the times | Saturday December 18 2021 1GS 11
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER MARC ASPLAND; ROLLS PRESS/POPPERFOTO/GETTY
IMAGES“Bobby Moore was the best player
I played with. I saw him progress
through the ranks, worked with him,
trained with him, lived with him. He
was almost like a senior player to me,
yet he was only eight months older.
“He wasn’t a world-class player
when he joined the club but he had a
couple of qualities which were the
hallmark, the cornerstone of his
career: one, he was able to read the
game like no other; second, he was
very composed.
“Look at the composure he showed
in the final [for the fourth goal]. Big
Jack’s going bananas, telling him, ‘Get
the ball out of the bloody ground.’And
Bobby, calm as you like, knocks a
ten-yard pass defensively, which is
criminal in the last moments of a
game, to Roger Hunt.
“Roger knocked it back to Mooro.
Mooro is still only about two yards
from our goalline, Jack’s going
bananas! [Moore] picks me out, this
wonderful ball for me.” Hurst ran on,
and Wolstenholme’s poetry flowed.
“Bobby trained very hard,” Hurst
says. “When he came back a little
heavier pre-season, he used to wear a
plastic bin liner, cutting holes in the
arms, to lose weight running round
Epping Forest.
“Bobby never put his shorts on until
just before he went out on the pitch.
Bobby would pick his shorts off the
peg, put them on, go out and look
immaculate. When we were playing
Manchester City, and had a drink
[with their players] afterwards, Mike
Summerbee said, ‘Mooro’s the only
player I knows that irons his money!’
“Bobby was calm and a great leader,
England’s best ever. We haven’t had
anybody quite that class as a leader
and captain since.”
Like too many of the ’66 legends,
Moore was not looked after by
football. “At that time, totally different
to today’s multimillionaire footballers,
the clubs had the power, the
associations had the power,” Hurst
says. “It was not uncommon for
players to be treated poorly.
“There were big stars, but once they
finished their careers they sometimes
found it very hard to get back in the
club, as a guest, which again is
unthinkable now. But that kind of
attitude was not unusual.”
Was there a jealousy among some
of the blazers at the FA of thepopularity of Moore, Hurst and
co? “Possibly. In Germany
you’ll find a lot of senior players
held in higher esteem and go
into fairly big positions. That
didn’t happen here.”
His mind returns to his
fallen team-mates. Hurst gave
the eulogy at Banks’s funeral
in 2019. “I was very close to
him,” he says. “The best
goalkeeper I’ve seen. He was
panther-like, coming out to
collect the ball at people’s feet.
“And a joker! We were
playing an England game
somewhere abroad. It was the
medieval days, where we
didn’t dine in a separate room
in a fancy hotel, we had to go
through a restaurant to a
back room. There was a
pianist playing very loudly
and as we filed past, Banksy
said, ‘Do you take requests?’
And the pianist said, ‘Yes, what would
you like?’ Banksy said, ‘Can you play
‘Far Away’?”
“The stupid little things you
remember. Gordon was a smashing
lad, and again sadly missed.”
And what of the great Bobby
Charlton? “He was the giant in that
era,” Hurst says. “If you played abroad
people couldn’t speak English, but
the only two words they knew were
Bobby Charlton. His record as a
goalscorer from the middle of the
park is just a joke, isn’t it? One
hundred and six games, 49 goals.
OK, Wayne Rooney’s beaten that [as
England men’s all-time top scorer],
but it’s phenomenal.
“And in the final, Alf said to Bobby,
‘The most dangerous player is Franz
Beckenbauer,’ and the Germans said
vice versa. So two of the greatest
players virtually marked each other
out [of the game].
“The great thing about Bobby is
that his goalscoring record was
unbelievable [but] he accepted he had
to mark somebody in the final. Not
once did he show any disappointment
about having to do that. Bobby was a
great competitor, a gigantic name, but
no ego at all. It’s a bit like the current
[England] team — no egos.”
He admires Gareth Southgate and
this England generation. “I was a bit
annoyed with Southgate, though,
because I went to a function and I
was sitting at a table next to his, he’d
seen me, and then he did a Q&A and
was asked the best player in the [1966]
World Cup final. He said, ‘Bobby
Moore.’ I was totally annoyed!
“I am joking, of course. He did pick
the right player. Gareth has been
unbelievably impressive. This is the
best bunch of young players we’ve
had. The team spirit is so good. The
thing that stands out is when they
score a goal the subs are jumping off
the bench on to the pitch.
“That’s really significant to me,
because in years gone by there were
stories about subs sulking. It’s not that
long ago where some players felt the
Champions League was bigger than
the national team. There was a
certain amount of disillusionment
with the crowd at Wembley a few
years ago. Since Gareth has taken
over there’s been a huge leap forward.
“And they got to the final of the
Euros [in the summer]. What they
achieved was fantastic, against a very
good Italian side. And they got to the
semi-finals [at the 2018 World Cup].
Look at what happened before that.
In Brazil [in 2014] after two group
games they were out.”
Euro 2016, meanwhile, ended in
humiliation against Iceland. “After the
game, my wife said, ‘I’ve never heard
you shout and swear so much looking
at the game on TV.’ ” England will
always matter to Geoff Hurst.
6 Eighty at Eighty: An A-Z of Masters
from Ali to Zola by Sir Geoff Hurst
with Norman Giller (Pitch Publishing).My 15 minutes
of fame has
lasted 55 years
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AdhModern captains
must shoulder a
growing burden
Given how jinxed Arsenal have been
with captains and the furore caused
by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
being stripped of the role, it is easy to
forget that wearing the armband at a
Premier League club has become a
serious undertaking, requiring much
more than calling heads or tails and
kissing the badge at the final whistle.
The Premier League and the
England team have travelled in
opposite directions when it comes
to the status of the team captain.
England were once synonymous with
their captain. It is impossible to dwell
on the achievements of 1966 and not
view the World Cup triumph through
the prism of Bobby Moore’s
personality, dignity and commitment.
The West Ham United defender bore
the weight of national expectation
and maintained player morale.
Gareth Southgate, however, does
not want one single individual to have
to carry the burden and has created a
leadership group to spread the load.
Harry Kane was appointed captain
because his place was not in doubt
and because he relished the position,
but big decisions and the team’s moral
compass are set collectively.
Club captains have been peripheral
figures by comparison, but the role
has become more pivotal, a process
abetted by social media and then
accelerated by the pandemic.
If there is an apology for a poor
performance to be made then the
captain is expected to post, politely,
about just how contrite he and the
team are. Other players can be funny,
irreverent, overly dutiful to their boot
sponsor, but the captain needs to be
able to adopt a serious tone, inform
fans about club visits to hospitals,
spout words that mirror the manager.
Maurizio Sarri was perplexed by
how often he was asked who he
would appoint captain when he
succeeded Antonio Conte at Chelsea
in 2018, and said it was not of much
importance. That it took the Italian
four months to confirm that Gary
Cahill had the job was perhaps
evidence that Sarri really did
not care one way or another.
Generally, though, managers do
give the captaincy deeper thought
and those who paid most
attention were rewarded by
how their leaders responded
to Covid-19.
In a flash, the duties of the
captain became extremely
grave. They were expected to
listen to the briefings given by
Jonathan Van-Tam, the
government’s deputy chief
medical officer, on the
question of whether it was
safe for football matches to
take place. This was anunprecedented level of liability. Men
who had been good at shouting
instructions at set pieces and leading
the clapping of away fans were now
expected to understand complex
scientific and moral questions and
explain them to their team-mates.
On the eve of the return of football
I interviewed Luka Milivojevic, the
Crystal Palace captain, who was open
about the pressure he felt to convey
accurately the plethora of information.
Many players have been reluctant to
be vaccinated and this too puts the
captain in a tricky position, for he has
to respect his colleagues while setting
an example to the public.
Ben Mee, the Burnley captain, was
double vaccinated before most players
because his daughter was premature,
and therefore vulnerable. Mee
encouraged his team-mates to follow
suit, but also remained respectful of
those who were wary. It is one thing
to have a row in the local Starbucks
about conspiracy theories but quite
another if such a discussion will have
an impact on camaraderie at Premier
Leagues clubs, whose performances
are under constant intense scrutiny.
It was clear who the next captain
of Aston Villa should be after Jack
Grealish left for Manchester City in
the summer. Tyrone Mings was
instrumental in the negotiations that
led to players taking a knee in a
stance against racism for the first time
in his team’s game against Sheffield
United in June last year.
Indeed, the response to racism is
another issue that captains have to
consider. If a player wants to leave the
pitch in response to abuse, he will
want his leader’s backing. The referee
uses the captain as the official conduit
and so he needs to be calm, well
briefed and cogent. And what about
the day when a player decides to
confide in his team-mates before
going public that he is gay? How the
club’s captain responds will be critical.
Captains are the face of the game
in a different way to managers, who
are often asked about controversial
matters and frequently criticised for
their responses but are regarded
almost as a separate species. Coaches’
salaries are hardly complained about
because they are usually three games
away from being sacked. Players,
though, are seen as overpaid and
privileged, and in April last year Matt
Hancock, then the health secretary,
said they should take a pay cut to
help the nation during the pandemic.
This could have become divisive,
except that Jordan Henderson, the
Liverpool captain, was
already contacting his
Premier League counterparts
to work out how players
could contribute to an
emergency fund to
support the NHS.
Mikel Arteta, the
Arsenal manager, will
have the stability and
reinvigoration of his
team as his priorities as
he assesses who should
be his next captain, but
he should also bear in
mind that they will
have responsibilities
that stretch far
beyond the Emirates.As Aubameyang row
proves, the role of the
captain has expanded
far beyond the pitch,
writes Alyson Rudd
Aubameyang was stripped
of the Arsenal captaincy