Jimmy Greaves, one of the highest goalscorer in English football, has died. He was 81 years old.
Tottenham Hotspur, where he played for nine years, announced his death on Sunday but did not say where he died or the cause.
In 2012, Greaves suffered a minor stroke. His family thought he had made a full recovery, but in 2015 he suffered a more severe stroke.
As an all-around striker with both his feet as well as his head, Greaves scored 44 goals in just 57 appearances for England.
But even though he was the first player to lead the scoring in England’s top league for three straight seasons, he is best known for one game he missed: the World Cup final.
Greaves was England’s star striker going into the 1966 tournament on home soil. But he was injured in the first round match against France and handed his place in the lineup to Geoff Hurst.
Hurst scored the lone goal in England’s quarterfinal win over Argentina and retained his place in the team at the expense of Greaves. Hearst earned lasting fame by scoring the first hat-trick in a World Cup final; Greaves famously sat on the bench as England celebrated their 4-2 victory over West Germany on the final whistle.
Substitutions were not allowed at that time and squad members did not receive medals, as in the 1974 World Cup. A campaign of fans awarded medals to Greaves and 10 other members of the squad, known as the “Forgotten”. Hero,” in 2009. Greaves sold his 18-carat medal at auction in 2014 for £44,000 (about $60,000).
“It was devastating to me that I didn’t play in the final,” Greaves said in 2009. “I always believed we would win the World Cup and be a part of it, but I wasn’t.”
James Peter Greaves was born on 20 February 1940 in East London. He started playing for Chelsea at the age of 17.
At 20 years and 290 days, he became the youngest player in English football to score 100 league goals. He set a club record 41 times in the 1960–61 season to secure a lucrative move to AC Milan.
He scored nine goals in 12 games with Milan, but did not settle in Italy, instead ending his brief stay with Tottenham to return to London, where he would spend the next nine years and scored 266 goals in 380 games, a Club record.
Tottenham’s manager, Bill Nicholson, paid £99,999 for Greaves – to relieve him of the pressure, he said, being England’s first 100,000-pounder.
The move clearly worked: Greaves scored a hat-trick in his opening match, a 5–2 win over Blackpool, and helped Tottenham retain the Football Association Cup.
In 1963, he scored twice in a 5–1 win over Atlético Madrid in the European Cup Winners’ Cup, a victory that made Tottenham the first British side to win a European trophy. He was the first division’s leading scorer – a feat he repeated in 1964, 1965 and 1969.
Greaves switched to West Ham in 1970, being traded for his former England teammate Martin Peters. He retired at the end of the season with a total of 357 goals in 516 league matches.
He made a brief return to non-league club Barnet in 1978, but soon left again and went into television. He was the presenter of the long-running Saturday show “Saint and Greavesie” in Britain with former Liverpool player Ian St. John.
Information on survivors was not immediately available.