Two Brothers tells the story of a great sporting family, uncovering new details, exposing myths and placing Jack and Bobby Charlton in their historical context. It''s a book about two English footballers but also about English football and England itself.
In later life Jack and Bobby didn''t get on and barely spoke but the lives of these very different brothers from the coalfield tell the story of late twentieth-century English football: the tensions between flair and industry, between individuality and the collective, between right and left, between middle- and working-classes, between exile and home.
Jack was open, charismatic, selfish and pig-headed; Bobby was guarded, shy, polite and reserved to the point of reclusiveness. They were very different footballers: Jack a gangling central defender who developed a profound tactical intelligence; Bobby an athletic attacking midfielder who disdained systems. They played for clubs who embodied two ver
