Manchester United’s Forgotten Son

Carlo Sar­tori

Although born in Italy, Carlo Sar­tori was brought up a Harry Gregg goal kick away from Old Traf­ford. The young and prom­ising inside for­ward signed as an appren­tice with Manchester United at the start of the 1963–64 sea­son and made his first league appear­ance for the club when he came on as a sub­sti­tute for spe­cial­ist left full­back Fran­cis Burns in a draw with Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur at White Hart Lane in Octo­ber 1968.

Carlo Sar­tori made a total of 56 league appear­ances for Manchester United dur­ing his four sea­sons at the club before newly appoin­ted man­ager Tommy Docherty decided to sell him to Bologna for an estim­ated trans­fer fee of £50,000 in Jaun­ary 1973. While at the Emilia Romagna club, the free flow­ing for­ward was con­ver­ted into a depend­able cent­ral defender who went on to play for Spal Fer­rera, Benevento Cal­cio, Lecce, Rimini Cal­cio and Trento Cal­cio. After spend­ing more than a dec­ade abroad, the ginger haired player finally retired from the game in 1984 and sub­sequently returned to Eng­land to work for his family’s knife and scis­sor grind­ing busi­ness in Manchester. Despite play­ing for lesser clubs Carlo Sar­toni no doubt found Italy as a good place to live and enjoy a fine foot­balling career.

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