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The Greatest: Jimmy Greaves

worcestersauce

"I'm no optimist I'm just a prisoner of hope
Jan 23, 2006
26,893
45,041
Thanks for that. Really interesting.

So he was paid somewhere between £2000 & £3000 per year (depending on appearances)

Not sure how accurate this site is (http://www.moneysorter.co.uk/calculator_inflation2.html#calculator) but that is (roughly) worth between £31,000 & £47,000... :eek:

Don't know if that says something about the times then, or the times now!
My dad was earning about £10 7/6 at that time so about £600 so £3000 was good money, four to six times as much.
As I recall Jimmy was very fond of the drink when we swapped him for a young Martin Peters.
Great player, I still remember hos goal against Leicester, carried the ball from halfway through their defence and beat the keeper, think Maradonna against England and you get the idea.
 

Hoddle_Ledge

Well-Known Member
Sep 20, 2005
9,999
5,493
At Hotspur Way today (y) Absolute hero.

https://twitter.com/Cliff_Jones11/status/883342116881092608

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Wellspurs

Well-Known Member
Mar 9, 2006
6,379
7,734
My dad was earning about £10 7/6 at that time so about £600 so £3000 was good money, four to six times as much.
As I recall Jimmy was very fond of the drink when we swapped him for a young Martin Peters.
Great player, I still remember hos goal against Leicester, carried the ball from halfway through their defence and beat the keeper, think Maradonna against England and you get the idea.

Luxury! We used to dream of such wages... tell youngsters these days they wouldn't believe you.
 

SPURSLIFE

Well-Known Member
Jul 21, 2011
1,578
2,132
He would have scored a lot more goals for England if Ramsey hadn't been manager. He just didn't like him and felt he was not defensive enough.
 

JimmyG2

SC Supporter
Dec 7, 2006
15,014
20,779
My favourite all time.
Took my posting blogging name
from him in dedication
but he will always be
JimmyG1
 

Gilzeanking

Well-Known Member
May 7, 2005
6,093
5,019
He never will be.

Only in numbers perhaps, but not in brilliance.

He was an authentic genius.

In my first ever game at WHL he scored a hat-trick against Liverpool. Goals that no ordinary player could dream of scoring, like he so often did. It's no wonder that generations of Spurs supporters have had unattainably high standards having seen him in action. It's no exaggeration to compare him with the only player I have seen who deserves the comparison,Messi. But Jimmy did it in days when defenders were allowed to kick your legs away from you a dozen times a game before getting a finger wagging from the ref. It's a travesty that he isn't more widely recognised as the all-time greatest goalscorer in British football. Jesus I feel old now.

I've nothing against Rooney for example but he's not in the same league, shouldn't ever be mentioned in the same breath, so apologies for doing so.

Jimmy Greaves, you will always be a real football hero.

I'm a total Greaves fan , my hero , but this is a tad OTT imo . These days the big difference re fouling is that the use of arms has skyrocketed . More than dribbling past a defender , you have to get past his clawing at you and pulling your shirt . This simply didn't happen in his/my days of footie .

Yes the slide tackles were dreadful , but these days you need to bulk up to at least a middleweight boxer physique for all the wrestling you have to do . Also the stringent training regimes would not suit Jimmy at all...let alone the dietary regimes !

Him and Gilly's halftime pint would be under attack from Poch I reckon !
 

Led's Zeppelin

Can't Re Member
May 28, 2013
7,333
20,178
I'm a total Greaves fan , my hero , but this is a tad OTT imo . These days the big difference re fouling is that the use of arms has skyrocketed . More than dribbling past a defender , you have to get past his clawing at you and pulling your shirt . This simply didn't happen in his/my days of footie .

Yes the slide tackles were dreadful , but these days you need to bulk up to at least a middleweight boxer physique for all the wrestling you have to do . Also the stringent training regimes would not suit Jimmy at all...let alone the dietary regimes !

Him and Gilly's halftime pint would be under attack from Poch I reckon !

In my opinion, it’s not OTT. If anything, it understates what an authentic natural genius he was.

You talk about his half-time pints and lack of training as though that diminishes him in some way. But all it says to me is that he had so much natural ability that he could achieve what no one else could, but in his case without even trying very hard.

You say he might have struggled in today’s game. We’ll never know, but just imagine if someone like Pochettino had got hold of him and persuaded him of the benefits of proper training. And he would have grown up in a different age with different attitudes so he may well have been much more open to modern methods, just as the vast majority of current aspiring lads are. He was always a bright guy.

Yes, he probably would have ended up at Barcelona. But he would have ended up at the top of the tree, alongside Messi for the modern world to appreciate his genuinely unique set of unteachable, unstoppable skills that, as Messi shows us, take more than an arm and a shirt-tug to hold back.

However, as I say, we'll never know. Time always moves on and changes. And in some ways, at his elevated level, comparisons are meaningless. What we can do is continue to enjoy the memory of his incredible brilliance..
 
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longtimespur

Well-Known Member
Sep 10, 2014
5,830
9,949
You're thinking of the great Jerry Lee Lewis.
He was ridiculed and sent home from UK for marrying a young girl who was also a relative IIRC.
 

timfrancis

Well-Known Member
May 4, 2004
1,319
1,528
You're thinking of the great Jerry Lee Lewis.
He was ridiculed and sent home from UK for marrying a young girl who was also a relative IIRC.
I'm pretty sure that's a first, mistaking these two (But I definitely agree that Jerry Lee is a great)!
 

buckley

Well-Known Member
Sep 15, 2012
2,595
6,073
I cannot find the words to describe how much Jimmy meant to me and one of the things I recall that made him even greater is the way the likes of Chopper Harris;Banks of Bolton ;Stan Crowther; Jimmy schoular of villa used to try to kick the hell out of him time after time but he still managed to score his 30 to 40 goals a season;you would need to be over 65 to know the players I'm talking about and yet Jimmy never used to foul anybody it is such a shame and a disgrace that he was sent of the once in his career for having done nothing it was a european game and one those players that laid down as tho he had been punched when in fact he was not touched at all.You would think that he was a goal hanger the way some talk but this was not the case he scored many types of goals left foot right foot I still
don't know was he right or left footed.
He had on many occasions picked the ball up on the edge of our box then run the length of the field to score there are so many wonderful goals that are still in my memory magic man magic moments.
 
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