Finding Jack Charlton: a film not about Sheffield Wednesday, but one that every Sheffield Wednesday fan needs to see

A moment, two, and then a shake of the head. “Never mind,” she says, a wobble in her voice. “It’ll come back to you when you watch it again.”

Jack Charlton is sat in his kitchen watching an old video of himself smiling, holding a Guinness and belting out the Geordie anthem ‘Blaydon Races’ to his adoring Irish squad in the hours after their departure from the 1990 World Cup.

His eyes unmoved from the screen, Pat, his wife of over 60 years, squeezes him lovingly by the shoulder. “Yes,” he replies forlornly. “Probably.”

It’s just one of a number of moments captured in the documentary masterpiece ‘Finding Jack Charlton’ that are likely to reduce its audience to tears.

The film is not about Charlton’s six-year spell as manager of Sheffield Wednesday. It’s not really about football at all, truth be told. It centres on his 10-year spell as manager of the Republic of Ireland, but it’s about the man at the heart of it all, his place in Irish history, his troubled relationship with his brother Bobby and a battle against dementia as brave as you can imagine.

The contrast between the Charlton of yesteryear, he who rescued Wednesday from the depths of despair and steered them on their way back to the First Division, and the Jack shown more recently on the film is upsetting. The World Cup-winner is slower, duller of wit and quietly frustrated. It’s a chilling reminder that even sporting heroes are mortal.

But the glimmers are there and they are joyous. That devilish sense of humour, that turn of phrase. Images of him playing with his young grandchildren are stunningly beautiful, the moments he remembers faces and moments precious.

“Jack wasn’t quite the same Jack towards the end,” co-producer Pete Thomas told The Star. “But he could still do a lot. He recognised his family and just loved spending time with them.

“We didn’t ever want to film him or be around him if he wasn’t aware or comfortable that we were there. One of the things we found was that Jack always loved the camera.

“We’d find he came alive when the camera was turned on. You see in the film there are a number of times when he looks up and smiles at the camera. There are a couple of times where he talks to camera.

“You’d see these glimpses of the Jack we all knew and loved and that glint in his eye. We wanted to get that across, that he was living with it and that it affected him in certain ways, he was still there.”

The film, shot in the months before his death from lymphoma in July, shows how much he could still do in the last year of his life, heading out for a pub lunch with his beloved family and sipping on a pint of his beloved ale.

It is when the film crew place a laptop at the end of the table to show Jack presenting a short film promoting Dunstanburgh Castle, in his beloved Northumberland, that one of those glimpses are at their most touching.

“That’s me!” he realises seconds in, his son John smiling from across the table. He grins at his grand daughter and pokes her lovingly in the arm, making her giggle. “That’s me and I didn’t even bloody know it!”

Seconds later, back at home, Pat explains that they still have letters from Irish football supporters sent to their family home.

“They think a lot of you in Ireland, don’t they?”, she asks her husband. One moment, two, and he replies: “I’ve no idea.”

And then the film shows him, from nowhere, proudly recognising footage of Paul McGrath, the legendary former Manchester United defender who praises Jack as one of the men who saved him from alcoholism. It’s a rollercoaster.

Co-producer Thomas said: “He had an amazing ability to connect with anyone, from kings and queens to the man on the street. He’d talk to anyone and he’d be himself with anyone. It’s an amazing quality and skill to have. It made people warm to him immediately.

“That’s why he was so loved and also why he was so good at his job. That’s how he was able to get players to run through brick walls for him, they wanted to achieve for him.

“He was passionate on everything, from the miners to fishing to football. Yes he won the World Cup and he managed Ireland, but he did so much more.

“The family are so proud of what he achieved at all the clubs he was at. His sons often spoke to me about Wednesday and that right up to the end of his life that people would stop him and tell him ‘I was there at the Boxing Day Massacre’ and so many others.

“You could easily do more films on different parts of Jack’s life. At the clubs he was at he was clearly held in such high regard.”

There’s no mention of Sheffield Wednesday in the film, but it’s a film Sheffield Wednesday supporters will love, about a man who loved them.

The film ends with a record player as Jack, with furrowed brow, listens to music.

“Ooooh, me lads, you should have seen us gannin’,” Jack raises his fists in triumph as he begins to recognise the lyrics to Geordie anthem ‘Blaydon Races’. And then, just as he did with for his adoring Irish team back in 1990, he breaks into song.

It’s a delicate display of the heart-skipping highs and crushing lows of dementia. But above all, the film is a celebration of a great man.

Finding Jack Charlton is out on DVD & Digital Download from 23rd November.

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