Charles the Great
MICHAEL HENDERSON
True greatness is the rarest of qualities — not that people feel inhibited from using the word to praise the good, the very good or even the exceptional. Some cloth-eared critic reviewing Brian Wilson's concert at the Festival Hall last week compared him with Bach! I was in the hall that night, and it didn't sound like Bach to me, but then I know quite a lot about music, unlike miladdo.
The next night, while admiring the superb revival of Anything Goes at Drury Lane, it was impossible not to reach for the G-word. Cole Porter simply towers above the likes of Wilson, although Wilson, wreck of a man that he is, did write 'Don't Worry, Baby', which is worth one star at least.
Porter's evergreen brilliance brightened up a day that brought the sad news of the death of John Charles. Those of us too young to have seen the Welshman had to be guided through the thickets of his life and times by the likes of Michael Parkin
son, who wrote of his supreme talent and beguiling modesty. Indeed, Parky thought the only footballers born in these islands to compare with him were Tom Finney and George Best. Whether that is right or not, the people who played with and against Charles regarded him as a truly great player and, what is more important, a fine man.
Unlike today's leading sportsmen, Charles did not become rich. In fact he endured money troubles throughout his life and although he never put out the begging bowl he often relied on the charity of others to help him cope. Juventus of Turin, the club he joined in 1957, treated him as a favoured son for the rest of his days. It was in Italy, where he spent five famous years, that he really made his name. Juve have had some magnificent foreign players since then, notably Michel Platini and Zinedine Zidane. but the 'gentle giant', as Charles was known, is still regarded as their greatest import.
It was Ian Rush, the former Liverpool striker and another Welshman, who went to Juve three decades later and complained that 'they speak Italian'. Within a year he had returned to Merseyside and steak and chips. Charles embraced the world of Italian football and was rewarded by the love of supporters who never forgot him. Each year Juve would pay for him to return to the city of his greatest triumph, and each time he would be celebrated by the common folk. The Italians, who love their football, never forget those who bring glory to their teams.
As Parkinson revealed in his Telegraph column. not everybody in this country honoured his memory. When Leeds United, his English club, threw a dinner to mark his life two years ago, neither the manager nor any of the players turned up. Perhaps it is appropriate that Leeds, crippled by debts, are heading for relegation. How they could do with a modern-day Charles to score goals, as he did, and then prevent the other lot scoring them, as he also did. No player in the game's history has matched that achievement of being great both at centre forward and at centre half.
Today even the second-rate footballer is pampered to the tune of several million pounds and protected from the world by hangers-on who flee for the hills when the money dries up. So, although Charles was poor, he was rich in spirit, and lives on in thousands of hearts.
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