Remembering Sunderland legend Charlie Hurley.
With host James Copley and guests Rob Mason and Phil Smith.
With host James Copley and guests Rob Mason and Phil Smith.
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00:00 Charlie knew and understood his place in the affections of Sunderland supporters.
00:07 The thing that I've sort of taken away from hearing about Charlie Hurley over the years
00:11 was that he was absolutely made for Sunderland in terms of his playing style.
00:15 [Music]
00:30 Charlie idolised Sunderland fans in the same way that Sunderland fans idolised him.
00:35 So yes, he did like the play-up to the T-shirt there, but he did it with a big smile on his face.
00:40 There's a long history of that at Sunderland as well, isn't there, Rob, with that?
00:45 I'm just thinking, sort of your description of Charlie Hurley there reminds me of what I've read a little bit about
00:49 Rach Carter, who famously liked to play up to the gallery as well.
00:53 Well, yeah, Rach. Now, Rach did have an arrogance. Rach himself would say he had an arrogance.
00:59 And Rach's son, also called Rach Carter, will also always tell you, yes, his dad had an arrogance.
01:06 In the case of Rach Carter, what Rach Carter's son says is he says,
01:11 "In any game my dad ever played, whether it was for Sunderland, whether it was for Derby,"
01:15 and remember, Rach Carter was the only man to win the FA Cup both sides of the wall with Sunderland 37 and Derby 46.
01:25 "But whether he was playing for Sunderland, Derby, anybody else, including England,
01:29 Rach Carter would always think, without question, he was the best player on the pitch."
01:33 He probably was, mate. But Rach Carter certainly had a genuine arrogance about him,
01:38 and deservedly so, and was a truly brilliant player. I always say that if you picked an all-time England team,
01:45 Rach Carter would be the Sunderland player most likely to get in for it.
01:49 Absolutely. I want to illuminate this quote from Charlie Hurley. This was on Sunderland's promotion back in 1964.
01:56 He said at the time, "That day meant so much to the people of Sunderland,
01:59 seeing grown men, miners, shipbuilders and the like in tears.
02:03 No money in the world could replace the memories I have of Sunderland, Roker Park and all those marvellous supporters."
02:09 Rob, that sort of transports you back to a different Sunderland in a way,
02:13 and a Sunderland that Charlie Hurley represented, you know, the industrialised Sunderland that we've not lost,
02:20 but it's certainly moved on in the city now.
02:22 Yeah, absolutely. And the players in those days were not just at Sunderland, at every club,
02:29 the players were a lot closer to their fans than they are now.
02:32 The supporters got a lot closer to their fans. These days, if the supporters get close to the fans,
02:37 it's normally in an event like the recent Fans Open Day that they have, and the holidays,
02:42 where there's sort of organised events for the fans to go along and be prepared.
02:46 Back in Charlie's day, the routine would be the pre-match meal would be down at the Roker Hotel,
02:52 and then the players as a squad, and the squad would be very small, you know,
02:57 for the first few years of Charlie's career, there'd be no substitutes, there'd just be 11 of them.
03:02 Maybe he's a spare man in case somebody was ill, but there wouldn't be actually a substitute named.
03:06 But they'd have their dinner in the Roker Hotel, and then just walk up from the Roker Hotel up to Roker Park.
03:12 It's crazy.
03:14 Famously, you mentioned that cup tie with Man United in that '64 season.
03:21 Famously, at that cup tie, the players nearly didn't get up to the game because the crowd was so thick
03:27 and they couldn't get through. And Dave Elliott, who played in that cup tie, because Jimmy McNabb was injured,
03:33 Dave Elliott only played eight games that season, and he'd only just come at the team.
03:37 And Dave Elliott says, well, he says, people were making a way through for Charlie and Jimmy Montgomery
03:43 and everybody got through because they knew who they were. But he says, nobody knew who I was.
03:46 I was playing, I was struggling to get through to get to the match.
03:49 With regard to that promotion season of '63, '64, firstly, as I think a lot of people know,
03:59 there was a huge, huge rivalry with Leeds that had built up in the early '60s.
04:03 A huge rivalry with Leeds that eventually culminated in the '73 Cup final.
04:09 Not forgetting that halfway between '64 and '73, Sonnen met Leeds in the fifth round in 1967,
04:16 another game that went to two replays.
04:18 And that was the tie that saw '73 Cup winning captain Bobby Kerr have his leg broken by Norman Hunter.
04:25 In what was an accidental challenge for all of Norman Hunter's legs reputation.
04:32 But Bobby Kerr was a young lad who'd just come into the team and scored a lot of goals.
04:35 He was a teenager, just coming into the team, scored a lot of goals at that point,
04:38 then broke his leg in that Cup time.
04:40 Well, earlier in the '60s, Willie McFeet, who to this day remains the teenager to score the most goals for Sonnen,
04:47 he scored 23 goals as a teenager.
04:49 Josh Marger was getting quite close to his record three or four years ago, but didn't.
04:54 But Willie McFeet had had his leg broken in a horrible tackle that was not an accident from Leeds' Bobby Collins.
05:01 And those tackles were, I was going to say the highlight, highlight's the wrong words,
05:08 very much the low light of the relationship between Sonnen and Leeds.
05:13 That rivalry was absolutely as fierce as a rivalry could come.
05:17 Bear in mind that these days, you just give somebody a dirty look and you get sent off.
05:21 In those days, you could more or less hand-draw and quote somebody,
05:23 you'd just get a stern ticking off from the referee, you know,
05:26 license to chop people off at knee height.
05:32 So the games with Leeds were phenomenal.
05:35 And Charlie of Cook was very, very dominant in those games.
05:38 In the '63/'64 season, Leeds pipped Sunderland to the second division title.
05:43 Although in the two games between Sunderland and Leeds,
05:45 Sunderland drew at Leeds and beat Leeds at Roper Park,
05:48 Sunderland were clearly the better side than Leeds.
05:51 But it was the Cup run that really allowed Leeds to just sneak ahead of Sunderland.
05:55 So, for example, I mentioned that Sunderland had knocked out the reigning league champions Everton in the fifth round.
06:01 Well, Everton had knocked Leeds out in a replay in the previous round,
06:05 but Sunderland were good enough to beat them.
06:07 But then the three-game epic with Manchester United,
06:11 which came around about games with Newcastle United and Middlesbrough rather demanding games in their own right,
06:16 cost Sunderland some points because they were shattered after the Cup tie.
06:20 And bear in mind, I just mentioned a moment ago, there was no substitutes.
06:23 There wasn't five players coming off after an hour and having a rest.
06:26 If you were playing, you were playing for 90 minutes.
06:28 And it was a very settled side.
06:30 Four of the 11 played all 42 league games.
06:33 Charlie missed one game.
06:35 Several other players missed only two or three games.
06:39 And everybody knows that at Sunderland, a lot of people,
06:44 most people, if they're really, really good supporters of a certain age,
06:49 can just reel off the 73 team without question.
06:54 The only other team I think a lot of Sunderland supporters can reel off is the 64 team,
06:58 because it was the same 11 week in, week out.
07:02 At times, they went 11, 12 games unchanged.
07:04 And as I say, that would mean they were unchanged for the full 90 minutes of the time.
07:09 And in those Leeds games, Charlie, which were mega, mega games,
07:14 Charlie was absolutely dominant.
07:16 Those games would stand out amongst the Charlie Hurley memories.
07:19 And then when promotion came, effectively, promotion was sealed
07:24 in the third last game of the season away to Southampton.
07:28 And that was just down the road from Portsmouth,
07:31 where six years earlier had been the scene of Sunderland's first relegation.
07:34 So we were back on the south coast.
07:36 Out of Southampton, we got a draw that effectively,
07:40 all but mathematically certain, took Sunderland up.
07:43 So mathematically close that with two games to go, Leeds were already promoted.
07:49 Preston, who had got to the FA Cup final that year, they were third,
07:54 with a young Howard Kendall in their side, teenage Howard Kendall.
07:58 Preston had got to the FA Cup final, they were third.
08:02 But with two games to go after the match at the Dell, Southampton's old ground,
08:05 Sunderland could have lost their last two games by 5-0.
08:09 Bear in mind, one of them was against relegation-threatened Grimsby, who went down.
08:13 They could have lost their last two games 5-0,
08:15 and Preston could have won their last two games 5-0,
08:18 and Sunderland would have still gone up on goal average.
08:21 There was so much in the ascendancy with goal average.
08:24 But in the following week, Sunderland beat Charlton Athletic 2-1 at home,
08:28 with a late goal.
08:29 After Charlton Athletic's former Sunderland goalkeeper, Peter Wakeham,
08:32 had had an absolute blinder, Charlie always said,
08:35 "He never played as well as that when he played for us,"
08:37 but he had a blinder on.
08:40 Sunderland won that game, to make it mathematically certain.
08:43 And the images that I think everybody's probably familiar with of the lap of honour
08:47 after the game, with Charlie being chaired around the ground by his teammates,
08:52 on the shoulders of his great friend Jimmy McNabb.
08:56 Jimmy was the first of the 64 team to die,
09:00 'Mac of the Knife', as Charlie would always call him.
09:04 Playing alongside Charlie, they'd left half to Charlie's centre-half.
09:08 Because in those days it was a 2-3-5 formation, by and large,
09:11 the old WM formation.
09:13 If people know what I'm talking about with that,
09:15 they'll have to be my vintage to really get that, I think.
09:18 But Jimmy was the first of the Sunderland players to die.
09:21 And the funeral was at the church just over the bridge,
09:24 coming into Foster Street and Bridge Street.
09:27 And I went to that funeral, and Charlie delivered the eulogy
09:30 at that particular funeral.
09:32 And Charlie's eulogy was a eulogy to Jimmy,
09:36 but it was a eulogy to Sunderland, it was a eulogy to the 64 team.
09:40 And what a lifelong bond they all had.
09:42 And with Charlie's death, I think off the top of my head,
09:45 I think that means now that over half of that regular 11 have passed away.
09:50 And it is a very, very sad moment in Sunderland.
09:53 As fate would have it, Rob, when Charlie left Sunderland in 1969,
09:59 his story and Sunderland's story would overlap again in 1973,
10:03 something I wasn't aware of until recently,
10:05 whilst he was manager of Reading.
10:07 Tell us about that, because it's a bizarre quirk in history, isn't it?
10:10 Yeah, well, absolutely.
10:11 Football links that you mentioned.
10:13 Yeah, well, Charlie had taken over as manager at Reading,
10:16 who were in the 4th Division at the time, or League 2,
10:20 as it's called these days.
10:23 So in the third round of the FA Cup, Sunderland had knocked out
10:26 Notts County, who were a 3rd Division side.
10:29 They were a decent 3rd Division side who went on to win promotion that season.
10:32 And we'd taken a replay with Notts County, having drawn at Meadow Lane.
10:37 I should also say, incidentally, that while Jimmy Montgomery's save
10:40 in the final is the famous one, if it hadn't been for an equally good save
10:43 from Les Bragg 10 minutes from time at Notts County,
10:46 when we were already 1-0 down, that Cup rule would never have happened.
10:50 But then we came to Reading in the 4th round.
10:53 And Reading, as you say, were managed by Charlie Hurley.
10:56 Now, that was huge, huge news at Sunderland.
11:00 It was four years after he'd left, and here he was, the king,
11:05 coming back to Sunderland.
11:07 And Charlie had told his team, he'd told them a little bit about
11:11 what Sunderland was like, and what the atmosphere was going to be like
11:16 compared to what we're used to.
11:17 Now, these days, when you go to the match at Vicarage Road at the weekend,
11:22 or you go to any game, what will always happen these days
11:26 is around about quarter past, 20 past 2, both teams out on the field
11:31 warming up, and then they'll go in the dressing room for a bit,
11:34 and then they'll come out just before the kick-off.
11:37 As I remember it, back in those days, teams didn't do that.
11:40 The first you saw the teams run was when they came out to us
11:43 before the kick-off for a quick warm-up.
11:46 So they weren't coming out, but in the stands, under the ground,
11:50 in the dressing rooms at Roker Park, all the players could hear
11:55 were people chanting, "Charlie, Charlie," and Charlie had to come out
11:59 before the game.
12:02 Some people who have been reading about Charlie in the last few days
12:06 will have also read some of the stories, or heard some of the stories,
12:09 by my good friend Malcolm Bramley, who is an absolutely excellent bloke
12:14 and who is the chairman of the Senior Supporters Association.
12:18 A lot of people will know that they've heard Malcolm's story,
12:22 which I won't repeat at any length here, they've heard Malcolm's story
12:25 about Charlie lending them his car and Malcolm crushing Charlie's car
12:29 and Charlie never letting him forget it.
12:32 But what a lot of people don't know is that they'll know that Malcolm
12:36 was secretary to Brian Clough at Derby, and he was also secretary
12:40 to Len Ashers at Gillingham. Charlie Hurley actually appointed Malcolm
12:44 as secretary at Reading, and Malcolm accepted the job, but then
12:48 when Charlie got the sack as Malcolm was working his notice,
12:51 Malcolm thought, "Well, if Charlie's not there, I'm not going to go through,"
12:54 and never ended up going to Reading.
12:57 It was a fantastic opportunity for Charlie to come back to Sunderland in '73.
13:01 I think the other big moment of Charlie's returns to Sunderland
13:06 was the final ever game at Roker Park, when amongst all of the commemorations
13:10 at Roker Park, which included a whole host of legendary figures
13:15 doing a lap of honour around Roker Park before that final farewell game
13:19 against Liverpool. After that farewell game against Liverpool,
13:23 it was Charlie as the player of the century who came back onto the pitch
13:27 to ceremonially dig up the centre spot for the centre spot at Roker Park
13:32 to be re-planned at the Stadium of Light.
13:35 - The only thing, when I was reading all the tributes and listening
13:37 to the tributes, the only thing that really stuck me was Niall Quinn's tribute
13:42 and him talking about him, Roy and Charlie, obviously, in pre-season
13:48 going to Cork. There's a brilliant story here, but I'll let you pick it up
13:54 from here, Rob, but I just thought as well that it's such a poignant,
13:58 almost passionate, image. I love that image. Because for me,
14:02 I think Niall and Charlie, there are some comparisons there,
14:05 because Niall was just this totemic figure in my childhood
14:08 who just made us all dream. I love the images, too, and together,
14:11 that's real passionately tortured stuff.
14:13 - Undoubtedly, Phil, and I'm pleased you've made that point.
14:16 Charlie Hurley is, as we all know, Sunderland's player of the century,
14:20 named in the centenary year of 1979. As we stand now, we're not too many years
14:25 off the 150th year of Sunderland. For me, Niall Quinn would be the person
14:31 of the second century, up to now. I'm hoping that sometime
14:34 in the second half of this century, there's somebody who captains us
14:37 to the Premier League title three times and then lifts the Champions League.
14:40 Who knows? In 50 years' time or something. But as things stand,
14:44 coming up to half a century, the second century of the club gone,
14:49 not just for what he did as a player, but for what he did in taking over
14:53 the club and revitalising the club, for me, Niall Quinn is the person
14:58 of the second century. There are so many comparisons, you're quite right.
15:03 You're talking there about the 2007 tour in Ireland, when Sunderland,
15:09 with Niall as chairman and having been taken over by the Drumerville
15:14 Consortium, which apart from the lovely and much-missed John Hayes
15:19 as a local way-sider, the Drumerville Consortium were all obviously
15:23 Irish people. And then we had Roy Keane as manager.
15:26 We were very much marketing Sunderland and trying to get lots of Irish supporters
15:33 coming to Sunderland. And we went on that particular tour.
15:37 Not the hardest job I was ever given, by the way, but my job on that tour,
15:40 apart from doing all my normal work, my job on that tour is I was designated
15:44 to look after Charlie on the tour. And we were sponsored on that tour
15:48 by Aaron, who flew us to the various games. And I was sat beside
15:55 Charlie on all those flights. And Charlie was like a kid in a sweet shop
15:59 because despite his football career, despite all of his international
16:03 experience, in Charlie's era, things were done differently.
16:07 And Charlie had never, ever been on a charter flight before.
16:10 He'd never, ever been on his own private plane, which we had.
16:13 And he couldn't believe the sort of lap of luxury in which he was being treated
16:17 in terms of not having to mess around in airports, but just getting on your flight
16:21 and more or less taking off whenever you're ready, etc., etc.
16:25 But on that particular tour, Niall, Roy and Charlie went out
16:31 and they went in a taxi. And the taxi driver was absolutely beside himself
16:36 that he had Roy Keane in the taxi. And the taxi driver said,
16:41 I'm not sure whether he was talking to the lads in the back of the cab
16:45 or whether he was on the phone to his mates or whatever, or, you know,
16:47 taxi headquarters or whatever. But the taxi driver said,
16:51 I've got the King of Cork in the car. At which point Charlie pokes him
16:54 in the back and says, I'm the King of Cork.
16:59 And on that particular tour, a personal memory,
17:03 on that particular tour, is that on one night, Niall took myself,
17:10 the late Louise Wanless, who lots of people will be familiar with,
17:13 and you lads will be familiar with, took Niall, took myself, Louise and Charlie
17:18 to a pub in Blarney. And it was a typical, I say typical,
17:25 sort of, for want of a better word, a typical Irish pub.
17:29 The place was packed. Word had gone round that Charlie and Niall were there.
17:33 The place was absolutely packed to the raft. It was a place where
17:37 there was a big sing-song going on and the style was, you had to get up
17:41 onto a chair and sing a song. And after singing a song,
17:45 you'd then have to shout in a big voice, you'd have to say, I call upon,
17:48 and then name somebody who was the next person to get up on the chair.
17:53 Well, Charlie was absolutely his element on this particular night.
17:57 Now, I can't sing. I absolutely can't sing. It's amongst the many things
18:00 I can't do. But when Puddy said, I call upon Rob Mason to sing,
18:04 I thought, goodness sake, worst thing he could ever do to me.
18:07 But we ended up, Niall, Charlie, Louise and myself, all stood on chairs,
18:12 giving the assembled company the best version we could of the Lambton worm.
18:17 And Charlie, as I say, was in his element.
18:22 And he just loved it. He just loved being there. He loved being amongst his own people.
18:27 While he spoke with a London accent, I think you said earlier, James,
18:30 you know, you'd been born in Ireland but moved to London at the age of six months.
18:35 You would never, ever meet a more passionate Irishman than Charlie Hurley.
18:39 In the same way that you wouldn't meet anybody more passionate about what Sunderland
18:43 meant to them than Charlie. You know, he wasn't, you know, he's not a club legend for nothing.
18:50 You know, he absolutely deserves that status, which he will always hold.
18:54 And he's the player of the century now, half a century on almost from when he got that award.
18:59 But in another half a century, you know, in another half a century and beyond,
19:05 that folklore that means that you two younger people know all about Charlie Hurley.
19:10 People in, you know, 50, 60, 70 or more years time will still know about Charlie Hurley
19:15 because his legendary status will continue to get passed down in football and folklore
19:20 in the same way as people like Rachel Carter and Wayne Chappell. He's that calibre.
19:25 - Brilliant words, Rob. We'll have to wrap it up very shortly because Phil's got to get on his way
19:30 to Watford, but I also found the second anecdote that you wrote about Charlie on Sunderland's website,
19:37 which I would encourage everybody to read. It's a brilliant tribute.
19:40 But cutting Martin Bain off as well at an awards dinner, that really tickled me.
19:44 Tell us about that quickly.
19:45 - Well, yeah, let's just be honest here and say that while Charlie is one of my favourites,
19:49 Martin Bain isn't. So that adds to the context for me. So it was the day when we moved
20:00 to the Charlie Hurley Centre, you know, the old training ground over at Whitburn.
20:04 Long since after we'd moved from the Charlie Hurley Centre to the Academy of Light,
20:10 the club took what I thought was a very, very good decision, which was to re-site those gates
20:15 at the Academy of Light. And I saw yesterday, Phil, that you had been down there and laid some
20:21 flowers yourself, which I thought was brilliant. I would expect by the time I get down to Sunderland
20:25 next week, you know, I live up in Scotland, but I come down for all the games.
20:29 I'll be down next Thursday for the awards evening and then staying down for the match
20:34 against Sheffield. I would imagine by the time I get there, I expect there'll be a lot of red
20:38 and white flowers there and I'll be bringing some myself, no doubt. But yes, on the day that
20:43 those Charlie Hurley gates were re-sited at the stadium, all of the surviving members of the
20:50 64 team were invited to be there along with Charlie. And again, not the hardest job I was ever given.
20:56 I was asked to look after them for the day and have lunch with them and sit with them at the match
20:59 and so on. And before the game, we were all in the boardroom and Martin Bain, who was the chief
21:06 executive at the time, now Martin could hold court. Martin was a very, very capable public speaker.
21:12 Very confident, very assured in what he would do. And he wasn't used to being interrupted.
21:20 He started, he wanted to give a speech about the 64 team, not that he knew anything about them
21:27 other than he'd read a little bit and he had the right thing to say. And he would have done a perfectly
21:31 good job if he'd been allowed to, but he barely got a sentence and a half out. And in the nicest
21:37 possible way, Charlie just took over. I could see Charlie thinking, I'm going to listen to this.
21:44 But Charlie just took over and he had a booming voice. And Charlie was one of those people, like Niall,
21:51 Charlie was one of those people who, it's a cliche to say it, but it's true. Charlie walked into the room,
21:56 everybody went quiet because everybody wanted to listen to Charlie. And Charlie wanted them to listen
22:01 to Charlie as well. And Charlie would just take, just took over. And he gave this big, booming speech
22:08 in which he spoke not so much about himself. He spoke about his love for the teammates he had there
22:15 with him. And it was a love, you know, a genuine lifelong bond. He talked about the love he had
22:20 for his teammates. And most importantly, and most especially, he talked genuinely about the love
22:27 he had for the Sunderland supporters and what they meant to him. And he talked about the fact that
22:31 in his day, they were all miners and shipyard workers and so on. Proper grafters that he really respected.
22:38 But then he said, and it seems highly appropriate to sort of relay this at this time when Charlie's
22:43 just passed away. But then he said, with the usual chuckle in his voice and the usual glint in his eye,
22:49 he said, you know, he says, "When the day comes when I go to heaven, I will be the captain."
22:55 You know, and I'm absolutely certain that, you know, if there is a football team in heaven now,
23:00 they do have a new captain and he'll have a number five on his back. And it won't need, you know,
23:05 if they've got names on the back of the shirts, it won't need to say Hurley. It'll just say Charlie.
23:10 Because Charlie was one of those people for whom the first name was sufficient.
23:14 He talked about Charlie with Sunderland supporters. And for all of the other great players
23:18 we've had of that name, most particularly Charlie Buckingham, really, you say Charlie in the Sunderland
23:23 context, and it can only mean one thing, Charlie there.
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