TODAY at On This Football Day we’re jumping back half a century to have a look the man that the Italian public rated as the greatest foreigner to ever grace Serie A. It’s not Zidane, Platini, Van Basten or even Maradona, but Welshman John Charles.

It was on this day in 1957 that Il Buon Gigante, or the Gentle Giant, left Leeds United for Juventus for a world record fee of £65,000. Surprise, surprise, Leeds were selling him due to financial problems; in September 1956 a fire had gutted the main stand at Elland Road which was not adequately insured. With a £60,000 shortcoming in the finances, Charles was sold to build a new stand.

Charles was the first British professional to sign for an overseas side and to say he hit it off is a bit of an understatement. In 1957 he was joining a Juve side that had struggled to avoid the drop, but his five-year spell at the Stadio Olimpico di Torino saw three Scudetto’s and two Italian Cups for the Old Lady, as Charles would bag 93 goals in 150 games. This goalscoring feat is all the more impressive when you consider the fact that Charles was as adapt marshalling the defence in a centre-back role as he was leading the line upfront.

Charles was perhaps the most versatile player ever to play the game. He had strength, speed and agility, as well as possessing a temperament that would make Mother Theresa look like she deserved an asbo, despite Jack Charlton’s claim that “when he went on a surge he would leave a terrible trail of human devastation behind him. Bloody gentle giant indeed!” 518 games and no yellow or red cards was a testament to this, even in the pre-Graham Poll-era. Charles started out as a towering centre-back, but upon his arrival at Elland Road, Leeds manager Major Frank Buckley put Charles upfront to great effect.



The respect amongst Charles’ contemporaries was evident, as Nat Lofthouse rated him as the greatest defender he had ever faced, while Billy Wright hailed him as the finest centre-forward he had ever seen. At Juve, he would often stay in attack until he scored, then be bought back into defence to wrap up the victory.

After five glorious years in Turin, Charles became homesick and was eventually sold back to Leeds after a drawn-out transfer saga that saw Leeds nearly bankrupt themselves, paying an over-the-odds £53,000 for their former charge. He would later claim that leaving Juventus was the biggest mistake of his career and soon ended up back in Italy, this time at AS Roma. A strong start in the capital was soon derailed by injuries and Charles would finish his career in his homeland, with a spell at Cardiff City and then as manager of Hereford United and Merthyr Tydfil.

Right up until his death in February 2004, Charles was still revered in the three countries he played in and was always mobbed by adoring fans on the streets of Turin whenever he returned. His career was commemorated in Italy when he was named as the only non-Italian to ever be conducted into the Azzurri Hall of Fame, and at Elland Road, where the stand his original transfer had funded was named in his honour.

For grainy footage of a player who should be mentioned in the same breath of Pele, Maradona and Cruyff bagging a hat-trick against former Serie A mainstays Spal 1907 see below, and be sure to join us tomorrow for the story of angry man named Jerrel.

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