“I remember hoovering and washing Bobby’s car. I’m not even sure we had a hoover back home then!'

Felix Healy’s achievements in football have been well documented over the years, but perhaps a lesser-known anecdote from an impressive career is the fact that he used to wash Bobby Charlton’s car!

Playing at the 1982 World Cup, winning the treble with Derry City and managing his hometown club to a league title were a long way away for Felix when he went to England to play with Preston North End for a period when he was just 17 years old. What was supposed to be a two-week trial turned into a five month stay for Felix, who suddenly found himself under the management of Manchester United legend and one of his idols in Charlton, who was then player-manager at Deepdale after ending his glittering career at Old Trafford.

“Bobby was a guy that I idolised at the time,” he recalled. “When I first saw him in the gym above the dressing rooms, it was like a God-like figure standing over there and I’m just about to shake hands with him, a guy that I had idolised from about seven or eight years of age.

“They got relegated; they had a very old team. Nobby Stiles was there, Franny Burns was there, David Sadler was there; Manchester United old hands. There was Jack Crompton, there was Neil Young, who scored the winner in the Cup final for Man. City, Ray Treacy was there, so was Alan Kelly senior, the goalkeeper. It was a really old squad that Bobby assembled and it was no wonder they got relegated because they had no legs.

“Bobby would have played football with us on a Tuesday and a Thursday and he would have been in with the young lads in the dressing rooms afterwards. You were always chatting to him and asking him questions; you know what you’re like when you’re that age, asking questions, what was this like and who was the best.”

Learning the game from one of the best ever to kick a football was the ultimate experience for a young Felix, but there was plenty of hard work involved, both on and off the pitch as well.

“We used to go training to this place three or four miles outside Preston and there were times when we went on a minibus, but a lot of the times, we went in Bobby’s car,” he continued. “He had a blue Jag.

“What happened was that when you went to the training ground, you were nice and clean, but when you came back, you were mucked to the eyeballs. Bobby had this light blue Jag and it was like a spaceship. We’re sitting in this car with Bobby Charlton and you couldn’t write it, but when you were mucked to the eyeballs, it had to be hoovered and cleaned afterwards.

“That was back at time when apprentices sorted out the laundry, sorted out the tea, sorted out the boots. It was more than just cleaning boots which went on for apprentices. You tidied up around the ground and you made sure that the first team players had the right training kits. The younger boys weren’t allowed to wear tracksuit bottoms, so you had to make sure that all the tracksuit bottoms for the older lads like Nobby and Sadler were clean.

“I remember hoovering and washing Bobby’s car. I’m not even sure we had a hoover back home then. It was an incredible thing.”

“I was unlucky in that I went there at the time I went there. Bobby had gone down the road of he was going to attract the best young players in England. The captain of the England Schoolboys was there as an apprentice, but he didn’t become a footballer, none of them did. There were the top players in Scotland also; there was a fella called Ricky Thompson, and another guy called Royston Taylor, and none of them ever became players.

“The only young fella in the team who broke in was Tony Morley, who played for Aston Villa. He would have played with Gary Shaw. He was actually over here in Derry a few years doing the Soccer School with me for David Campbell.”

Of all the advice Felix ever received from Charlton, one phrase still sticks in his mind to this day.

“Bobby would say something that I always felt was strange coming from him,” he continued. “He always said “Pass it early”, just like Guardiola does now, but there was nobody who carried the ball as well as Bobby from his own half of the field.

“Even then, when he was 35, and us watching him as kids striking the ball, and his timing and everything else, he could play. He was as good as there ever was. There were guys who could do other things better than Bobby, but as a pure footballer, he is as good as there has ever been. I don’t believe there’s a ‘Greatest Player of All Time”. All you can be is a good player in your own time and that’s all you get. Bobby was up there at the time. He was something else.”

“The first time I met Bobby Charlton, it was a surreal moment because you grow up in the street and you say “I’m Bobby Charlton”, or “I’m Eusebio” or “I’m George Best”. Back in those days you were a player in the street, whoever it was. I idolised Bobby Charlon, and I loved the way he played; he was very much a team player as everybody would say, then all of a sudden to be standing beside him and talking to him, that was just surreal. He was a really nice man, a really nice man.”

‘In awe’

While Felix’s experience is certainly unique, just meeting the man who led Manchester United to a first European Cup and then England to their only World Cup was a privilege for those Derry-based United fans who had watched him on TV growing up.

Michael O’Donnell was lucky to meet the man himself on his very first trip to Old Trafford back in 1984.

“I was totally in awe,” he recalled. “It was my first trip to Old Trafford and United were playing Spurs and they won 1-0 and Mark Hughes scored.

“At Old Trafford that night there were two functions, one upstairs and one downstairs. We were at the downstairs one with half the first team squad, and over the course of the evening, you gradually switch over so everybody gets a chance to meet everybody.

“I had spotted the door where all the players were coming in, beside the bar. I was loitering in case somebody came in and Martin Edwards, the Chairman, came in and I got his autograph.

“He asked me where I was from and I said to him I was from Derry in Northern Ireland and I was a lifelong supporter and it was my first trip to Old Trafford. He said “Thanks for coming over and we hope you’ll come back and see us again”. That meant an awful lot to a young man who had just turned 21 and who had been a fan since the 60s since Charlton was the captain of the club. To meet him, and for him to be so nice, and to take an interest and to chat, instead of just signing my programme and walking away. It was nearly 40 years ago and I still remember it.”

Charlton’s legacy is unparalleled, with even the youngest generation of United fans today understanding is importance to Manchester United.

“Everybody knows Bobby Charlton,” Michael continued. “He’s kind of unique. There was a great outpouring of grief and there was a week of national mourning last year when the Queen died. In the future, other monarchs will die, but their deaths will not be treated the same way as Queen Elizabeth II’s will.

“When Paul McCartney dies, the outpouring of grief for Paul McCartney and the reflection on the Beatles and how much they meant in the cultural fabric of British society and world society will be talked about forever. It will be the same with Bobby Charlton; in British sport, not just in football, the death of Bobby Charlton will be treated with a reverence and respect and an outpouring of affection that no other British sportsperson will ever have, ever again. This is the last of that sort of dynasty.”