Jimmy Greaves will be remembered for humility, humour and also being arguably the best English goal scorer of all time. Matthew Murphy reports.
England and Tottenham Hotspur icon Jimmy Greaves recently passed away at the age of 81. Greaves, part of the 1966 World Cup triumph for England, is the all-time record top-flight goal scorer with 357 goals in 516 league games for Chelsea, Spurs and West Ham. Of these he scored 220 for Tottenham. Allan Shearer, for comparison, scored 283 goals in 559 league games.
Apart from the trophies and achievements, who was the man behind the goals? I sat down with a fan, Robert Raife, 77, who followed Greaves’ career from a youth star at Chelsea to TV presenter for the popular show Saint and Greavsie.
What are your earliest memories of Jimmy Greaves?
‘My earliest memory of Jimmy Greaves was when he was playing in the youth team for Chelsea. As a big West Ham fan from the early 1950s, I went to the occasional U21 matches and we were playing Chelsea one night, you could tell he was going to be something special from that day. I think he scored 2 against us. I also heard that as an apprentice he used to get on the bus home with his boots tied around his neck.’
When Greaves made his move to AC Milan in 1961, why don’t you think it worked out for him?
‘From what I can remember he did not get on with the manager at the time who wanted to put him on a strict training and diet regime which is a completely different culture to what he had in England. In 1961, we did not have sport news reported all the time, so it was only word of mouth that you heard of this news or when he explained it in interviews after he had retired. ‘
Greaves in the same year made his return to England with Tottenham and then eventually to your team West Ham. From being around the working men’s clubs at the time in East London what did you hear about him?
‘I heard that he thought that the drinking culture at Tottenham was bad, but it didn’t even come close to what it was like at West Ham. I remember it was an away game in Blackpool where a few of the regular drinkers like Bobby Moore had been out heavy drinking because they were told that the match was going to be postponed due to the pitch being frozen. Allegedly, Greaves had 12 pints that day. But the match went ahead, and West Ham lost 4-0.’
After his successful playing career what did Greaves venture into?
‘He was one of the first players to move into television with beloved football programme Saint and Greavsie. Ian St John and Jimmy really worked well together as a comic double act on Saturday lunchtime, but it came to an end in the early 1990s when ITV lost broadcasting rights to Sky showing the new Premier League.’
