Bobby Charlton at 80 BBC1

Would still get in the England midfield

Brilliant documentary

A wonderful tribute  and a fantastic Icon of a sporting hero.....Just pure class on & off the pitch.

Not off the pitch. This thread will be getting topped some day...

wont see an england player like him again

Bobby Charlton and Bobby Moore were probably England's best ever players

Arguably once the most famous person in the world.

Comb over-tastic!

you only get very limited coverage of players of that era but holy hell he looked a classy one

fantastic viewing.what a very humble and decent man sir bobby is.

Didn't he and his brother enjoy going out into the countryside to shoot animals, Kenny?

I saw this.  By far the best documentary I've seen in ages.  What a truly lovely & humble fella.

Morning Foinavon. I trust you're in fine fettle. I know Jack did some shooting, but wasn't aware Bobby did.

For those who missed it. Superb documentary.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b098pgv6/sir-bobby-charlton-at-80

Good morning Kenny, I had to get up early for the boiler service man who still hasn't arrived.
They gave me a window of 8 am to 1 pm so can't complain. You just know they are in a greasy-spoon somewhere at 8 am having breakfast but you have to be ready for them.

Reminds me of the Johnny Casson joke. We had sex in the plumber's position the other day. You stay in all day and nobody comes.

Homeserve did mine last week.

Mine is Homeserve, too. My neighbour across the road is also waiting for him.

Like others of his ilk, Tom Finney, Stan Matthews to name but two. Unassuming, talented, just wanted to play. Any of 'em would break the transfer record today and make 'em multi millionaires.

I remember hearing a story abot Tom Finney, the Preston plumber. He was involved in a match where Preston were winning comfortably with minutes to go, and he said to the ref, I wish you'd blow that bloody whistle, I've a bathroom to start fitting at 6 o'clock.

I remember Bobby Charlton appearing on Double your money hosted by Hughie Green,his subject was classical music and he went onto win the maximum prize of £1,000.I thought it was fixed.Great player though.

A respectful tribute to a great footballer and man during his 80th birthday year. . 

Be good though to have a somewhat more insightful docu. that covers some obvious other ground.  His deteriorating relationships with his brother, with George Best (not hard that one), and with his late mother (he did not speak with her for the last four years of her life apparently). I'd also like to know his view on why his Preston managership did not work et al.

Probably because the documentary was a positive account celebrating the good things about his life ... apart from munich, of course.  Plus it was only on for an hour!

^ plus some would debate England winning the WC being a good thing

Home advantage was massive back then, for instance they wouldn't let Argentina have their mandatory training session the day before they played England in the quarters at Wemblety, as there was dog racing that night.

trilby - it was advertised as a tribute not a documentary. I was not criticising the programme (read my first line!!). I was suggesting that there is other interesting stuff about him that is worthy of attention to perhaps get a more rounded view of him than could, or would, be covered in any uncritical tribute.

when i was living down winchmore hill way Bobby Smith used to go in my local when you bought him a few drinks he would dish the dirt on the old players,he used to say that charlton was far from a saint  he was portrayed as & was one of the worst offenders when it came to drinking & clubbing on england trips,never got into trouble with the management though for some reason.

Jimmy Greaves was England's greatest ever player, greatest British player also.

I know blackbarn - I was dissing neither you nor your post and my second post was only tongue in cheek.  Sure there's plenty other interesting stuff, such as you mentioned, and hopefully there'll be another documentary along soon ... with warts and all!

Johnny Giles said he had no positional sense when they both played for Man Utd.
Giles would be somewhere on the pitch and find Charlton standing beside him.
Giles used to have to tell him to piss off to a different part of the midfield.

But at his best Charlton could be devastating, a wonderful player.
And of course him life became almost mythical.

Greaves the best English player ever ? , he was a good goalscorer but he was not in the same class as Moore or Charlton

no anxious Greaves , certainly before he caught meningitis in the mid sixties( which he felt robbed him of a yard of his great pace), was not only the greatest goal scorer but footballer.
He could go past players better than Best could, he could control the ball better than Charlton or Moore or any other player .
He was that good watch him in some of the spurs matches against Utd and how he would turn and beat 3 or 4 players ..and then of course the inevitable goal

A right miserable git apparently.

Very possible the greatest England footballer .....yet he didn't think he was in the same parish as Duncan Edwards , who but for Munich would have been 29 and in all liklihood the England captain in 66.