Robert Frederick Chelsea "Bobby" Moore,
OBE (12 April 1941 – 24 February
1993) was an English
footballer.
He captained
West Ham United
for more than ten years and was
captain of the
England team that won the
1966 World Cup.
He won a total of 108 caps for the England team, which at the time
of his international retirement in 1973 was a national record. This
record was later broken by 125-cap goalkeeper
Peter Shilton, and on 28 March 2009 when
David Beckham gained his 109th cap,
against
Slovakia.
Football career
Early days
Moore joined West Ham as a player in 1956, and after advancing
through their youth set up played his first game on September 8,
1958, against
Manchester
United. In putting on the number 6 shirt, he replaced his
mentor
Malcolm Allison, who was
suffering from
tuberculosis.
Allison never played another first team game for West Ham nor
indeed any other First Division game, as Moore became a regular. A
composed central defender, Moore was admired for his reading of the
game and ability to anticipate opposition movements, thereby
distancing himself from the image of the hard-tackling,
high-jumping defender. Indeed, Moore's ability to head the ball or
keep up with the pace was average at best, but the way he read the
game, marshalled his team and timed his tackles marked him out as
world class. In fact,
Pelé called Moore
the fairest defender he had ever played against.
Bobby Moore also played
cricket. He played
for
Essex youth team alongside fellow West Ham
player
Geoff Hurst.
[699556]
An England star, a European winner
In 1960, Moore earned a call up to the England under 23 squad.
His form
and impact on West Ham as a whole earned him a late call-up to the
England squad by Walter
Winterbottom and the
Football Association selection committee in 1962, when final
preparations were being made for the summer's World Cup finals in Chile
.
Moore was
uncapped as he flew to South America with the rest of the squad,
but made his début on 20 May 1962 in England's final pre-tournament
friendly - a 4-0 win over Peru in Lima
. Also
débuting that day was
Tottenham
Hotspur defender
Maurice Norman.
Both
proved so impressive that they stayed in the team for the whole of
England's participation in the World Cup, which ended in defeat by
eventual winners Brazil in the quarter finals
at Viña del
Mar
.
On 29 May, 1963, 22-year-old Moore captained his country for the
first time in just his 12th appearance after the retirement of
Johnny Haynes and an injury to his
successor,
Jimmy Armfield. He was the
youngest man ever to captain England at the highest level.
England defeated
Czechoslovakia 4-2 in
the game. Armfield returned to the role of captain afterwards, but
new coach
Alf Ramsey gave Moore the job
permanently during a series of summer friendlies in 1964, organised
because England had failed to reach the latter stages of the
inaugural
European
Championships.
1964 turned out to be quite an eventful year for Moore.
As well as
gaining the England captaincy, he lifted the FA
Cup as West Ham defeated Preston North End 3-2 in the final at
Wembley
, courtesy of a last-minute goal from Ronnie Boyce. On a personal level, Moore
also was successfully treated for
testicular cancer and was named the
Football
Writers' Association Footballer of the Year.
The FA Cup success would become the first of three successful
Wembley finals in as many years for Moore. In 1965, he lifted the
European Cup Winners Cup
after West Ham defeated
1860 Munich 2-0
in the final with both goals coming from
Alan Sealey. By now he was the shoo-in skipper
for England with 30 caps, and around whom Ramsey was building a
team to prove correct his prediction that England would win the
1966 World Cup, to be held on
home soil. 1966 had a mixed start for Moore, however - he scored
his first England goal in a 1-1 draw with
Poland, but then skippered
West Ham to the final of the
League
Cup - in its last season before its transfer to Wembley as a
one-off final - which they lost 5-3 on
aggregate to
West Bromwich Albion. For Moore,
who had scored in the first leg, and his West Ham team-mates
Geoff Hurst and
Martin Peters, considerable consolation lay
ahead. Moore scored his second and ultimately final England goal in
a friendly against
Norway, two weeks before the
World Cup would begin.
The World Cup
On the verge of his greatest triumph, details were released to the
press in early 1966 that Moore wanted to leave West Ham for
Tottenham Hotspur. Moore had
let his contract slip to termination, and only after the
intervention of
Sir Alf Ramsey and
realisation he was technically ineligible to play, did he re-sign
with West Ham to allow him to captain the England team of 1966.
Ramsey had summoned West Ham manager
Ron
Greenwood to England's hotel and told the two of them to sort
out their differences and get a contract signed up.
Moore was the leader of the side which gave English football its
crowning glory and established him as a magnificent player,
gentleman and sporting icon. With all their games at Wembley,
England had got through their group with little trouble, they then
beat
Argentina in a
controversial quarter final and a
Eusébio-led
Portugal team in the semis,
a match also surrounded by controversy.
West Germany awaited in the
final.
Remarkably, according to Geoff Hurst's
autobiography, England full back
George Cohen overheard Ramsey talking to his
coaching staff about the possibility of dropping Moore for the
final and deploying the more battle-hardened
Norman Hunter in his place.
However, eventually they settled on keeping the captain in the
team. It remains a strange scenario, rendered almost unthinkable
with hindsight. Moore had not been playing badly, nor had he given
the impression that he had been distracted by his contract dispute
prior to the competition. The only possible explanations were that
the Germans had some rather fast attacking players, which could
expose Moore's own lack of pace, and that Hunter - who was of a
similar age to Moore but only had four caps - was the club partner
of Moore's co-defender with England,
Jack
Charlton.
In the final, England went 0-1 down through
Helmut Haller, but Moore's awareness and
quick-thinking helped England to a swift equaliser. He was fouled
by
Wolfgang Overath midway inside
the German half and, rather than remonstrate or head back into
defence, he picked himself up quickly while looking ahead and
delivered an instant free kick on to Hurst's head, in a movement
practised at West Ham. Hurst scored.
The West Ham connection to England's biggest day became stronger
when Peters scored to take England 2-1 up, but the Germans
equalised in the finalminute of normal time through
Wolfgang Weber - as Moore appealed
unsuccessfully for a
handball
decision - to take the match into extra time.
Ramsey was convinced the Germans were exhausted, and after Hurst
scored probably the most controversial and debated goal in world
football, the game looked over. With only seconds remaining, and
England under the pressure of another German attack, the ball broke
to Moore on the edge of his own penalty area. Team-mates shouted at
Moore to just get rid of the ball, but he calmly picked out the
feet of Hurst
40 yards (40 m) upfield.
Hurst took the ball on and, although his intention was to kick it
into the stands and waste time, his shot found the inside corner of
the net, completing a hat-trick which remains unique. There was no
time to restart.
Of many timeless images from that day, one is of Moore gallantly
wiping his hands clean of mud and sweat on his shorts and shirt
before shaking the hand of
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth
II as she presented him with the World Cup 1966.
Moore as icon
Moore became a national icon as a consequence of England's success,
with he and the other two West Ham players taking the World Cup
around the grounds which West Ham visited during the following
domestic season. He was awarded the coveted
BBC Sports Personality of the
Year title at the end of 1966, the first footballer to do so,
and remaining the only one for a further 24 years. He was also
decorated with the OBE in the New Year Honours List.
Moore's
image and popularity allowed him to start a number of business
ventures, including a sports shop next to West Ham's ground at
Upton
Park
, and he also appeared with his wife Tina, along
with Peters and his wife Kathy, in a television advertisement for
the pub industry, urging people to "Look in at the
local".
He continued to play for West Ham and England, earning his 50th cap
in a 5-1 win over
Wales
at the end of 1966 in a Home International match which also doubled
up as a qualifier for the
1968 European
Championships.
England ultimately reached the semi-finals
(the tournament was just a four-team event back then) where they
played Yugoslavia
in Florence
and lost
1-0. England, as champions, did not have to
qualify for the next World Cup, and Moore remained the first name
on Ramsey's team sheet, winning his 78th cap prior to the squad's
flight to South America for a short period of
altitude-acclimatisation, before going on to the finals in Mexico
.
The English
Oi!/
punk
band
The Business recorded a
tribute song to Bobby Moore titled "Viva Bobby Moore".
1970
The year 1970 was a bittersweet, mixed and eventful one for Moore.
He was
again named as captain for the 1970
World Cup but there was heavy disruption to preparations when
an attempt was made to implicate Moore in the theft of a bracelet from a
jeweller in Bogotá
, Colombia
, where
England were involved in a warm-up game. A young assistant
had claimed that Moore had removed the bracelet from the hotel shop
without paying for it. There was no doubt that Moore was in the
shop - he had gone in with
Bobby
Charlton to look for a gift for Charlton's wife, Norma - the
accusation was not proved.
Moore was arrested and then released, he then
travelled with the England team to play another match against
Ecuador in Quito
. He
played, winning his 80th cap, and England were 2-0 victors, but
when the team plane stopped back in Colombia on the return to
Mexico, Moore was detained and placed under four days of
house arrest.
Diplomatic pressure, plus the obvious weakness of
the evidence, eventually saw the case dropped entirely, and an
exonerated Moore returned to Mexico to rejoin the squad and prepare
for the World Cup.
Moore shrugged off the pressure and stress to play a leading role
in England's progress through their group. In the second game
against favourites
Brazil, there was a defining
moment for Moore when he tackled the great
Jairzinho with such precision and cleanliness that
many cite it as a tackle which no-one will ever improve upon. It
continues to be shown frequently on television. Brazil still won
the game 1-0, but England progressed through the group. Moore
swapped shirts with
Pelé after the game.
The shirt is now on display in a virtual reality museum called the
Priory Collection.
Defeat after extra time against West Germany saw England bow out in
the last eight, and it would be 12 years before England were to
return to a World Cup finals again.
Final years at the top
On August 10, 1970 Bobby Moore received an anomynous threat to
kidnap his wife and hold her to a £10,000 ransom.
This caused him to
pull out of pre-season friendlies against Bristol City and Bournemouth
. However, his services to West Ham were
rewarded with a testimonial match against
Celtic at the end of 1970. However,
although he was seen as an icon and a perfect influence on the
game, Moore was not without his faults or controversies. On January
7, 1971, he and three West Ham team-mates -
Jimmy Greaves,
Brian
Dear and
Clyde Best - were all fined
by West Ham manager Greenwood after going out drinking in a
nightclub until the early hours of the morning prior to an FA Cup
third round tie against
Blackpool.
The
nightclub in Blackpool was owned by
Moore's friend,
boxer Brian London. West Ham lost the tie 4-0. They
were all fined a whole week's wages. Blackpool were the bottom of
Division one at the time, and were
relegated at the end of the season. Ironically, Moore was featured
on TV as the subject on
This is your
life the night before. It was not uncommon for Moore to enjoy a
night on the town, but he was often seen in the gym or on the pitch
at West Ham on a Sunday morning - usually the players' day off -
working off the
alcohol he had consumed the
night before.
Moore surpassed West Ham's appearances record in 1973 when he
played for the club for the 509th time.
Three days earlier,
on Valentine's Day 1973, he won his
100th cap for England in a comprehensive 5-0 win over Scotland at Hampden Park
. By this stage, only Peters and
Alan Ball from the 1966 squad were
also still involved with the England team - the rest had either
retired or dropped by Ramsey, even though a handful of them were
younger than Moore.
Later the
same year, Moore was exposed defensively by Poland in a qualifier for the
1974 World Cup in Chorzów
, deflecting a free kick past Peter Shilton to put the home side ahead, and
then losing possession to Wlodzimierz Lubanski, who scored the
second. His form had dipped enough for Ramsey to choose not
to select him for the return game at Wembley, which England had to
win to qualify. Any other result would send Poland through. Moore
is understood to have asked Ramsey if this meant he was no longer
required, to which Ramsey replied:
"Of course not. I
need you as my captain at the World Cup next year." It never
happened, as England could only draw 1-1. It signalled the end of
Ramsey's reign - he was sacked six months later - and Moore later
told how he sat alongside Ramsey on the bench and kept urging him
to make a substitution, only for Ramsey to freeze suddenly when it
came to decision-making. When
Kevin
Hector finally did come on for
Martin
Chivers after 85 minutes Moore could be seen on TV yanking down
Hector's tracksuit bottoms while Ramsey sat immobile. Moore, later,
said to
David Miller "you could
feel the minutes escaping. I said to Alf we need someone
to go through the middle. He just nodded. We couldn't get Kevin out
there quick enough. We almost threw him onto the pitch."
Moore won his 108th and final cap in the next game, a 1-0 friendly
defeat to
Italy on
November 14, 1973. He became England's most capped player, beating
Bobby Charlton's record by two appearances, and equalled
Billy Wright's record of 90
appearances as captain.
Peter Shilton
and
David Beckham have since overtaken
the caps record, but the joint captaincy record remains.
After West Ham and England
Moore played his last game for West Ham in an FA Cup tie against
Hereford United in January
1974. He was injured in the match. On March 14 the same year, he
was allowed to leave West Ham after more than 15 years, taking with
him the club record for appearances (since overtaken by
Billy Bonds) and the most international caps for
an outfield player (since overtaken by David Beckham).
He joined London rivals
Fulham, who were
in the
Second Division,
for £25,000. During Moore's first season there they defeated West
Ham in a League Cup tie and then reached the FA Cup final where, in
a further quirk of fate, they faced West Ham again. This time
Fulham lost the game, 2-0, and Moore had made his final appearance
at Wembley as a professional player.
Moore
played his final professional game in England for Fulham on May 14,
1977 against Blackburn Rovers
. He played for two teams in the
North American Soccer League -
San Antonio Thunder in 1976 (24
games, 1 goal) and
Seattle
Sounders in 1978 (7 games). During 1976, there was also a final
appearance on the international field for Team USA in games against
Italy, Brazil and an England team captained by
Gerry Francis. This was the U.S.A.
Bicentennial Cup Tournament, which capitalized on NASL and more
importantly England and Italy both failing to qualify for the
European
Championships that year. Seattle was the last team for which he
played professional football, although he did play 9 games in 1978
for the Danish semi-professional club
Herning Fremad to promote Danish football's
new transition to professional football.
After football
Moore
retired from playing professionally in 1978, and had a short
relatively unsuccessful spell in football management at Eastern AA in Hong Kong
, Oxford
City
and Southend
United.
He became manager of
Southend United
in 1984. In his first full season, 1984-85, Southend narrowly
avoided having to apply for re-election to the Football League
amidst severe financial difficulties. However, the side was
gradually rebuilt and in the 1985-86 season Southend started well
and were in the promotion race until the new year before eventually
finishing 9th. His successor,
David Webb built upon those
foundations to win promotion the following year.
His life after football was eventful and difficult, with business
deals going wrong and his marriage ending. Many saw Moore's
acceptance of a role as a columnist for the salacious
tabloid newspaper, the
Sunday Sport, as a sign of how low he had
been forced to go.
Moore's supporters said that the Football Association could have
given a role to Moore, as the only Englishman
to captain a FIFA World
Cup winning team. Moore himself kept a dignified
silence.
Moore joined London radio station
Capital
Gold as a football analyst and commentator in 1990. Moore
married 42-year-old Stephanie Parlane-Moore (her real maiden name)
on December 4, 1991. He had a son and a daughter from his first
marriage, to Christina (Tina) Dean. They were married from 1962
until
divorcing in 1986.
Death
Tributes to Bobby Moore outside the
Boleyn Ground on 6 March 1993
West Ham and Wolves players line-up
for a minute's silence for Bobby Moore before their game at the
Boleyn Ground on 6 March 1993
In April 1991, Moore underwent an emergency operation for suspected
colon cancer, though at the time
it was just reported that he had undergone an "emergency stomach
operation".
On February 14, 1993, he publicly announced he was suffering from
bowel cancer. Three days later, he
commentated on an England match against
San Marino at Wembley,
alongside his friend
Jonathan
Pearce. That was to be his final public appearance; seven days
later on 24 February, at 6.36am, he died at the age of 51.
Bobby
Moore's funeral was held on March 2, 1993 at Putney Vale
Crematorium
. The first West Ham home game after his
death was on 6 March, 1993, against
Wolverhampton Wanderers. The
Boleyn Ground was awash with floral tributes, scarfs and other
football memorabilia from both West Ham fans and those of other
clubs. Fellow 1966
World Cup winners,
Geoff Hurst and
Martin Peters placed a floral replica of a
West Ham shirt, showing Moore's number, '6', on the back, on the
centre spot before the game. West Ham 'rested' the number six shirt
with the regular number six,
Ian
Bishop, wearing number twelve. The game was won by West Ham 3-1
with goals by
Steve Bull for Wolves and
Trevor Morley,
Julian Dicks and
Matty
Holmes for West Ham.
On June
28, 1993 his memorial service was held in Westminster
Abbey
, attended by all the other members of the 1966
World Cup Team. He was only the second sportsman to be so
honoured, the first being the West Indian cricketer Sir
Frank Worrell.
Legacy
The charity
Cancer Research
UK(CRUK) set up the
Bobby Moore Fund to raise money
for
bowel cancer research in his
memory: the
Run for Moore races raise
funds for this.The funds were spent on high-quality bowel cancer
research to be carried out by leading scientists across the UK. The
money raised funded 17 Bobby Moore Research Fellowships, a new
bowel cancer laboratory at St Mark's Hospital in London
(subsequently closed by CRUK on 1 October 2006) and 3 additional
research projects .
In 1996,
comedians Frank Skinner and
David Baddiel used the line,
"But I still
see that tackle by Moore" in the
lyrics
to their song
Three Lions, which the England team's
official song at the
1996 European
Championships, which was adopted by fans rather than the
tournament's official song
We're In This Together by
Simply Red. It referred to the famous incident with
Jairzinho in 1970, and was re-created by Baddiel,
Skinner and England
left
back Stuart Pearce for the video.
It was written in the context of a list of great England moments of
the past as proof that England could win a tournament again.
Moore was made an Inaugural Inductee of the
English Football Hall of Fame
in 2002 in recognition of his impact on the English game as
player.
The stand
replacing the south bank at West Ham's ground, the Boleyn Ground in Upton
Park
, was named the Bobby Moore Stand shortly after
Moore's death. There is also a statue close to the ground
based on a famous photograph taken at Wembley after the World Cup
celebrations, with Moore being held aloft, holding the trophy, by
club team-mates and final goalscorers Hurst and Peters, along with
Everton and England left back
Ray Wilson.
In November 2003, to celebrate
UEFA's Jubilee,
he was selected as the
Golden
Player of England by the
The Football Association as their
most outstanding player of the past 50 years.
A bronze
statue of Bobby Moore was erected outside the main entrance at the
new Wembley
Stadium
in May 2007, to pay tribute to his effect on the
game.
In August 2008
West Ham United
officially retired the number 6 shirt as a mark of respect 15 years
after his death.
In September 2008, members of two West Ham United online forums
(
WHO and KUMB) pulled together
to urge the club to sponsor The Bobby Moore Fund on their shirts.
The request was made following the collapse of West Ham United's
main shirt sponsor, XL, the UK's third largest holiday company.
Although the club gained a new main sponsor in the form of
SBOBET, the youth teams and children's replica kit
feature the logo of the Booby Moore Fund.
Quotations
- "My captain, my leader, my right-hand man. 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." Alf Ramsey*
- "He was my friend as well as the greatest defender I ever
played against. The world has lost one of its greatest football
players and an honourable gentleman." Pelé
- "Bobby Moore was a real gentleman and a true friend." Franz Beckenbauer
- "Bobby Moore was the best defender in the history of the game"
Franz Beckenbauer
- "There should be a law against him. He knows what's happening
20 minutes before everyone else." Jock
Stein
- "Ask me to talk about Bobby Moore the footballer and I will
talk for days. Ask me about the man and I will dry up in a minute."
Ron Greenwood (from Jeff Powell quoted in When Saturday Comes issue 260, October
2008)
Statistics
Honours
In Film
He appeared in the 1981 film
Escape to Victoryas Terry
Brady.
References
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