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Bobby Moore
Born: 12 April, 1941. Barking, England
Died: 24 February, 1993

International Caps 108
International Goals 2
Teams West Ham United, Fulham, Seattle Sounders
Team Honours World Cup (1966)
European Cup Winners" Cup (1965)
FA Cup (1964)
Individual Honours Football Writers' Player of the Year (1964)
Bobby Moore was England's finest captain, a legend who led his country to its greatest triumph. Yet, for all the glittering prizes, who now remembers his farewell international 10 years after that stunning World Cup victory?

Here's a clue: it wasn't for his beloved England. The man who graced the beautiful game bowed out with a bizarre cap in a land where football had about as much relevance as a British passport in the Chelsea dressing room.

The path that led him there was, in the end, less than his due. He scaled the heights, but received few favours in later life from the sport to which he had given so much. Moore's rise to the top began when he was discovered playing on an East London school ground called Flanders Fields. It was an appropriate place to find him. The spirit of those First World War heroes was to be echoed in his cool courage under pressure.

Those soldiers were famously described as "lions led by donkeys." Moore's troops - the conquering England team of 1966 - had no doubt that they were led by a lionheart. Moore played for his country with the same steely qualities as those infantrymen had fought - death or glory. And what glory!

He played for England 108 times, captained them in a record 90 matches (jointly held with Billy Wright), won the World Cup, the FA Cup, the European Cup Winners' Cup and was Footballer of the Year.

The only major domestic honour to elude him was a championship medal, a failure that was to be an enduring source of friction between him and his club manager Ron Greenwood. Moore was born in Barking on April 12, 1941, and made his debut for West Ham United against Manchester United in September 1958, gaining his place at the expense of Malcolm Allison who was suffering from tuberculosis.

He went on to make the No 6 jersey and the left-half slot his own for 15 years - a surprise for a man whose left foot was his weaker one. And by the 1960s he was one of a triumvirate of Hammers with an almost permanent presence in the England team. Moore, Hurst, Peters . . . three names always to the fore of national manager Alf Ramsey's thinking. West Ham had a reputation for attractive football and none was classier than Moore. He was not the quickest of players yet, like so many touched by greatness, he always seemed to have time to spare - especially in the tackle.

The respected sports journalist Mike Langley wrote of Moore's trademark challenge: "The right leg stretches out and Bobby, echoing the opening batsman Essex so keenly wanted him to be, sinks on his left knee like Denis Compton about to sweep the ball through fine leg. "But Moore's knee doesn't touch the ground. Somehow, marvellously athletic, he rises with the ball now completely filched from Charlie Cooke of Chelsea and Scotland. "Few, indeed, were the defenders able to steal possession from an opponent as clever as Cooke, yet Moore did it without bother."

The FA Cup beckoned in 1964, a 3-2 victory over Preston. For Moore it was a double celebration - he had received the Footballer of the Year award on the eve of the game. Yet he was stung by a snub from the club. His team-mates were not allowed to attend the presentation because of the Cup Final. And neither manager Greenwood nor any West Ham director turned up to see their finest ever player honoured.

It was an act he would never forget . . . or forgive. By 1965 the Hammers were in a European final. They met Munich 1860 for the Cup Winners' Cup and, skippered by Moore, they triumphed 2-0. Greater glories, however, were only a season away. Moore was already captain of England when Ramsey took over from Walter Winterbottom.

Ramsey wanted to change the system, to play 4-4-2, and Moore was the man to make it work.

Saturday July 30, 1966, was to be the greatest day in England's football history. Wembley was the venue, West Germany the opponents, at stake the Jules Rimet Trophy for the football championship of the World.

England, playing in unfamiliar red shirts, went behind before Geoff Hurst got the equaliser, then Martin Peters scored a second, and with one minute to go Ramsey's heroes - "the wingless wonders" - seemed to have the World Cup in their grasp. But with time running out, Weber scored to make it 2-2 at the end of 90 minutes.

Extra time was to bring controversy, create history and put a memorable sporting phrase into the English language.

But before the re-start, Ramsey called his team together and gave them a pep talk. It was Moore who was later to reveal its secrets. According to Moore, this is what Ramsey said: "Look at the Germans. They're flat out. Down on the grass. Having massages. They can't live with you. Not through extra time."

Was he sure? Or was he bluffing? Whichever it was, he was right. In the first-half of extra time, Hurst whacked the ball against the German crossbar, it bounced down inside the goal . . . but did it cross the line?

Subsequent slow-motion replays suggest that England were lucky at a crucial moment in the game. But the referee had no such high-tech luxuries, only the assistance of a Russian linesman.

There was an agonising wait as the two officials locked in consultation. Then the goal that knocked the stuffing out of the Germans was given.

With the seconds ticking away, the BBC's commentator, Kenneth Wolstenholme, noticed jubilant spectators coming over the touchline. "Some people are on the pitch," he began. As Wolstenholme measured the words that were to gain immortality, Moore was also measuring an inch-perfect pass. It found Hurst in space, deep in the German half.

"They think it's all over," continued Wolstenholme as Hurst raced on goal and shot. The ball hit the back of the net. "It is now," concluded Wolstenholme in a masterpiece of timing. And so the goal that made it 4-2, putting the World Cup beyond doubt and sparking that momentous phrase, had its roots in Bobby Moore's boots.

It was a wet day and Moore, after climbing the steps to the Royal Box to receive the trophy, was just two yards from the Queen when he realised his hands were dirty with mud and grass stains.

Ever the gentleman, he wiped them on the velvet draping before shaking hands. Ramsey knew how great was his debt to Moore. "My captain, my leader, my right-hand man," was how he summed up Moore's assured authority.

"He was the spirit and the heartbeat of the team. A cool, calculating footballer I could trust with my life. He was the supreme professional, the best I ever worked with. Without him England would never have won the World Cup."

Moore was predictably modest, preferring to emphasise their collective spirit. "We were more than a team. We were a formidable nation, bonded and held together by our will to win for England."

By 1970, Ramsey's team was arguably better than the squad of '66. And with Moore still at the helm, they set off with high hopes to defend their trophy in the heat of Mexico. Trouble was looming on the way, however. In Bogota, Colombian police accused Moore of stealing a £625 emerald-studded gold bracelet from a hotel jewellery shop. His arrest and imprisonment sent shockwaves around the world, amid claims of a South American fit-up back home.

Throughout the ordeal, Moore maintained his dignity and his innocence. He was held for four days and underwent a four-hour court hearing at which he was represented by a former Colombian Minister of Justice.

After intervention by FA secretary Dennis Follows he was released and flew to join his team in Mexico. But he was not declared innocent until many weeks later and played in the World Cup with the shadow of the charge hanging over him.. What followed was one of the most brilliant matches England ever took part in. The result may have been a 1-0 defeat by Brazil, but two top class teams played at the highest limits of their skill under a boiling sun.

The match is remembered for four things. First, an astonishing reflex save that almost defied belief by England's Gordon Banks from a downward header by Pele.

Second, Alan Ball hitting the Brazilian crossbar with two minutes to go.

Third, the towering performance of Moore as he made tackle after tackle.

And finally, and fittingly, at the end of the match, Pele and Moore stripped of their shirts hugging each other - two giants of the game displaying deep respect for each other's talents.

England were knocked out of that World Cup by their defeated opponents of 1966, West Germany. A match that England were winning 2-0 they contrived to lose 3-2 after some slipshod goalkeeping by Peter Bonetti and magnificent striking by Gerd "Der Bomber" Muller.

Moore went back to play for West Ham, but he was restless. He wanted a move to one of the glamour clubs, such as Arsenal or Spurs. Brian Clough tried to sign him for Derby, but nothing came of it.

It wasn't money that caused Moore's disenchantment, though he claimed: "Footballers all over the First Division were earning more than me."

In fact, his pay in 1971 was £200 a week - the amount West Ham fined him for going drinking in a Blackpool nightclub with Jimmy Greaves until one o'clock in the morning of an FA Cup tie which the Hammers lost.

What really mattered to Moore was winning a championship. But it was not to be. His relationship with Greenwood deteriorated and he left Upton Park in 1973 to play out his last three seasons with Fulham.

He said of Greenwood: "He respected me, but he didn't like me. I cannot forgive him for my never winning a League championship medal.

"His man management was bad - he couldn't motivate players. With the right management we could have gone on to dominate the game for a period. It sickens me that we were unsuccessful."

Moore tried his hand at management himself at Oxford and Southend, but with mediocre results. It puzzled many fans that a man who had given so much to football could not find a job inside it.

And then his health failed. First he suffered heart problems in 1986. Then in 1991 he was struck by cancer. He fought it for two years before dying on February 24, 1993, at the age of 51.

The tributes to Moore were immense. The great Franz Beckenbauer, an opponent in that 1966 World Cup Final, said: "Bobby was my football idol. I looked up to him. I was so proud to have played against him."

Pele called him "one of the world's finest defenders and a great sportsman," adding: "The shirt he wore against me in that 1970 match is my prize possession. The world has lost one of its greatest football players and a great gentlemen."

The words of Pele were appropriate. Three years after Moore and Pele took part in that Titanic clash in Guadalajara, the England captain made his last appearance in an England shirt. A 1-0 defeat by Italy at Wembley in 1973.

But that wasn't the end of Moore's international career. In 1976 he was capped by the USA for a tournament to mark their bicentenary.

The match was in Philadelphia and the opponents were ENGLAND! And who was the forward to whom Moore kept pumping measured passes throughout the match?

It was none other then Pele, his Team America colleague. How fitting that those two old warhorses, who stood for everything that is great about football, should finish their days playing on the same side.

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