Ashley Cole there are a dozen, or more, Paul Scholes, whose off-field behaviour must make it far easier to negotiate Malty’s bear pit. And that is probably common across many areas of society.

    Oh for the days when great footballers travelled to the match on foot, or a number 38 bus, and, though idolised, remained within the reach of ordinary fans. But, then, a similar lament can be applied to many aspects of the way we currently live.

    The post took me back to this:
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1163026/EXCLUSIVE-What-does-Sir-Tom-Finney-make-todays-pampered-millionaires.html

    • Worm
      July 13, 2011 at 13:47

      “negotiating Malty’s Bear Pit” sounds dangerous

    • johngjobling@googlemail.com'
      malty
      July 13, 2011 at 17:59

      One of the saddest stories I ever read was the obituary for Wilf Mannion who went from being a fitter at ICI into the public spotlight and once his talent was spent and he, gasp, stood up for his principles, disappeared back into the Wilton maintenance department, his pockets containing nothing but dust and memories.

      His conscience was however, clear.

      A possible outcome but personally, I wouldn’t put money on it……..

      Murdoch and Milliband play out the Anthony Perkins scene from Phaedra and jointly drive the Aston over a cliff thereby doing society a favour. As a result Sonny Jim does what Sonny Jim’s always do, deep six the company. The lack of wads of Zloty bring football to it’s knees, footballers agents hurl themselves from viaducts thereby doing society a favour, Fergie runs out of gum, the players settle back to what they once were, reasonably paid public entertainers.
      This presupposes that Putin grows tired of the grinning barrow boy Abramovitch and sticks a tube of polonium up his hooter.

      And Barcelona is hit by a tsunami,

      And the Geordies adopt brains.

      And Glaswegians loose their box marked bigotry.

      And Martin O’Neil finally has an outlet for his talent.

      We are all, as they say, in the gutter, some of us are star gazing, more fool us.

    • jameshamilton1968@gmail.com'
      James Hamilton
      July 13, 2011 at 18:48

      What an interesting article there about Finney. Impossible not to admire him intensely, and now he’s the oldest surviving England international and one of the very last pre-War league players still with us.

      My own “memory” of him comes from his This Is Your Life appearance, which might still be on Youtube. Sir Tom was grabbed stepping off a coach. He was in conversation at the time with a number of the passengers, and what struck me was the way he was able to acknowledge, politely, the presence of the book and the cameras, but continue and finish the conversation. Only once the ways parted did he turn back to (Eamonn Andrews?) and the film crew.

      How to treat people with respect and consideration and good manners. I wish I thought I’d react to the arrival of a television crew with anything like the grace and dignity.

      It’s clear from the newspapers and magazines of his footballing prime that men like Finney (and he’d want to put Matthews above him in this as ever) were always thin on the ground, anywhere in life, let alone football. Long life, Sir Tom.

      • john.hh43@googlemail.com'
        john halliwell
        July 13, 2011 at 20:45

        James, the YouTube clip is here, and how wonderfully poignant it is:
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-mlW2MSlm4

        I have mulled over for years the question: who was the greatest British footballer? I always seem to come to the slightly shaky conclusion that, in the absence of a matured Edwards, it was a tie between Finney and Best, but when I consider whether or not Best could have taken ten rather average teammates and inspired them through his dedication and genius to the verge of the old First Division title, as Tom did, I start to have doubts that a tie is the answer.

        • jameshamilton1968@gmail.com'
          James Hamilton
          July 13, 2011 at 21:42

          George Best

          Along with goodness how many others, I used to drink at the Phene Arms in Chelsea and completely ignore Best in his accustomed corner with Rodney Marsh. In the spirit of this post, I think we all felt, against our will and better nature, eyes forming in the backs of our heads.

          It was always soft drinks for the two of them so far as I could tell. I wouldn’t like to try to decide between Best and Finney – but I can feel an unjustified bias towards Best. There was just so much hope and goodwill for the man in the air within the Phene back then: it rubs off on you.

  3. Worm
    July 13, 2011 at 13:38

    a really good read James. I must say that I’m mystified as to why anybody would be fascinated by a footballer off the pitch, they seem so thoroughly dull. Perhaps thats why G.Best became as famous as he did; by being the first, and so far last, un dull footballer. Oh and Eric Cantona was alright in that respect

  4. brokerharris@gmail.com'
    Patrick Murtha
    July 14, 2011 at 01:49

    “The unique combination of wealth, physical fitness, fame and, in some instances, international glamour, seems to throw a switch in some women’s behaviour, in ways they might not themselves have expected. The sheer amount of unasked attention a footballer will receive in a nightclub or restaurant has to be seen to be believed, and fights have broken out between women simply because they have got in each other’s way in trying to get within calling distance.”

    It is too true. When I was in graduate school at Boston University, I picked up a little extra cash as a security guard at the Fleet Center — honestly, one of the most fun low-paying jobs that I’ve had — and occasionally my assignment was to guard the entrance to the locker room during and after the Boston Celtics and Boston Bruins games. After the games, model-beautiful women were piled up outside the locker room door, 15 or 20 deep, hoping to catch the eye of a player (any player) as he emerged. And the players knew it, and looked forward to doing the walk through the crowd, and by the tiniest of gestures choosing one of those women for the evening, if they were inclined to do so. (If not, there were plenty more outside the building, and at the bars and restaurants.) How any wife of an athlete could fail to realize the playground her husband lives in is completely beyond me. And as for sportswriters who pretend to be shocked, shocked, when the facts about a Tiger Woods come out, despite the fact that they knew pretty much all of it, all along — well, I guess it’s just all a game, really, and we each have our parts to play.

    “I must say that I’m mystified as to why anybody would be fascinated by a footballer off the pitch, they seem so thoroughly dull.”

    Absolutely, pro athletes are with exceedingly rare exceptions exceptionally dull, for the most part having never lived in anything approximating a “real world.” But the money and the glamour (even more than the physiques) trump all that. I’m sure that most women who capture the attention of an athlete even briefly find him fascinating as all get-out.

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