Opinion | Memories with my father: how football strengthens the dad and lad bond and forges a lifetime love affair with the game

“Good win for the Reds, son.” There are no more words. It could be in Liverpool or Nottingham, Toronto or Cincinnati, Sao Paulo or Shanghai, a father to son comment after returning from a game.

But this is in Manchester, on Sunday evening as winter closes in, two hours after Manchester United 2-1 Everton. It was an unscheduled visit.

This piece was going to be written from Camp Nou with a focus on the Clasico, which finished Barcelona 5-1 Real Madrid. But a phone call changed all that. I needed to get home. It had been coming.

Dad is very ill. He sleeps by my side as I write, this man who gave me a love for football. A man who shared a name with his famous uncle, a star of Sir Matt Busby’s first great Manchester United side and then manager at Newcastle United. That meant dad’s first job interviews consisted of being asked questions by an older generation who wanted to reminisce about United’s clever winger and penalty king.

We’d visit Charlie Snr at his home in Old Trafford, a mile from the football ground in an era when players lived among the working-class fans who attended games. He’d regale us with stories of winning the 1948 FA Cup or moving to Colombia in an era where footballers seldom travelled abroad to play, let alone to Bogota to take on the likes of Alfredo Di Stefano.

My young mind was utterly captivated. I’m from a football family – my grandad and his two brothers played professionally. Dad and most of his brothers played semi-professionally too and I’m about the only member of a large clan not to have received money to play football.