Sir Bobby Charlton first got in touch with me not long after I came out of hospital in 2012. He had returned from a visit to Cambodia with a charity that campaigned on removing landmines and had been very moved by what he had seen. When he got back he set up a charity of his own, now called the Sir Bobby Charlton Foundation, focused on how to speed up the process of de-mining, technological advances and so on. The charity had heard my story [Duley stepped on a landmine while on a photographic assignment in Afghanistan, resulting in catastrophic injuries including triple amputation] and invited me to be an ambassador. I was back at home feeling completely lost and forgotten, so it was really fantastic to be included in all the decision making and policies for the charity.
A funny thing happened quite early in our friendship, which is a great example of the kind of man Sir Bobby was. I’d been invited to a big lunch event at the ground at Old Trafford, in the dining room there. There were a lot of football stars of the past and present and people from the sponsors who were helping to fund his NGO. I was sitting opposite Sir Bobby and during the meal, he leaned over and said, “Giles, I’d love to invite you to come and watch Manchester United play at home, you can take my wife Norma’s seat one week and we can watch the game together.” I looked across and said, “Thank you, but no, I won’t if that’s all right.”
There was a sudden silence around the table. Everyone there understood, as I did, that I was turning down probably the most coveted seat in football.
Sir Bobby, ever the gentleman, quickly said, “Oh don’t worry, I guess that means you’re not a football fan.”
And I told him that, actually, no, I was a huge football fan, but the fact was I was a fan of Yeovil Town, not Manchester United. Sir Bobby thought that was hilarious and started reminiscing about how he had played at Yeovil’s ground once, on our infamous sloping pitch.
As luck would have it, a few months later, I was watching the draw for the third round of the FA Cup and Yeovil, who were in the bottom division, were drawn to play Manchester United at home. Immediately my phone rings and it’s Sir Bobby, saying can he come and watch the game with me.
So he came down and he sat on a little concrete step in January to watch Yeovil play. He was with Sir Alex Ferguson, who had just retired, and the three of us sat in a row. I didn’t quite feel qualified to offer many opinions on the game in their company, but when we got to half-time and it was still nil-nil, Bobby turned to me laughing and said, “It’s OK Giles, you can cheer for Yeovil, we won’t be offended!” At half time, we went to the tiny chairman’s room and had Pukka pies; there were no airs and graces with him, he loved it.
Over the years, before my injuries and since, I’ve met and photographed a lot of famous people who knew him – David Beckham, Lionel Messi, various politicians, royalty – and they all had a kind of awe for him, for the humility he showed as a player and throughout his life. Some of that was to do with the fact that he was a survivor of the Munich air crash. I think that was probably why he was drawn to the landmines charity. When he had been in Cambodia, he was affected particularly, he said, by the fact that some of the victims of landmines were just kids who had been kicking a ball about on the wrong patch of ground. He hated the thought that there were places that children couldn’t have a game of football without fear.
One thing we did talk about once was the idea of survivor’s guilt, which we both felt, having gone through something very traumatic, where a lot of people didn’t survive. We did a lot of events together for the charity and he came to the opening of an exhibition of my photos in London. He was always supportive at those events, always looking out for me, but there was always a sense of – I don’t know if sadness is the right word, more like him being subdued. I remember watching him at a reception we had at the Houses of Parliament and seeing in him that survivor’s guilt that I have felt from time to time: Why am I here? Why am I the one still enjoying life when others who went through the same thing aren’t?
The last time I saw him in person was just before Covid. I went up to Manchester to do a portrait of him for the charity. People always say to me, “I would imagine he was quite a hard man to photograph,” meaning that he always seemed self-effacing. But I always think there’s a moment where some people just give you themselves in a portrait. That was the case with Sir Bobby. I felt – and I was not alone in feeling this from him – that he really respected me. For somebody recovering from an injury – where to be honest, most of the world had kind of written me off – to have a man of his stature show that respect to me was a huge part of my healing process.
