Mel Charles

Growing up in a poor family in the Cwmbwrla district of Swansea alongside elder brother John and three other siblings,[2] John and Mel Charles seemed destined to begin their careers at local club Swansea Town. However manager Billy McCandless was unwilling to test youngsters in the unforgiving waters of the Third Division South, so the boys were not signed up to the club.[6] This proved costly to Swansea, and the result was that John signed with Leeds United, and fourteen-year-old Mel also followed him to Elland Road to become one of the ground staff.[7] Despite fitting in well at the club, he was unable to settle in Leeds; due to his poor background he was unable to afford trips back to Wales to visit his family and he was also illiterate so could not write home.[8] After a young apprentice, also from Swansea, failed to impress at Leeds, manager Major Frank Buckley asked Charles to accompany him on the trip back to his hometown.[8] However, due to his homesickness, Charles never returned to Yorkshire once he made it back to Swansea.[8] Instead Swansea Town scout Joe Sykes persuaded Charles to join the club's ground staff.[9]

He was offered a professional contract with Swansea Town at the age of seventeen, and he immediately settled into the Second Division side.[10] His debut came at Bramall Lane on 20 December 1952, in what turned out to be a 7–1 defeat to Sheffield United.[11] However his progress was halted when he twisted his knee on National Service, though this injury came as he was messing around outside the cook house rather than on parade or in the 9th Battalion's march to the Army Cup.[12] He went straight back into the first team upon his recovery, and he was played mostly at centre-half, or in his preferred position at right-half.[13] He remained in the first eleven under Ron Burgess, who was appointed manager following McCandless' death in July 1955.[14]

He spent seven seasons with the "Swans" from 1952 to 1959, all of which ended with Swansea finishing between tenth and twentieth. They consistently picked up results at Vetch Field, but failed to perform away from home.[15] During this time they also reached the final of the Welsh Cup in 1956 and 1957, though lost out to Cardiff City and then Wrexham. A cash-strapped club, their cause was not helped by the fact that the directors refused to pay for overnight stays, and so many times the team's coach would appear outside the opposition's ground just minutes before the match.[16] Swansea were a selling a club, and during his time Ivor and Len Allchurch, Cliff Jones, and Terry Medwin would all be sold to big English clubs.[17] Including Charles, these five players all represented Wales at the World Cup. Jones' brother Bryn also played for Swansea, as did Cyril and Gilbert Beech; this meant three sets of brothers played for the "Swans" during this time, in what was an extremely local squad.[18] Throughout the 1950s Swansea were an attacking team, and during his time at Vetch Field Charles picked up four goals in a match against Blackburn Rovers, as well as hat-tricks against Stoke City, Middlesbrough and Sheffield Wednesday.[19] Charles offered to work at a second job to remain at Swansea with their strict wage limit of £14 a week, but this was not permitted, and instead he put in a transfer request.[20] He employed Neil Harris to act as his 'business manager' in his pending transfer move, thereby making him the first ever agent in the English game.[20] In one of his last games for the club, he helped Swansea record their first ever league win over rivals Cardiff City at Ninian Park.[21]

Chased by Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur, Charles was eventually sold to Arsenal in March 1959 for a fee of £42,750 with two other players, David Dodson and Peter Davies, going the other way. This was at the time the highest ever transfer between two British clubs as Juventus had paid Leeds United £65,000 for John Charles in 1957.[21] Aiming to use him as a centre forward, Arsenal manager George Swindin and captain Tommy Docherty managed to persuade Charles to take the move, and as Charles was convinced by the Arsenal men, Tottenham decided to withdraw their offer.[22] Spurs manager Bill Nicholson was forced to sign Dave Mackay instead, as the White Hart Lane club would become a major force in the game in the 1960s.[23] Due to this success, in his autobiography, Charles wrote that "signing for Arsenal was the most terrible choice I ever made".[24] Though he also wrote that "I'll always have a place in my heart for Arsenal, and it was an honour to have played for them."[25]

He was paid £20 a week, and set up with a house and car by the Arsenal management – a Sunbeam-Talbot with the license plate 'MEL 9'.[26] Not used to the complexities of a rapidly modernising game, he endured a frosty relationship with coach Ron Greenwood after numerous humorous mix-ups over new terms such as 'blind-side run' and 'marking space', and embarrassed himself in front of the TV cameras when he fumbled and said "I'm okay, I've just got clitorises in my eyes", instead of cataracts.[27]

He made his debut against Sheffield Wednesday on 22 August 1959, in what was a difficult 1959–60 season for the "Gunners". Though they ended up in thirteenth place, Charles managed to bag himself a hat-trick at Highbury in a 5–2 win over Blackburn Rovers on 6 February.[28] A fortnight later he missed a chance to make it two Highbury hat-tricks in a row when, already with two goals to his name, he scuffed a penalty into the arms of Everton keeper Jimmy O'Neill.[28]

Always struggling with his knees, during the 1960–61 he started to be afflicted by ligament damage.[29] The physios used whatever methods they could to reduce the swellings in his knees, and as he was a big-money signing, Charles would be forced to take to the field week in and week out, despite his injuries.[30] His team were wildly inconsistent, beating Newcastle United 5–0, only to lose 6–0 to West Ham United a few weeks later; meanwhile supporters were anxious at the rise of their North London rivals.[31] Arsenal finished eleventh, some 25 points behind Double-winning Tottenham Hotspur.[32]

The 1961–62 season was another difficult one for both Charles and Arsenal. However, he did manage to bag another hat-trick for the club, as he scored all three goals in an FA Cup win over Bradford City.[33] His time in London would be dominated by injuries though, and he underwent three operations in three years.[34] Altogether Charles played 64 matches in three seasons for Arsenal, scoring 28 goals.[4]

In February 1962 he returned to his native Wales to sign with Cardiff City, who paid Arsenal £28,500 for his services.[35] Though he would have preferred a move back to Swansea, they were unwilling to spend money in the transfer market, and so he was happy to sign with Cardiff, despite the Cardiff-Swansea rivalry; in turn the Cardiff fans were welcoming to Charles despite his Swansea connection.[35] The "Bluebirds" were in a relegation dogfight, and there was a lot of pressure on Charles to perform, however he missed an easy chance for a goal in his debut, in what ended as a 0–0 draw at home to Manchester City.[36] He helped them to earn 1–1 draws against Burnley and former club Arsenal, however a bad run soon followed and the club lost their First Division status at the end of the season.[36]

Cardiff signed renowned goal-getters Ivor Allchurch and Peter Hooper for the upcoming 1962–63 Second Division campaign, and so Charles was moved to a more central role in the pitch.[37] Though signed by Bill Jones, ironically George Swindin, the manager who had sold him at Arsenal, replaced Jones as manager in October 1962.[38] Despite the disruption, Charles scored in both derby games against Swansea, in what was otherwise a forgettable season for Cardiff fans.[39]

Cardiff signed John Charles for the start of the 1963–64 campaign, allowing the brothers to play alongside each other for the first time at club level.[40] However Swindin was against the move, as his team were already quite aged without the 32-year-old former superstar; instead it was the club's chairman who pushed for the £22,500 deal.[41] On his league debut for Cardiff, against Norwich City, John scored from a free kick inside his own half.[42] However Mel picked up an injury, and Cardiff's promotion hopes began to fade after a poor run of form in the Christmas period.[43] The season did end on a high note though, as both brothers played in the Welsh Cup final victory over Bangor City.[44] The two-legged affair had finished as a draw, and so Cardiff only lifted the cup after a 2–0 win at the Racecourse Ground, in a hastily arranged replay.[44]

Swindin was sacked for failing to bring promotion, and new manager Jimmy Scoular did not see eye-to-eye with Charles.[45] Charles scored a hat-trick against Swindon Town, but was dropped by Scoular for the next game after he told his striker that he hadn't worked hard enough for the team.[46] Charles responded by pointing at a horse in a field by Ninian Park and telling Scoular "you could put a number eight shirt on him and he would run all day – but he wouldn't score a fucking hat-trick for you!"[47] Scoular responded to this outburst by telling Charles that he had played his last game for Cardiff and could look for a new club.[47]

Charles' next club would be Welsh Football League side Porthmadog. Despite being a little known outfit, the club was bankrolled by a millionaire, and so Charles was paid a higher wage than he had received at Arsenal and Cardiff.[48] They finished the 1965–66 season second in the Welsh League, behind Caernarfon Town.[49] Despite enjoying his time in North Wales, he decided that he could not turn down an offer to return to the Football League by Port Vale, then managed by Stanley Matthews.[50] Port Vale paid Porthmadog a £1,250 fee, and Charles made his Vale debut in a 1–0 defeat at local rivals Crewe Alexandra on 3 February 1967.[51] He played a further six games, including a rough encounter with Walsall, another one of Vale's rivals, before he decided to head back to Wales.

"Coming out of the Welsh League and playing the Fourth Division was bloody rough. There were some hard bastards in that league and they knocked me about a bit... although Port Vale wanted me to stay on I had had enough... getting used as a punchbag in the Fourth Division didn't really appeal to me at that stage on my career.

— Charles reflects on his time at Vale Park in his autobiography.[52]

Charles signed on a free transfer to Oswestry Town in May 1967, before moving on to Haverfordwest County later in the year; both clubs competed in the Welsh Football League. He enjoyed his time in Pembrokeshire and went on to play close to 200 games for County, mostly as a centre-half.[53] He left the club in 1972 to return to the Cwmbwrla district of Swansea, where he set up an amateur side called Cwmfelin.[53] After he retired from competitive football he had kneecap replacements in both his legs.[53]

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