Ahh, Bobby Moore. You hear about the legend, you see the grainy pictures.
You grow up playing ‘World Cup’ on your front lawn, round the corner at your pal’s house; on the concrete school playground when you’ve not got the dosh for a football, a tennis ball has to do, and the goals are the poles which hold up the bike shed [No kissing or smoking behind at this age]. When you score you shout ‘PELÉEEEEEEEEEEE!’ in a style you didn’t know was David Coleman and which would give you even greater pleasure when mocked and mimicked on Spitting Image in years to come.
Pelé. Nowadays the angst over that name is: ‘Could he, possibly, have been as good as Messi?’ Then it was: ‘How can I save enough pocket money to get to Santos [later New York] to meet the Black Pearl and show him some tennis ball skills? Put him in his place.’
Growing up in Scotland in the 1960s and 70s, there was only one team – England. As far as the TV execs were concerned at least. If I saw those Bobby Moore tackles on Pelé, Jair and Tostão once I saw them a thousand times. And, aw, cute, they hug at the end. 1970. Them were’t days.
Except what was special about 1970 for me was the Scottish Cup final. Martin Buchan, the youngest-ever Scottish Cup-winning captain, King Joey, Bumper Graham, Cup-Tie MacKay.
European Cup finalists Celtic well and truly beaten.
And then along came Willie Miller. Twice the tackler, more ferocious, better reader of the game, better captain. Bobby Moore? Bobby who?
So, for an Aberdeen-supporting, Willie Miller-reverential git like me, the Bobby Moore fund’s ‘Football Shirt Friday’ is the greatest thing old ‘Mooro’ has ever done. Not 1970, especially not 1966. Mighty footballer that he was, his name lives on in more than one way.
Support the cause – help his name tackle Bowel Cancer. Wear your jersey on Football Shirt Friday and give £2, or what you can, to the Bobby Moore Fund.
But Willie Miller? Greatest defender Britain ever produced. Official.