Player of the Century: Bobby Moore gets the nod from GMF readers
By Dave Smith 07-09-07
The late, great Bobby Moore will always have
a special place in our hearts (©PAphotos)
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Over the last few months we have been asking givemefootball readers, as part of the PFA's Centenary celebrations, to vote for your teams of the century across three different eras and, ultimately, the overall Player of the Century.
And now, after taking into account the thousands and thousands of votes we received, we can reveal that England's one and only World Cup-winning captain, the great Bobby Moore, has been named as the greatest player ever.
The West Ham legend was certainly one of the finest players ever to have graced a football field, anwhere in the world, and not only was he the perfect pro, he was also the perfect gentleman respected by all. Bobby finished just ahead of George Best and Jimmy Greaves, who were second and third respectively, in our unique voting poll.
Bobby was born in Barking, Essex, on the 12th of April 1941, and began his football career playing for local boys teams before joining West Ham and making his debut in September, 1958. An essentially quiet, modest man, Bobby played his football with a calm authority that oozed class.
He made defending an art, timing tackles to perfection or, more often than not, simply winning the ball by his intelligent positional sense and uncanny reading of the game which enabled him to make so many clever interceptions.
With the Hammers, he won the FA Cup in 1964 followed by the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1965. Bobby made his debut for England in 1962 and the climax of his international career was, of course, the 1966 World Cup Finals when he led England to a 4-2 victory against West Germany and won the Player of Players award for a series of impeccable performances.
Perhaps his finest match came during the 1970 World Cup in Mexico when, against Brazil, he and Pele provided a master-class in top class defending and attacking play respectively. Both Pele and Franz Beckenbauer rated Bobby as the best defender the world had ever seen. Bobby's England career ended in 1973, his 108 caps being a record for an outfield player and, in 1974, he joined Fulham.
When he finally retired in 1978 he had played over 1,000 games. At just 23, he was voted the youngest-ever winner of the Football Writers'Award. He was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1967.
Narrowly behind Bobby in the voting was the mercurial George Best who, as a homseick 15-year-old, left Belfast and joined Manchester United in September 1961.
From the outset it was clear that he was a footballer with exceptional talent. He had great speed, superb balance, good vision, and snake-like dribbling skills - natural attributes that made him arguably the most gifted footballer of all time. George's genius was his unpredictability and ball control.
Where you would expect every other player to take a shot at goal, he waited, went a little further, went past one more defender- and then let fly! His confidence was cheeky rather than arrogant but, with his flamboyant style and pure natural ability, spectators were always kept on the edge of their seats.
He won the first of his two championship medals with Manchester United in his first full season, 1964-65, and collected another in season 1966-67. The following season he scored 28 goals from 41 appearances, only to see United finish as runners-up, but any disappointments were quashed when United become the first English club to lift the European Cup, beating Benfica 4-1.
At this stage, he was at the pinnacle of his career, crowned in 1968 as both domestic Footballer of the Year and European Player of the Year.
In third place, according to our readers, was striker supreme Jimmy Greaves who is still considered to be arguably the greatest-ever goalscorer this country has produced.
Born in Poplar, East London in February 1940, Jimmy signed for Chelsea in 1957 aged 17. After becoming the first player to score 100 goals before the age of 21, he left Stamford Bridge in 1961 for AC Milan, but the experience was an unhappy one. After only four months, Jimmy returned to London to join 'Double winners Tottenham Hotspur for £99,999.
Jimmy was a natural goalscorer, an opportunist extraordinaire, who thrilled fans with his deadly accuracy. In his first season for Tottenham, he scored 21 goals from 22 league appearances, finishing as top scorer and helping Tottenham retain the FA Cup, scoring in a 3-1 victory at Wembley against high-flying Burnley. He also contributed hugely to a European Cup run which saw Spurs controversially eliminated in the semi final by Benfica.
The following season saw Jimmy hit an incredible 37 league goals - an all-time Spurs record! If fact, he was the First Division's top scorer six times between 1958-1969 and was the only player ever to head the list for three consecutive years. He scored two goals in the 1963 European Cup Winners' Cup Final in a 5-1 thrashing of Atletico Madrid, when Spurs became the first English side to lift a European trophy.
He won another FA Cup Winners' medal with Tottenham in the 1967 win over Chelsea before moving on to West Ham. He ultimately finished with a career scoring record of 357 goals in 514 matches! He scored 44 goals in 57 England appearances.
