Charlie Walker had a deep love for the game

He was still a coach, still getting into a player’s head, determining who needed cajoling, who would be incentivised by reward, all to elicit a better account of themselves, writes Michael Clifford

MY SON came home last Monday and asked: “What are we going to call Charlie’s football now?” It was the lad’s way of processing grief. The Charlie he was referring to had been overseeing football in the school since long before he and his older brother first began there. During that time the after-school activity that consisted of a game of ball was known simply as ‘Charlie’s football’.

On Sunday Charlie died after a short illness. He was 89 years of age, which is some age to be overseeing football for primary school children.

On Monday, the tributes began to flow in for Charlie Walker. In another lifetime, our Charlie had been a figure of some repute in the world of Irish soccer.

The legend that is Paul McGrath tweeted: “Sorry to hear of the passing of a great man and friend Charlie Walker. Taught me a lot about the game. RIP Boss.”

Sorry to hear of the passing of A great man and friend Charlie Walker, thought me a lot about the game. R.I.P. Boss .

— Paul McGrath (@Paulmcgrath5) May 14, 2017

Others, like the manager of the Irish Under-21s, Noel King, followed.

The FAI paid homage on its website and noted that Charlie Walker would be remembered in the programme for the forthcoming World Cup qualifying game against Austria.

Charlie Walker was what they call a football man. In his prime he left his mark on the game in this country. He was credited with bringing Paul McGrath from amateur football to St Patrick’s Athletic, where Charlie was manager. A few years later he passed McGrath onto Manchester United, en route to immortality.

One story from those days concerned his interaction with United’s manager, Ron Atkinson, during the transfer of McGrath. Big Ron had a reputation as a flash Harry, but he liked his players to be short, back and sides.

He told Charlie he had a problem with the thing in young McGrath’s ear, referring to Paul’s earring. “He doesn’t play football with his ear,” was Charlie’s reported response.

In 1973 Charlie Walker oversaw the Irish youth team, which included another pair who went on to occupy the pantheon of greats, Liam Brady and Frank Stapleton. He also managed at other League of Ireland clubs, Home Farm and Longford Town. So it went for a football man in his prime — nurturing, managing, drawing life from the game he loved.

I knew Charlie Walker much later, when he was in his 80s — I just knew him as Charlie, a man rumoured to once have been somebody. The principal in the North Dublin National School Project, Sally Shields, had been put in touch with Charlie and she asked him to do a bit of football with the kids. That was more than 17 years ago when Charlie was already in his 70s.

Three times a week, he boarded a bus on the South Circular Road where he lived and travelled across the city to the northside, still chasing his passion.

His training consisted largely of organising a game between kids from the various classes and refereeing it, confining his input otherwise to the odd shouted instruction.

The children he oversaw were a mixed bunch. A few of them could play. Others could get by, and not a few were there only because it was an afterschool activity with plenty of fresh air. The fare on view was not the stuff to excite purists, not the kind of nursery to mould the calibre of players who had played for Charlie’s teams.

He had been to the mountain. He had nurtured and managed some of the greats. And here he was now, still watching, still waiting for the odd flash of imagination, a jink here, a shot there, the frisson that can for a fleeting moment light up something inside those for whom football is an elixir.

He could be gruff with the kids. He would tolerate 20 different shades of mediocracy but some things were beyond the pale. One day I saw him let a roar at two of the lads were who standing in front of the goal lost in conversation, totally oblivious to the game. The man had standards. A lack of talent is forgivable on a football field, but for the likes of Charlie, a lack of interest was scandalous.

When the hour was up, he would blow the final whistle, and the kids would all gather round him. The older ones played it cool, slouching over at a leisurely pace. Those from the more junior classes made no bones about it. They ran fast and immediately badgered him to reveal the secret of the day. Who was going to be conferred with the title of ‘man of the match’?

It was rarely the stand-out player, more often the lad – or the odd girl – who had shown a flash of inspiration at some stage during the game.

Other times he rewarded somebody he recognised as a limited trier.

But in his selections it was obvious that he was still a coach, still getting into a player’s head, determining who needed cajoling, who needed pushing, who would be incentivised by reward, all to elicit a better account of themselves, a bit more of what was there, irrespective of what that was.

He could easily have been back in his heyday, nurturing a Brady or McGrath, such was his mentality, this man in his ninth decade. Last Wednesday at Charlie’s wake, his son Derek told me that he’d got as much a kick out of dealing with the kids in the last decades of his life as he had managing in his League of Ireland days.

Of late, Charlie had taken to sitting on the sideline rather than standing, but he still came every week, still chasing the moments. A few weeks ago, he took unwell, but we expected to see him back. A plan was already underway to have some of the children interview him on camera about his life, but now that has to be filed away under regret.

Last week, one of the parents discovered a You-tube clip of Charlie being interviewed by George Hamilton for RTÉ before the 1980 FAI Cup Final, into which his St Pat’s team had arrived. Charlie comes across as modest, passionate and grounded, the antithesis of today’s Premier League manager. Hamilton asked him whether he was enjoying the job.

“I’m having a ball,” he replied.

“I don’t know about other mangers but I’m enjoying football. At my age it’s great to mix with young people. It keeps you young too.” Thirty seven years later he was still mixing with young people – a lot younger than his St Pat’s players – and if time’s heavy toll ensured he wasn’t having a ball in the latter years, at least he was still in a position to indulge his passion, long after the flame dies for the majority.

That was the man who ran Charlie’s football, this elderly guy who came every week and managed to keep on keepin’ on right to the end. A lovely man, a football man, and, I’m sure he probably would have agreed, a lucky man.