Tina Moore - Bobby Moore - By the Person Who Knew Him Best

HarperSport an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London, SE1 9GF

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First published in Great Britain by HarperSport 2006

© Tina Moore 2006

The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN:9780007378661

Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2013 ISBN: 9780007378661

Version: 2016-12-15

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Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Foreword

1. Hero

2. Wilde Women

3. When Bobby Met Tina

4. And Big Mal Came Too

5. A Light Grey

6. Happy Days

7. Green Fire, White Lace

8. Naughty Boy

9. A Long Way From Christchurch Road

10. A Touch of Brian

11. Calling Time

12. Extra Time

13. The Job That Never Was

14. Lost in Translation

15. Who Was That Woman?

16. Not-So-Sweet Carolina

17. Brief Encounter

18. Poppy Days

19. Is That Bobby Moore?

20. Absent Fathers

21. The Magnolia Tree

Afterword

Index

About the Author

Acknowledgements

About the Publishers

In the words of his adoring West Ham fans, Bobby Moore was a ‘top geezer’.

The fact that he left us at fifty-one years of age is downright unfair. His memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey - how fitting for the best England captain we have ever had and for us all to say goodbye to our national hero. It was a wonderful service. Franz Beckenbauer read a lesson and then it was my turn. I have never been so nervous in my life. I opened up with, ‘I usually say it’s nice to be here, but on this particular day it certainly isn’t.’

What I thought happened was that God had arranged a football match in heaven and had said to St Peter, ‘Get me the best captain.’ That, without doubt, was Bobby Moore.

He was a total gentleman and a very fair man, both on and off the pitch. He was a terrific companion who could have won the World Lager Drinking Championship three years running. He was totally let down by those small, envious men who controlled football on a national basis in those days. He was never once offered a job, a position as a football ambassador or just representing the England team. It was, and still is, a bloody disgrace. He deserved so much more from life. What a great Minister of Sport he would have made.

I once asked Pele about him. He said that Bobby wasn’t a friend, he was a brother. After all these years I still can’t believe that he’s gone and the phone is not going to ring and that voice at the other end will say, ‘Hello, Jimbo, all well?’ His sense of humour and his companionship and him just being Bobby Moore - oh, I do miss him.

Here’s my Bobby now. Head up, sunlight on blond curls. He’s been out there for nearly two hours but he looks so elegant and calm he might just have stepped onto the pitch.

He’s chesting the ball down. A short pass to Bailie, who passes it back, socks down around his ankles. Bobby looks up. Where to now?

I can feel Judith Hurst’s fingers tighten on my arm. Out of the corner of my eye I catch sight of Geoff, exhausted but still instinctively heading for the German goal.

Oh Bobby, don’t risk it. Big Jack Charlton’s screaming at you. No one can hear what he’s saying, all we can see is his Adam’s apple wobbling, but it’s what we’re all thinking. We’re 3-2 up! We’re in the final minute! Kick the % *#$ thing into the stands!

Judith and I are clinging to each other, the way we’ve done for most of the game. Every conceivable emotion has been wrung out of us - pride, rapture, excitement, despair, euphoria, disbelief, hope, agony, exhilaration. We clenched our fists in anticipation when Martin Peters scored with twelve minutes to go. We plunged our heads in our hands when the Germans equalized with just moments of normal time remaining.

We watched the shot from Geoff bounce in off the crossbar in extra time. Or did it hit the underside and bounce out again? Wasn’t it a goal after all? Judith was shouting, ‘It’s in, it’s in!’ and I was backing her up with, ‘Oh yes, it’s in!’ The German supporters behind us were shouting back, ‘No it isn’t!’ We must have sounded like the audience at a panto. But it was all right. Goal given. 3-2.

The World Cup is nearly ours.

Now the German supporters have fallen silent. A few seconds of tension seem like an eternity. Bobby finds Geoff, running way upfield, with the perfect ball. People start running onto the pitch. In living rooms all over the land Kenneth Wolstenholme is telling the nation, ‘They think it’s all over . . .’

Geoff’s puffing out his cheeks, the way he always does when he shoots. The ball lands in the net. And to continue with those words of Kenneth Wolstenholme, which I think everyone in England must know by heart,’. . . It is now.’

There’s too much noise to hear the final whistle, but around me is an explosion of delirious joy. I just sit in silence for a few seconds. I’m drained, physically and emotionally. The roller coaster of the last eighteen months that Bobby and I have lived through, the public adulation and success, the private terror and uncertainty, have suddenly got to me. I can’t take this in.

I don’t stay still for long, though. Judith and I are out of our seats, hugging each other. I think of Doss, Bobby’s mother, who’s spent every game of the tournament pottering around the garden because she can’t bear the suspense of watching Bobby. Now she’ll be so proud and overjoyed.

Bobby climbs the steps. He glances at the Queen’s lilywhite gloves and carefully wipes his sweaty, muddy palms on his shorts then dries them on the velvet balustrade before receiving the trophy. I can’t help smiling. It’s such an elaborately thoughtful gesture, so typical of Bobby. Mr Perfect.

And when he holds up the cup, I cry. Not out of happiness because England have won but because of what he’s been through to be standing here today with the Jules Rimet Trophy in his hands. Watching him being carried round on his team-mates’ shoulders, I just think how magnificent he is. Here’s someone who, only a year and a half before, unknown to all but half a dozen people, has undergone a terrible ordeal with cancer and overcome it. Now he’s every schoolboy’s hero, holding up the World Cup. To me, that’s the real magic of the day. What a man.