Truly, Madly, Charlie

Fashionista. Model. Pop star. Celebrity. Influencer. Footballer. Charlie Nicholas was many things to many people during his footballing career. The embodiment of the 1980s, Charlie breezed into Highbury in the summer of 1983 with the promise of sex, goals and rock ’n’ roll, but burdened with expectations which would prove impossibly high to meet. At the same time, impressionable young teenager Stewart Taylor was looking for a hero. He found one in the form of Prince Charlie, and reciprocated by doing all he could to help him prove his detractors wrong, only to discover too late that he had been doing the exact opposite. Charlie Nicholas captivated Arsenal fans for four-and-a-half years, never more so than at Wembley Stadium on 5 April 1987, when his goals helped launch the successful George Graham era – an era in which he would play no further part. Told in the words of former team-mates, journalists and fans, Truly, Madly, Charlie is a love letter to one of the most talked-about, popular and effervescent sporting characters of the 1980s.