Energy Company Npower has ran a poll to see which sporting personality people would like to see on a British banknote. I am most pleased to see that the winner with over a quarter of the vote was Bobby Moore . Steve Redgrave, the first Briton to win gold medals at five consecutive Olympic games (a feat bettered only by Hungarian fencer Aldar Gerevich who won six consecutive gold medals between 1932 and 1960), cricketer Ian Botham came third.
As a West Ham supporter I will admit that I am a little biased in this matter. Bobby Moore was captain of England’s victorious World Cup side in 1966 - (he was of one of three West Ham players in the team – when will we ever see three West Ham players turning out for England again?). He had a distinguished career winning 108 England caps, an FA Cup winners medal with West Ham in 1964, the European Cup Winners Cup the following year and an FA cup runners up medal in with Fulham (against the Hammers ) in 1975.
Perhaps his crowning glory was his appearance in John Huston’s cinematic masterpiece Escape to Victory - a tale of POWs who triumphed over the Third Reich on the football field. That Bobby failed to get an Oscar nomination for his bravura performance is perhaps the greatest scandal in the Academy’s history . He remains the only person to out-act noted thespian Sylvester Stallone in a screen performance.
On a more serious note, Bobby Moore died of cancer in 1993. He is commemorated by two statues (one outside Wembley stadium and another outside West Ham’s Boleyn Ground which shows him held aloft by Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters and Ray Wilson). A stand at the Boleyn Ground is also named after him.
2 comments:
Very moving tribute.
Thanks but I was perhaps less than serious on the subject of Escape to Victory!
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