Jack Charlton remembered by Andy Townsend | Football

The first time I met Jack was after a game for Norwich against Millwall at the Den at the start of 1989. We’d arranged to talk about me playing for the Irish national team, and when I met him it was very straightforward: “I’d like you to come and be part of it. If you follow the rules, do as you’re told, you’ll enjoy it – we have a lot of fun together.” It was as simple as that, and that was typical Jack: short, sweet and to the point. A few weeks later, on the coach headed to the stadium for my debut, Jack came and sat next to me. He started talking but he wasn’t looking at me, he was just looking ahead, over the seat in front of him. “Listen,” he said, “I know you like to play your football with Norwich, but if you tippy-tappy about with me, and you lose the ball in bad areas, I’ll have you off the fucking field.” And that was it: message understood, loud and clear.

The basis of Jack’s game was quite simple: we put them under maximum pressure in their half, and if they tried to play through us, that was perfect, because we were going to be in their faces, hunting them down, trying to win the ball back in their half of the field. That high press has become so prevalent now in football, but Jack had us doing it 35 years ago. And he always believed that in international football, conceding possession in your own half was a recipe for disaster, that the best teams in the world would pick you off and punish you, so we eliminated that risk a lot. We did go long, hitting the ball from the back to the front, but when we got into attack there were no boundaries, no limits. It was about scoring goals and making their goalkeeper work: lots of crosses, lots of bodies in the box. Those were Jack’s rules, and he was very adamant about them. They weren’t for bending or changing; you did it his way or you didn’t play. He had to get everyone to believe that if we stuck to that, we could be successful. And that’s the way it turned out: I only lost five of my first 50 matches with Ireland. We beat Germany, we beat the Netherlands, we beat Italy – when you get a team like Ireland to seventh in the world rankings, as he did at one point, you’re doing something right.

Jack was a great communicator. He didn’t just connect with footballers – you could stand him up in a room full of kids, or a room full of men drinking beer, or a room full of nans and grandads, and they would be in the palm of his hand. But he could be a prickly character. He could get a bee in his bonnet about the silliest things, things that would seem trivial to some but meant a lot to him. But then there were incidents that other managers would consider quite serious, and Jack wouldn’t bat an eyelid. He thought differently to the mainstream.

The 1990 World Cup was a fantastic tournament to be a part of. We got to the quarter-finals, we met the pope, and we played in Italy, probably the world’s top footballing destination at that time, in stadiums steeped in footballing history and tradition. Jack always liked his routine, and he liked his players to have a routine, but he also used to throw in little curveballs here and there, taking us out for a drink or for a meal. He’d also say he didn’t mind if we had a walk after our evening meal, and he knew full well that would probably end up with us dipping into a bar for a couple of hours. We used to enjoy the trust he gave us, and we didn’t let him down. By the 1994 World Cup, I was captain, and leading the team out at the Giants Stadium for the opening game against Italy was a very special day. We had reservations about that tournament because of the heat, which we knew would be difficult with our style, but winning that match was one of our great moments as a group.

He loved the intensity of football, but he also liked to get away from it completely. He loved his fishing – he was equally at home on a riverbank or a football pitch, and there couldn’t be two more contrasting situations. He was his own man: he didn’t like to sing to someone else’s tune, that’s not what Jack was all about, and that’s why the Irish job was perfect for him. There was no interference, he could manage as he wished, he knew the people around him, he knew who he liked and who he didn’t like, and he had a talented group of players who would run through brick walls for him.

Jack left at the end of 1995, after we failed to qualify for Euro 96, and I didn’t see a tremendous amount of him after that. I bumped into him a few times up at Newcastle when I was either playing or working in television. A couple of years ago, Niall Quinn arranged a get-together at the K Club near Dublin, when we’d just agreed to make this film about his life, Finding Jack Charlton, which has just been released. He didn’t recognise me that night. There were certain people there that he did recognise, but my own father was suffering with dementia at this time and I saw similar characteristics with Jack that I’d seen in my dad. I was aware of where he was in his life at that time.

I think he was a great manager. He was bullish, bloody-minded at times, but he had a wonderful sense of humour and he had a good heart. I think he cared for people and he wanted to look after the people who looked after him. Loyalty was important to Jack and he saw it as a two-way street: I’ll pick the players, trust them, stand by them when it doesn’t work, and in return they have to give me everything they’ve got. And that’s what we did.

Finding Jack Charlton is showing in UK and Irish cinemas, and is available on DVD plus Apple TV, Amazon Prime and other streaming platforms