KEANE: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY
by Roy Keane
Penguin/Michael Joseph, £17.99, pp. 294, ISBN 07181455
One could imagine an American visitor to Hatchards being mildly puzzled by a joint biography of the Kennedys which sports a picture of two duelling footballers on its cover, but no, Jack and Bobby turns out to be a chronicle of the Charlton brothers. As such it recapitulates, and to a limited degree extends, a saga that sports journalists have been amusing themselves with for nearly 40 years, certainly long before the celebrated joint appearance in the 1966 World Cup final.
On the surface – a surface diligently polished by the sports writers and professional colleagues – the story of the Charltons is one of diametrical opposites. The only link between retiring five-foot nine- inch Bobby and volatile six-foot three-inch Jack, legend suggests, is their parentage as the sons of a self-absorbed Geordie miner (Charlton Sr proceeded to his shift at the pit rather than watch England play Portgual in the 1966 semi-final) and his canny wife Cissie.
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