Remembering Bobby Moore's golden smile and roguish charm on anniversary of death
Bobby Moore's last appearance at Wembley was in the radio commentary box as England hit San Marino for six.
It was the night when the fans turned on John Barnes and manager Graham Taylor made a stand against unacceptable racist abuse by reprimanding one patron sat near the dugout, glowering: “You're talking about another human being, so just watch your language.”
England eventually won 6-0, a flurry of late goals suppressing the air of mutiny despite David Platt's penalty miss denying him the chance to equal Malcolm Macdonald's record of five goals in a single Three Lions international. Moore looked jaundiced and ill as he shuffled down the steps after his final broadcast on the Capital Gold airwaves, but he was still gracious enough to stop and deliver his verdict on an unconvincing rout for an eager hack's vox pop.
“They got the job done in the end,” he said. “You can't complain when you win 6-0” - and with that, England's 1966 World Cup-winning captain disappeared into the night.
A week later, he was gone – dead at 51, taken by the insidious scourge of bowel cancer, and the outpouring of national grief was immense. Apart from being one of sport's greatest 20th-century icons, Moore was a gentleman and the king of good sportsmanship.
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He would never have rolled around feigning injury to get an opponent sent off or kicked lumps out of a lively striker to confect a 'hard' image. Bobby Moore was my first sporting hero – and it's hard to believe it's 30 years ago on Friday that he moved to the celestial hall of fame.
Harry Redknapp, who was Moore's team-mate at West Ham for 10 years, struck the perfect tone. "When you walk down Wembley Way now, it's right that a statue of Bobby Moore, England's greatest captain, is standing there on guard at the entrance to our national stadium,” he said.
Bobby Moore was a true gentleman with a golden smile (Rolls Press/Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images)“Only Bobby would have remembered to wipe his hands on the tablecloth in the Royal Box before shaking hands with the Queen when he collected the World Cup.”
Behind the dapper magnetism and golden smile, there was also a streetwise, almost roguish charm about Moore, not least in his energy conservation. He always preferred the ball at his feet to the drudgery of long-distance fitness drills, and Redknapp recalled one glorious pre-season ruse.
“We used to do these five-mile runs starting in Epping Forest which made your calf muscles ache like balls of cement,” he laughed. “But Bobby and Brian Dear would hitch a lift on the back of a milk float and pass us with one of them wearing the milkman's cap shouting, 'Keep up at the back, chop-chop!'
“It was like that episode of the Likely Lads where the two geezers have a bike race and overtake each other when they are both cheating by having a ride on the back of a van. Bobby and Brian would hop off about 400 yards from the finish, wait for us to come puffing and panting down the road, rejoin the main group and make sure they finished about 10th or 12th in the pack.
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Bobby Moore's statue stands guard outside Wembley Stadium (Julian Finney - The FA/The FA via Getty Images)“If they had come home in the top three, (manager) Ron Greenwood would have rumbled them because he knew Bobby didn't like the long runs. But what a character. I've never heard anyone have a bad word for him – even people like Norman Hunter, who probably missed out on another 30 England caps because Bobby was so good and kept him out of the side, loved him.
“He never kicked anyone, never slagged anyone off, he just played the game as a great sportsman and he was simply a class act. During the off-season, every Sunday morning some of the lads would gather over the back of the golf course in Chigwell and have a game of 12 or 14-a-side. That's the England captain, putting down jumpers or coats as goalposts for a kickabout in the park."
Moore had such an aura about him that even the great Hammers warrior Billy Bonds was in awe of his captain when he first joined the club from Charlton in 1967 - almost scared to talk to the legend who had lifted the Jules Rimet Trophy 10 months earlier. When sporting greats pass on these days, colourful memorials of flowers, scarves, shirts and flags are a rite of passage, but when Moore died in 1993, the tributes outside Upton Park were arguably the first on such an expansive scale.
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Jonathan Pearce, his radio sidekick on Capital Gold and now a BBC Match of the Day commentator, recalled how he found out the great man was gone – and how far his legend spread worldwide. “I had flown out to Goa on holiday with my wife a few days after that England-San Marino game, and when we checked into our hotel there was an urgent message to call home,” said Pearce.
Bobby Moore made 647 appearances for West Ham (Rolls Press/Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images)“I had an inkling of what was coming next, but I had to go to the post office in the nearest village to make the call because there were no international phone lines at the hotel. On the way to this post office, I must have said something to the taxi driver that I was worried it was bad news about Bobby Moore.
“I got through to London on a crackling line and found out Bobby had passed away that morning, and when I turned round, with a tear in my eye, if there were 503 people who lived in the village, 500 of them must have been gathered in the doorway, waiting for news of him.
“Everyone on the planet knew who Bobby Moore was. He was such a humble, generous man who spoke to princes and paupers the same way. He could have dined out at the Savoy every night, but I remember sitting on concrete bollards outside Roker Park having a bag of chips with him, no airs and graces.
“At the 1990 World Cup, he was in floods of tears when we went out on penalties in the semi-finals because he wanted another England captain to have the honour of lifting the trophy. And 30 years after he left us, we are still waiting.”
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