In 1982, England’s World Cup winning team of 16 years earlier, staged a charity golf match near Leicester. I was one of the lucky ones from Her Majesty’s Press to attend this event, working at the time at the Grantham Shopper.
Two faces are missing from the above photo of the lads who lifted the Jules Rimet Trophy, goalkeeper Gord Banks who I believe was under surgery at the time and Jackie Charlton who had a ‘prior engagement’.
But at least three of squad had a linbk to my home town.
Fullback Ray Wilson (Back 5) was in the mOldham team which beat Grantham 4-0 in 1967’s FA Cupo 2nd round.
Jack Charlton (not pictured) who managed the Middlebrough team (which included Graeme Souness) that beat Grantham 2-0 at nLondon Road in 1974, The match, the 3rd Round of the FA Cup attracted a record gate of 6,573.
And also there but missing from the picture, on the grounds of not playing in the final, depite playing all previous rounds, was the legendary Jimmy Greaves.
We had a long chat about his visit to Grantham with Hillingdon Borough in the Southern League days, when he scored all four in the 4-1 win at London Road. After the match, in the dressing room, he took the tapes from his shinpads, sticking four in one pane of the window and one in the other.
He was chuffed when I told him they were still there as no one would take them down as it was Greavie’s momento.
As far as I know they were still there when the 200-year-old dressing rooms were demolished to make way for Safeway Supermarket.
Just to complete the name-dropping, comedian Les Dawson was at the event as was equestrian and professional Yorkshireman Harvey Smith.
What a day!
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