GREAVSIE WAS A SPURS' SAINT

This weekend sees the 75^th birthday of a Spurs' legend, Jimmy Greaves. We are hoping that the club will show their appreciation of his contribution to success at White Hart Lane. A round of applause maybe, surely not enough?

Born on 20^th February 1940, he is the fourth highest international scorer and he scored on all his first class debuts at his major clubs and for England.

He was at Chelsea as a youth in 1955, signing forms in 1957 as part of Drake's Ducklings (Ted Drake was the manager, trying to match Busby's Babes). Greaves scored 132 goals in 169 appearances at Chelsea. He had an unhappy spell at AC Milan, one of the first foreign transfers, scoring 9 in 14 starts, but he wanted to get back to Engalnd, so Spurs paid £99,999 in 1961 when the manager, Bill Nicholson, did not want to make him the first £100,000 footballer.

By 1970, when there was a restructuring at White Hart Lane, he had played 381 games scoring 268 goals. He then went to West Ham, with Bobby Moore the club's senior player, in exchange for Martin Peters, who was at the top of his game, after his World Cup successes. Greaves played 57 times for the Hammers, scoring 44.

His total career stats are played 602 with 422 goals.

After “retiring” Greaves played briefly at Brentwood Town, Chelmsford City, Barnet and Woodford Town. He scored more hat tricks for his country than anyone else, but sadly was injured in the qualifying games for the World Cup in 1966, so he was replaced by Geoff Hurst, who, of course, scored his own three-up at Wembley.

Towards the end of his time at West Ham, he went away to play a cup game at Blackpool and having been told by the locals that the game would be postponed due to frost, he went out with other members from the team and drank 12 lagers! Only getting into bed during the early hours, the following morning he was quick to find that the game was going ahead and the Hammers were hammered 4-0! By this time Greaves was attracted to alcoholism and his career went down hill quickly, leading to minor stroke in 2012.
He became a pundit on the Saint (Ian St John) and Greavsie Show between 1985-92, he formed a successful business with a friend and made a fortune and finally, he drove a Ford Escort rally car in the London to Mexico Rally, with a co-driver, arriving in Mexcio in time for the 1970 World Cup, coming 6^th out of 96 rallyers.

Have a look at his website! Happy Birthday Jim.

www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C1PRFB_enGB612GB612&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=jimmy%20greaves