Charlie George

Football was a different game in the old days. Arsenal superstar and FA Cup winner Charlie George reveals all in his autobiography. By Richard Osley
Charlie George – My Story
by Charlie George
Century, £16.99
IT may seem alien to anyone who began watching football when Sky TV told them to, but the darling of Highbury’s North Bank hasn’t always been French. He hasn’t always earned tens of thousands of pounds each week for scoring goals, was never asked to sell cars simply by uttering the words ‘va-va voom’.
Rewind 30-odd years and shake hands with Charlie George, a different kind of Highbury hero who went from kicking a ball around a Camden Council estate to netting one of the most memorable goals ever seen in an FA Cup final.
He drank champagne instead of energised sports drinks, it’s a different world.
Can you remember a long-lost time when Arsenal and Spurs players used to meet up in the summer break for an annual game of cricket?
Or a time when star players went home to their parents’ council flats after playing in some of the season’s biggest fixtures?
Good old Charlie George can. As he puts it: “It was a long time ago, a different age in a distinctly different national game.”
With the possible exceptions of Chelsea’s Joe Cole and Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney, Charlie George’s bittersweet tale bears few similarities to lives led by the Premiership’s top earning stars.
You could ask how many English players these days play regularly for Arsenal, let alone players that have grown up supporting the Gunners and living in the closest council estates to Highbury. In My Story, George, once a maverick, long-haired forward known for his audacious goals and fiery attitude to the authorities – he once ended up in court for punching a photographer at a football ground – insists he is not bitter at the leap in salaries, adopting a spent-it-having-fun attitude.
“I can just about imagine what Arsenal’s current footballers earned last year,” he says in one defensive paragraph.
“Not that I am jealous, not at all, but the difference in salaries for doing the same job in terms of results is massive. We were well paid for our day; they are stupendously paid for theirs.”
There is a consolation for George, and it’s a big consolation – not all of today’s players have scored a match-clinching thunderbolt in an FA Cup final.
George’s 25-yard winner in the 1971 final against Liverpool is a permanent chapter in Arsenal folklore – a vital goal that helped the club win its first ‘double’. Back then, winning the league and cup in the same season was a rare achievement rather than the annual possibility that it now appears to be.
Famously George reeled away after scoring and lay flat on his back. The clip is re-run in FA Cup montages and the retired footballer thinks he is better known for the celebration than the actual goal.
Under pressure to explain, he is unable to clearly say why he went to ground but adds on a defining page one: “I am told by those credited with a far better education than myself that it was a defining moment in my life, which I guess is a fancy way of saying it was the dog’s bollocks.”
The sentiment sets the tone for the whole book. George does not mince words trying to explain why he did the things he did, often speaking disparagingly about those who try to explain things in 50 words when they could use 10.
And there are no nonsense chapters on how he coped with gambling, cutting up over a “hellish divorce” with wife Susan and a heart scare three years ago which he clearly thought would claim his life.
Perhaps more interesting is the story before he broke into the Arsenal team. Describing life at the Islington Boys Club based in a converted church in Angel, he might jog memories for a few when he says: “Things could get right rough, but you learned to look after yourself. It was a rite of passage as it’s called, a part of growing up.”
And anyone who shared the same council estate experience that his family did while living in flats in Tufnell Park and Camden Town may look back fondly at his happy recollection.
He said: “My family are proud of their roots but not stupid to revel in them,” he says. “There are misconceptions about estates like ours. It wasn’t all trouble. The tenants had a lot in common; even though all had different jobs, their background was much the same.”
While no Arsenal fan will tell you that they are cross that such undisputed greats as Thierry Henry, Robert Pires or Dennis Bergkamp play for Arsenal – any ‘Gooner’, as George is happy to call them, with a drop of sentimentality will look back fondly at a time when squads went on Top of the Pops in their tracksuits after recording FA Cup songs and footballers still used the lid of the FA Cup as a hat after winning it.
George brings it down to simple terms when talking about his former council estate neighbours. “They enjoyed a party but weren’t going to make a fuss about me when I broke into the Arsenal team,” he says.
“Why should they? I just happened to play for the local team who just happened to be Arsenal.”