John Charles
John Charles was born in Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom on December 27th, 1931 and is the Soccer Player. At the age of 72, John Charles biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.
At 72 years old, John Charles has this physical status:
Charles was born in the Cwmbwrla district of Swansea during late 1931. Charles would play football as a child, with younger brother Mel Charles who also went on to become a professional, later playing alongside each other for the Welsh national team.
While still at school, Charles joined the boys section of the local team Swansea Town, who later became Swansea City. When he left school at age 14 he was taken onto the groundstaff at Vetch Field, yet because of his young age Third Division Swansea never gave him a first-team call up. His only senior appearances came for the reserve side in the Welsh Football League.
Club career
While playing for Gendros, a local youth club, he was scouted by Leeds United and given a trial in September 1948. At his trial he impressed and duly signed for them at the age of 17, relocating to Yorkshire.
Then manager of Leeds United, Major Buckley, selected Charles in a variety of positions including right-back, centre-half and left-half for Leeds Reserves. Charles made his first team debut as a centre back for Leeds in a friendly versus Dumfries club Queen of the South on 19 April 1949. Charles was tasked with marking the incumbent Scotland centre forward Billy Houliston, who ten days previously at Wembley, had run the England defence ragged as the Scots won 3–1. The score at Elland Road was 0–0. After the game, Houliston said 17-year-old Charles was "the best centre half I've ever played against". Charles made his league debut against Blackburn Rovers also in April 1949, playing at centre-half. From 1950 until 1952, Charles was away on National Service with the 12th Royal Lancers at Carlisle. The army allowed him to turn out for Leeds, but also saw to it that he played for them, and in 1952, Charles skippered his side to the Army Cup. It was during this period that he had operations to repair cartilages in both knees.
After his return to the Leeds side in November 1951, Charles played at centre-forward and centre half. This prompted a debate as to where Charles should play in the team, but he remained at centre-half until the 1952–53 season. In October 1952, he was switched to centre forward and immediately started to score, with 11 goals in 6 games. In 1955, he was appointed club captain and during the 1955–56 season, Leeds won promotion to the First Division. Charles was in sparkling form, scoring 29 goals in 42 appearances. In the following season, Charles scored a new club top flight record tally of 38 goals in 40 league appearances as Leeds secured an 8th-place finish in the first division, before finally moving away from the club. His influence on Leeds' success during his final season was so strong, reporters nicknamed the club "John Charles United". In total, he scored 150 league goals in eight years for Leeds, including a club record 42 goals in 39 appearances during the 1953–54 season. He remains the second highest all time goal scorer for Leeds after Peter Lorimer.
In August 1957, he joined the Italian club Juventus for a then British record £65,000 transfer fee, almost doubling the previous record. The transfer was notable as Charles became one of the first British professional players to be signed for an overseas team after John Fox Watson led the way moving from Fulham to Real Madrid in 1948.
His debut came on 8 September 1957 against Hellas Verona. Goals from Giampiero Boniperti and Omar Sívori had made the score 2–2, when up popped Charles to score the winner. The following week, he scored the only goal in the victory over Udinese, and he then hit the decisive strike in a 3–2 victory over Genoa. He had been the match-winner in his first three games.
In his first season in Italy, Charles was Serie A's top scorer with 28 goals, and was voted player of the season as Juventus won the scudetto. He played in Turin for five years, scoring 108 goals in 155 matches, winning the scudetto (Italian league championship) three times, and the Coppa Italia twice. He placed third in the Ballon d'Or in 1959, the highest position for a Welsh footballer. His prolific partnership with Sívori and Boniperti in Juventus's front-line earned the trio the nicknames The Holy Trident and The Magical Trio; Charles was also dubbed Il Gigante Buono (The Gentle Giant) during his five seasons with the club, due to his size and fair play. The respect Charles earned from Juventus fans was shown when, on the occasion of the club's centenary in 1997, they voted him the club's best-ever foreign player.
Following his time at Juventus, Don Revie paid a club record £53,000 to secure the return of Charles to Yorkshire. As a result of the excitement this created, Leeds United raised admission prices for the start of the 1962–63 season. Charles second spell at Elland Road was less successful. After five years in Italy, he found it difficult to adjust to life and football back in Britain.
After 11 games and three goals – a shadow of his former strike rate – Charles was sold for £70,000 to Roma. Initially, the move was a success and Charles scored within fifteen minutes of his first game for Roma, in a match against Bologna. The early promise was never fulfilled, however, and Charles was on the move again a year later.
He left to join Cardiff City where he stayed until 1966, which marked the end of his league career. He later became manager of Hereford United, Merthyr Tydfil and the Swansea City youth team, and technical director of the Canadian team Hamilton Steelers, who he became coach of midway through the 1987 season.
International career
Charles first played for the Wales national team shortly after his 18th birthday.
He played for Wales at the 1958 FIFA World Cup in Sweden – the first time the nation qualified for the competition. It was also the only time all four of the Home Nations qualified for the same World Cup, though only Wales and Northern Ireland made it past the group stage. Wales remained undefeated in the group stage, battling to draws with Hungary (thanks to a Charles goal), Mexico, and eventual runners-up Sweden. As Hungary also recorded three points, a play-off match ensued, and Wales came from behind at the Råsunda Stadium to advance with a 2–1 win; however, Charles was injured in the match and missed out on the rest of the tournament. The Welsh were eventually knocked out by Brazil in the quarter-finals thanks to a goal by Pelé in the 66th minute: the Brazilians went on to win the competition. Wales manager Jimmy Murphy said that "with John Charles in the side we might have won".
In total for Wales, Charles made 38 appearances and scored 15 goals.
Charles played for the Great Britain team against Ireland in 1955.
