Childhood Heroes — One Famous, One Not — Died on the Same Day
The confluence of the lives of Uncle Jorge and soccer great, Bobby Charlton
The reports arrived one after the other, back-to-back, a couple of Saturdays ago in late October. Uncle Jorge and Bobby Charlton had died on the same day. I was saddened by the news, of course, but I also noted the serendipitous pairing, important to me and no one else in the world. Both men had loomed large during my childhood, specifically from ages seven to nine. Memories from those impressionable years came roaring back.
Bobby Charlton was a towering sports figure, one of fútbol’s all-time greats and a mainstay for the English side that won the World Cup in 1966. In the sticker book, collected by my paternal uncles in the run up to the tournament, Charlton’s photo was memorable for his balding pate among his youthful mates. He would be renowned for his sportsmanship, his booming long-range shot, and his unruly comb-over. There’s another photo from that Kodachrome era that is imprinted in my memory, and, without doubt, in the memory of fútbol fans of a certain age. It’s the one with Bobby Charlton on the field holding aloft the Jules Rimet Trophy, celebrating with his teammates their victory over West Germany with the original Wembley Stadium’s classic profile in the background. Their bright red jerseys blooming in the foreground, upstaging the deep green of the cathedral’s pitch.
Uncle Jorge was also a towering figure in my life around this same time. He was a constant presence during the twenty months I spent at my grandmother’s finca—her farm—just prior to our move to the United States from Colombia. Abuelita, a widow by then, and Jorge shared the work on the farm. He and his family lived in the finca’s original house. We bunked with Abuelita at the new house downhill from his.
With my father away, scouting New York, I gravitated toward Jorge. He was in his early thirties, a couple of years younger than my dad, irreverent and outgoing. More or less the opposite of his sister — my mother. I remember his thick hair and sly grin under bright piercing eyes that he must have inherited from my grandfather, whose eyes everyone remembered.
I was Jorge’s assistant in the field, his nemesis during our board game battles, an accomplice while teasing my mother, and the victim when he got the better of me. At times we were inseparable; other times, we couldn’t be in the same area, especially after he left me in tears over a dispute, usually related to a game we had just played. We both hated to lose.
By mid-1967, I had lost all connections to Uncle Jorge and Bobby Charlton. They were part of a life I left behind when we moved to New York City. I would know little of Jorge’s life after I left. I was never to be his understudy again. For almost sixty years, all I would have was a vague awareness of his struggles. Similarly, without my father’s brothers, the fútbol fanatics who defined my allegiance to Los Millionarios, the local team in Bogotá, the worship of Pelé and Garrincha, and the apotheosis of the two Black Panthers, Eusébio and Lev Yashin, I was completely unaware of Bobby Charlton’s storied career at Manchester United, his club team, after the 1966 World Cup.
Bobby Charlton, knight of the realm, has had many tributes posted since his death. In one of them, I came across a great quote about his world-wide renown. His teammate, Geoff Hurst, wrote, “There’s only one piece of English they [non-English speakers] can say, and that’s Bobby Charlton.” This was true for me at age eight.
Several articles described Charlton’s boyish enthusiasm on the field, where he often displayed an unbridled joy after scoring, jumping up and down with his hands in the air like a triumphant kid in the schoolyard. He scored two goals in the semifinals against Eusébio’s Portugal, in what was considered the best game of the tournament, leaving Eusébio distraught and in tears as he walked off the pitch — he hated to lose, too.
Like Charlton, Jorge had a similar boyish enthusiasm, often at the expense of his growing responsibilities, and to the dismay of his wife and mother. More than once, I was sent to town in the middle of the afternoon to call him back home, yelling for him through the open arched windows of the billiards hall. Even then, as a young boy, I understood that he could be unreliable when under the influence of his buddies.
When he would casually dismiss his mother’s subsequent admonition, I often attempted to pile on the reprimand. I knew how easy it was to rile his temper, and how to find refuge under Abuelita’s skirt.
Unlike Bobby Charlton, Uncle Jorge will have few, if any, tributes written for him. I thought it fitting to recall the joy I experienced as his sidecar in 1966. As for his teasing and goading, one can explain it away that he was teaching me to be sharp-eyed and clever, and that we were having fun. We were, as the accompanying photograph attests. I was Jorge’s sidekick for less than two of his eighty-nine years, a narrow window into his life, but one just wide enough to appreciate his avuncular notions and whims.
I met his youngest daughter a couple of summers ago for the first time, a reunion that included her son, clearly Jorge’s grandchild. The resemblance was obvious. After that gathering, I found myself thinking about Uncle Jorge, resurrecting old black-and-white photographs to share with her.
After his passing, during my condolence call, my cousin lamented that her father’s last few years were trying times of deteriorating health while living in shoddy nursing homes. She found solace knowing he had been a fighter all his life, no matter what came at him. The picture that came to mind was Jorge staring down, through piercing eyes, the challenges that came at him hard and fast like booming shots off the foot of Bobby Charlton, reacting with a sly grin after deflecting them aside.
Thanks for reading. For more, see medium.com/matiz.
