Mail delivery van in Ireland (Simon Roughneen)
DUBLIN — A first-ever joint postmark will be used on mail sent from England and Ireland in memory of the late football player and manager Jack Charlton, who died on July 10 aged 85.
Featuring an image of a football and reading “Jack Charlton, 1935 – 2020,” the postmark will be applied until August 9, the British and Irish postal services announced Monday.
Charlton was a central defender on the England team that won the World Cup in 1966 and later managed the Irish national team that reached the quarter-finals of its debut World Cup in 1990.
David McRedmond, CEO of Ireland’s An Post, described Charlton as “an English hero who became an Irish legend” during a Monday launch event with former Ireland defender Paul McGrath.
Stuart Simpson, CEO of Britain’s Royal Mail, said commemorating Charton was “a fitting occasion” for the first jointly-issued postmark.
Charlton, whose funeral takes place on Tuesday, took over as Ireland’s manager in 1986, when relations between Dublin and London were strained over the conflict in Northern Ireland.
His popularity soared in Ireland due to the national team’s unprecedented successes, which included qualifying for the 1988 European Championships and a second World Cup in 1994. The latter years of his tenure coincided with the two governments making some headway on peace negotiations in Northern Ireland.
Charlton’s club career was spent at Leeds United, winning numerous trophies, with Sheffield Wednesday and Newcastle United among the clubs he subsequently managed.
