One of the best football players of my lifetime, Bobby Charlton, a silky inside forward (and later midfielder) with an explosive shot, has died.

He was a member of that inspirational Manchester United team known as the Busby Babes of whom too many died in the Munich disaster. For ever after he naturally dreaded flying but as a professional footballer at the top level had to do so many times.

He then captained that formidable side United team which also featured club legends George Best and Denis Law when they won the European Cup at Wembley in 1968.

As a World Cup winner he will be forever an English football immortal. His record of international goals for England (49) stood for decades. Some poeple attribute England’s defeat in the 1970 World Cup quarter-final in against West Germany in Leon to the fact that manager Alf Ramsey, thinking the game won, withdrew Charlton to save him for the semi. That decision allowed Franz Beckenbauer to dominate the midfield and inspire the Germans’ comeback.

Sadly his last days were blighted by dementia maybe induced by heading the heavy footballs of his youth and playing days.

Robert Charlton: 11/10/1937 -21/10/2023. So it goes.

Very sadly Gordon McQueen has also left us.

A stalwart for Leeds United and Manchester United in the 1970s and 1980s he began his career with Junior side Largs Thistle and signed for St Mirren before going down south. He is most remembered by Scottish football fans for his goal at Wembley against England in 1977.

In later life he suffered from throat cancer but, most poignantly, from dementia as a consequence of heading a ball so often.

Life – and death  – can be so unfair.

Gordon McQueen: 26/6/1952 – 15/6/2023. So it goes.

So Tottenham Hotspur have appointed Jose Mourinho as manager after sacking Mauricio Pochettino.

Really?

Granted Spurs haven’t been doing well in the league this season and are well off the top four – much nearer the relegation spots in fact – but they’re well placed to qualify out of their Champions League* group even though they got gubbed 7-2 at home against Bayern Munich. And the players surely are as accomplished as they were last season. If it is true they may be a little stale that can be laid at the foot of the club’s hierarchy, notoriously unwilling to make the outlays necessary to attract players to the club. (Okay, the new stadium’s costs are a factor in that.)

But Pochettino has surely outperformed his resources and is still young in managerial terms. Will his sacking come to be seen as a huge mistake?

Given Spur’s traditional style of play Mourinho’s pragmatism seems an unlikely fit – as it was at Manchester United – and will inevitably lead to dissatisfaction among the fans, and probably quite quickly at that.

This may be a hostage to fortune as it is possible (if unlikely) that Mourinho (whose best days seem to be behind him) will lead Spurs to a Champions League win this season. But.

If Jose Mourinho is the answer to Spurs’s problems what on Earth is the question?

*So-called

So, the poisoned chalice got him in the end.

It was always going to be a difficult task taking over from Sralex.

It wasn’t made any easier by the fact that the players he was left with were either getting on a bit or not up to it. Sralex has a lot to do with that. (United’s poor season does have the effect of making him look irreplaceable though. The uncharitable might say his choice of Moyes was always designed with that in mind.)

Those same players also seem not to have put the requisite effort in; they let Moyes down badly. It doesn’t matter if they didn’t see eye to eye with him or disagreed with what he was asking them to do. If you’re employed you’re supposed to do what your boss says. Footballers should not be above that commonplace expectation. Lots of people are faced with new bosses coming in and changing things – for better or worse. The employees just have to get on with it.

When Matt Busby “retired” – also leaving behind an ageing team – the exact same thing happened. (Busby took over the reigns again temporarily when his successor was deemed lacking. I can’t see Sralex doing the same.) It took United years, decades, to get back to winning the league. They even fell out of the top division for a season during that time.

In retrospect Moyes should not have taken the job. Someone with experience of winning things at the highest level might perhaps have got more out of the players. Is anyone of that stamp going to want the job right now?

A magnificent achievement by Wigan Athletic to win the FA Cup yesterday. A place in Europe to boot.

One more illustration of the unpredictability of football – and the romance of the FA Cup.

Wigan join a long list of Lancashire clubs (including Blackburn Olympic, the first to do so) to win the trophy. Congratulations to the Latics.

Given that Wigan were playing Moneybags United (sorry; Moneybags City*) they ought not to have had a prayer. Yet it’s there in the record books for ever now. And manager Roberto Martinez has won one more major trophy than new Manchester United boss David Moyes. It’s a funny old world.

Not least that, come Tuesday night, Wigan could be relegated.

There was another unlikely event involving teams named Athletic on Saturday. In the SFL Div 2 play-offs Dunfermline of that ilk eventually beat Forfar Athletic on aggregate over two games and extra time.

Yet by that extra time Forfar were down to eight men, thus giving Dunfermline an overwhelming advantage. I was listening to the radio reports coming in from the game. Forfar had taken the lead (4-1 on aggregate) and it struck me that with the one man down they were at the time, extra time was the most likely outcome. Given that Dunfermline were at home even that one man advantage would probably mean they would go on to win.

But how fair is it that Forfar would have to play extra time with a disadvantage in numbers? A football game lasts only 90 mins. In effect extra time is a new game, why should the sending-off extend into the 30 minute extension? I had an idle thought. Should not both teams be allowed to have a full complement of numbers for the extra period? (Unless there are further sendings-off, of course.)

When I discovered that Forfar were down to only eight players for extra time I knew it was curtains for them. But had they thought of it there was a way out. A way which goes against the spirit of the game – but so does any sending off really.

I believe there is a provision in the laws of football that should a team have fewer than eight men the game must be abandoned. I remember Neil Warnock, when he was manager of Sheffield United I think, – in exactly that situation of eight men remaining – encouraging his players to get themselves sent off to ensure an abandonment. Full marks to Forfar for not going down that road.

Dunfermline will be playing yet another Athletic – Alloa – in the play-off final.

*Wigan’s owner Dave Whelan is not short of a bob himself but the scale is a little different.

So the longest serving manager in European football is to retire.

(This apparently will leave Ronnie McFall of Portadown as the holder of that accolade, at least according to The Belfast Telegraph. There is nothing so good for a newspaper as a local slant to news.)

SrAlec’s tenure at Manchester United has certainly been a fruitful one. He has amassed a haul of trophies unlikely ever to be matched.

But how much of a turning point will this be for the club, though? Especially as he will be hanging around behind the scenes.

When Matt Busby stepped down to be replaced by Wilf McGuiness things were never the same again, probably partly becasue Busby was still hovering in the background.

It is of course an honourable thing for the club not to discard its loyal employees when their main use has been superseded but there are dangers here. United went into a sharp decline (which arguably had already started under Busby) and were relegated to the second tier a few years later, from which they quickly bounced back up.

However, it took till Fergie arrived over 20 years later for the really good times to roll around once more.

It seems David Moyes is the favoured replacement. Good timing, with him being out of contract at Everton in a few weeks.

Moyes has done an incredible job at Everton with little in the way of resources by comparison with Man U. If he is offered and accepts the job he is probably a strong enough character not to feel overshadowed by Ferguson but what if results should fall off? Will he be given the same slack from fans and board that Ferguson has enjoyed when first Arsenal and then Chelsea and lately Manchester City threatened to become top dog in English football?

It most likely won’t happen but I wonder what odds you’d get on United being in the Championship in four or so years time?

Can anyone understand why Arsenal’s Cesc Fabregas would want to sign for Barcelona?

OK they were his boyhood team, but Everton were Wayne Rooney’s and he soon enough shook their dust off his feet.

Then again Everton were unlikely to win anything (in the short term) and I suppose Arsenal don’t look like doing that either. They certainly won’t if Fabregas leaves – and Nasri along with him. Barcelona regularly win competitions; for the moment.

But Rooney was a certainty to play for Manchester United – still is (if he can bring himself to do what his manager tells him, anyway.)

That would be far from the case if Fabregas returned to the Camp Nou.

Consider. He is a midfielder: and he wants to join the club with the best midfield in the world? To get a game he would have to supplant either of Xavi Hernandez or Andrés Iniesta both of whom are at the top of their game and unlikely to retire any time soon. The lure of playing alongside these luminaries – not to mention Lionel Messi – is of course strong and he would be returning to a club and a culture with which he grew up and is familiar. But he would be a small fish in a big pond, used most often as a substitute (if at all) whereas at Arsenal he is the main man, the team’s fulcrum, and much respected.

Be careful what you wish for, Cesc. The grass may not be greener back home.

Champions League Final, Wembley Stadium, 28/5/11

Apart from the first ten minutes there didn’t look to be a chance of one team (United) winning, since Barcelona were so much in control. Even the equaliser didn’t change anything: all that did was restore the status quo ante. Had United scored first things might have been different.

Barcelona reminded me a bit of playground bullies who would snaffle your ball and just play about with it among themselves. It’s unfair really. Give the other side a chance, can’t you?

The result was we did not witness a classic. I doubt I’ll remember this by the end of next week.

A memorable football match requires both sides to be on a more or less even footing, for both to be in with a shout. When one side is dominant, all the tension, the necessary uncertainty, is drained away. We are left with a steamroller, remorselessly flattening the opposition.

Barney Ronay in The Guardian put forward a similar view on Saturday.

The Barcelona juggernaut is impressive. But somehow it manages to remove all the excitement.

No ref, no game. (Bob Marley should have written that.)

It’s a farce isn’t it? The SFL brought to a standstill because of a dispute in which it is not involved. (As far as I’m aware no SFL club has complained of any referee bias against them – or even of incompetence.)

Yet the SPL, one of whose members it is which is causing all the fuss, has its games go ahead?

Okay our game might have been off anyway due to the weather but the prime reason is the referee’s strike.

I see from this report that the Polish refs whom the SFA was going to bring in have also called off. Pity; I was wondering what the Polish for, “Who’s the mason in the black?” is.

I saw Mark McGhee on BBC Scotland on Thursday night saying that it was a dangerous precedent, what if the foreign refs turn out to be better than ours.

I don’t think Scottish refs are perfect but I also don’t think they are biased or corrupt, merely mistaken at times – as are all refs.

So what, Mark, if the foreign refs are worse?

That might actually tell us something.

It would be marvellously ironic if today Celtic were on the wrong end of an important decision. But if they are on the right end of one it proves nothing – beyond the possibility that the ref just doesn’t fancy an earful from Neil Lennon, or snide blustering from a certain Dr John Reid.

Let me be clear. All clubs suffer from poor decisions at times. Yet it is simply ridiculous for either of the Old Firm to say they do not benefit in the majority of cases in Scotland.

A similar situation occurs for all big clubs everywhere. (Manchester United rarely have penalty awards given against them at Old Trafford. I have no doubt Real Madrid benefit from this effect in Spain.) In Europe it is the Old Firm who are small beer and suffer accordingly.

As things stand it seems Celtic’s management now have what they wanted; an atmosphere in which decisions against Celtic cannot be made for fear of the consequences.

The SFA has not been strong in this. Member clubs should be told only to question decisions via the SFA and not the media. Persistent complaints, such as those we have seen, should engender a points deduction.

Club managers should be banned from the touchline for the remainder of the season (or half the next if in March, April or May) for any nose-to-nose confrontations with match officials. Players mobbing the ref should mean a club fine.

I’m not holding my breath for any of that to happen to either of the Old Firm.

Champions League,* Ibrox Stadium, 24/11/10

Paint could have watched this game dry.

What a (lack of) advert for the football tournament proclaimed to be the world’s best. Even better than the World Cup, forsooth.

I don’t normally bother with it, in televised club football I prefer Europa League – UEFA Cup as was – matches; but this was a Scotland-England contest. Or rather it was a seven-or-eight-plodding-Scots-plus-some-equally-plodding-mercenaries – bunch of overhighly-paid-mercenaries-made-to-look-pedestrian contest.

I’ve seen football that was more creative in the Scottish Third Division.

* So-called.