Jack Charlton, a giant fish and the memories that make us love sport | Max Rushden


News of the World Cup winner’s death led me down an unexpected and moving path that captured the joys of football

It’s Saturday at 8.45am. I’m sitting three metres away from my TalkSport co-presenter, Charlie Baker, who is in turn sitting three metres away from our producer, Joe. We are trying to come up with a vaguely amusing text subject for our show that starts in 15 minutes. We settle on village cricket anecdotes – back after months, it’s a goldmine of funny stories.

I tweet out a question and the answers start rolling in – a guy whose mum insisted he wear a bike helmet while fielding, a model aircraft crash-landing into the umpire’s leg and a team with five volunteer fireman who all left the field when a call came in.

Related: Jack Charlton: a footballing giant who was forever a man of the people | Kevin Mitchell

Related: Playing for Jack Charlton was a joy. He gave us moments we will never forget | Kevin Sheedy

Continue reading...