Oh to reminisce. My hero or at least one of them has passed away. My claim to fame is I cleaned Jimmy Greaves’ boots at Chelsea during my days there. I also helped carry him off the pitch on his last match for Chelsea when he scored all 4 goals to beat Nottingham Forest. That day he was only 21 years of age and I cried as he left to join Milan.
However Jimmy did return and though he came back to join Tottenham Hotspur it was good to have him back. Jimmy’s great life disappointment was being left out of the 1966 World Cup Final. In fairness the Manager Ramsey made the right decision as his choice of Geoff Hurst as Greaves’ replacement scored the winning goals in the German defeat.
Alas perhaps such a let down ( for who knows he may have scored more ) was a contributory cause to his decline into alcoholism. Jimmy did fight back and pursued in parallel a career on Television delivering his Pundit Program alongside the Scouse striker of similar fame Ian St John.
Jimmy found the net 422 times in 602 games and scored 44 goals in his 57 appearances for England .His return to English football broke the transfer record of the day at £99,000, a figure which some players now earn in a few days. Greaves missed out on the fortunes of the game yet he brought fortune to the game and was perhaps one of the greatest players of the past Century.
It was my honour to have cleaned his boots, it was a great memory to have carried him off the pitch that day in 1961 and him looking down at me to ‘ please put me down ‘. The photograph above was taken at Stamford Bridge with the greyhound track running around the pitch and the terraces that could take 80,000 plus people. Jimmy was faster than some of the Greyhounds and his prolific abilities to head and kick the ball were unique. His medium build and height was similar to the legends Pele and Messi. Farewell James and I live today with the grief of Greaves yet in the knowledge that the extra time is played above in that Eternal Stadium. I may get the chance there to clean his boots again.
qbitblogger 