In recognition of a pre-eminent contribution in any field of activity

 

After such a tough year it was reassuringly comforting to wake up on January 1st to the sanctuary, safety and tradition of the New Year’s Honours.

In 1297 King Edward I was almost overthrown by his rebellious subjects, and was compelled to reaffirm the Magna Carta, which recognised the rights of nobility. Sir replaced ‘sire’ as the correct way to address the 6000 knights who made up the lowest level of nobility; men whose support he desperately needed to fight a war in France and to help suppress the Scottish rebel, William Wallace.

Most of the other honours featured in the ‘list’ were founded in 1917 to recognise people who had contributed to the war effort, but did not qualify for bravery awards. They of course include, in order of seniority, the CBE, OBE and MBE.

And in the United Kingdom the Honours System designed by Edward I, and refined in 1917, is a wonderfully apposite way of recognising a pre-eminent contribution in any field of activity, defined by achievement which is both inspirational and significant.

Pele, Charlton, Moore, Charles, Yashin, Eusebio, Cruyff, Best, Messi, Maradona……all genuinely great players. And I’m pretty confident that anyone who, like me, has watched soccer over the last sixty years would include them all in the list of the 'Top 20' greatest players of all time.

As I enter my 62^nd year of watching Aldershot it’s hard to believe that I’m married to someone who has never been to a football match. Someone whose only soccer anecdote is based on the Allied Forces drawing 4v4 with Germany in about 1943, just before the D-Day Landings. Images in her mind framed by the many famous players and coloured so vividly by Pele’s spectacular equaliser…..and with the added value of a rare Bobby Moore goal.

And as she frequently tells me, ‘Sylvester Stallone was a ‘legend’ in goal for the Allies and Osvaldo Ardiles so ‘cheeky’ in midfield.’

Bobby Moore staged his farewell performance in London on May 7th 1977, 11 years after lifting the World Cup.

And as if to record his famous No. 6 for posterity, Fulham scored precisely that number of goals against Leyton Orient, conceding only one in reply. Then with a turn and a wave to acknowledge his standing ovation, he was down the tunnel and into the bar above The Cottage.

That was his 999th game in senior football and with such an ordered mind Bobby could never have rested easily had he left it there. So, to round it up to 1000, Robert Frederick Chelsea Moore played at Blackburn the following Saturday in Fulham’s last match of the season.

And as the curtain came down for the final time on a glittering career Bobby waited for the overtures that would surely follow.

Many months elapsed without the slightest hint of a realistic offer of employment……then along came John Huston and the opportunity to ‘play’ alongside Michael Caine in ‘Escape to Victory’.

The movie, shot on location in Hungary, is simply an implausible film about a bunch of World War II prisoners using a football match against their German captors as cover for a break to freedom. Although most importantly, I guess, it did give Michael Caine the opportunity to tell Moore, ‘hit it long son, hit it bleeding long’.

So why did this film create such a lasting impression on my wife, giving her such a surreal football anecdote?

Find the answer to that question and you will be part way to solving my own obsession with the Shots - a feeling so piquant that it continues to deliver my car to ‘anywhere’ on a freezing cold Tuesday night in January to watch the Shots.

The events of July 30th 1966 broke through all barriers to class and culture.

England awoke that day to the sight of Union Flags fluttering from every window. The pavements full of people hurrying about their business in advance of the afternoon kick-off. And as we all huddled around a flickering TV screen the country was united by the same apprehension. The memory of those intense stomach cramps still painful today, 55 years later. And then, with the curtains drawn tight in every household across the land, to keep the brilliant sunshine at bay, the game to beat all games commenced……

But by tea-time Bobby Moore was climbing the Wembley steps to receive England’s golden prize – the Jules Rimet Trophy. And what was Bobby worried about? His hands were dirty.

''It had been a wet afternoon and when I got about two yards from the Queen, I saw her lilywhite gloves. I thought: My God, my hands are filthy. All the front of the Royal Box was decked out in velvet and there am I more worried about scraping the mud off my hands on the velvet than getting hold of the World Cup'' – Bobby Moore (The Life and Times of a Sporting Hero).

If you ask my wife today, to name the ’66 World Cup Winners, and this despite not having seen the final, she will get them all, with the exception of the quietly competent George Cohen, the world class Ray Wilson and the hard working Roger Hunt, a player who did so much to symbolise the brutalist architecture of the 60’s.

Bobby Moore, who so sadly died in February 1993, was awarded the OBE in recognition of lifting the World Cup in 1966.

 

Emma Carol Hayes, who has certainly performed well as manager of Chelsea FC Women, was awarded the OBE in 2022, for her services to association football. Had it not been for Barcelona beating the Blues in the Champions League Final, Emma might have been made a Dame....

No doubt Greavsie would have turned to Ian St John and commented, 'football, it's a funny old game'.