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BO66Y

Last night I watched the dvd of Bo66y a documentary produced by Matt Lorenzo to celebrate the 50th anniversary of World Cup victory. Matt Lorenzo and his father before him are massive West Ham fans so I did not expect anything too critical. I did expect to learn something I did not know but long interviews with Jeff Powell, who wrote a biography of him, Tina Moore and Harry Redknapp did not provide this.

I happened to be speaking to Alan Tanner about Bobby Moore as he closed out his career with Fulham and played for them in the 1975 Cup final. Alan said he great three great qualities: calmness; distribution from  defence: and reading of the game. Against that he did not have great pace, was not domineering in the air and there were better tacklers around like Norman Hunter. Alan said that by the end he was so slow that the defence was vulnerable and Peter Storey, the Arsenal hard man was brought in to protect the back line as only he could. Nonetheless, Bobby Moore represented the sixties in football in the way Michael Caine did in films.

Much was made of the way football turned his back on him. Great players rarely make great  managers. Of the present crop only Carlo Ancelotti and Pep Gardiola had stellar careers. Nor was he alone in the 66 team in failing to achieve as manager: Bobby Charlton, Martin Peters and Geoff Hurst did not do so either, the one that did was Jack Charlton who would not be described as great. Nowadays Bobby Moore would have an ambassadorial role and could maximise his legend status more lucratively but football was different commercially in his era. With developments in oncology too he might have lived longer too.

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About Douglas Heath

Douglas Heath began his lifelong love affair with cricket as an 8 year-old schoolboy playing OWZAT? Whilst listening to a 160s Ashes series on the radio. He later became half-decent at doing John Arlott impressions and is a member of Middlesex County Cricket Club. He holds no truck at all with the T20 version on the game. More Posts