Bobby Moore died in 1993 at the age of 51. His life was football, in real having his club career with West Ham United, playing for The Hammers from 1958 to 1974. Bobby Moore was an uncapped England player as he flew to South America with the rest of the squad for the 1962 World Cup. He made his début in the pre-tournament friendly – a 4–0 win over Peru in Lima. Bobby Moore stayed in the team for the whole of England’s participation in the 1962 World Cup, which ended in defeat by eventual winners Brazil in the quarter finals at Viña del Mar.
Bobby Moore is still the only England captain to have lifted a major trophy for Three Lions during history, not to forget the England 1966 World Cup winners.
Bobby Moore played 108 times for England. His last cap coming in a friendly vs. Italy in November 1973, the next game played after that Poland 1974 World Cup qualification disaster. Bobby Moore’s form had dipped enough for Sir Alf Ramsey to choose not to select him for that Poland game at Wembley which England had to win to qualify. Any other result would send Poland through. Being replaced by Norman Hunter in defence and Martin Peters as the skipper for that match, Moore is understood to have asked Ramsey if this meant he was no longer required, to which Sir Alf Ramsey replied: “Of course not. I need you as my captain at the World Cup next year.” As we all know, it never happened.
He later told how he sat alongside Sir Alf Ramsey on the bench and kept urging him to make a substitution, but Ramsey was hesitant to do so. When Kevin Hector finally did come on for Martin Chivers after 85 minutes, Moore could be seen on TV yanking down Hector’s tracksuit bottoms while Ramsey sat immobile. Moore, later, said to David Miller “you could ‘feel’ the minutes escaping. I said to Alf, we need someone to go through the middle. He just nodded. We couldn’t get Kevin out there quick enough. We almost threw him onto the pitch.” Hunter was in an inconsolable state as he was led off the pitch by Harold Shepherdson, and by Moore, whose place in the side he had taken. England’s failure to qualify for the 1974 FIFA World Cup signalled the end of Ramsey’s reign as national team manager when he was sacked six months later.
In club football it had all been The Hammers for Bobby Moore, but it all came to an end as he played his last game for West Ham in an FA Cup tie against Hereford United in January 1974. He was injured in the match. On 14 March the same year, he left West Ham after more than 15 years, taking with him the club record for appearances (since overtaken by Billy Bonds) and the most international caps for an outfield player.
Embed from Getty ImagesBOBBY MOORE
FULHAM
In March 1974, Bobby Moore joined Fulham, who were in the Second Division, for £25,000. At the time Bobby Moore was 32 years of age, turning 33 on the 12th of April, as his career had taken a turn and step few might have believed, as he was supposed to have shined as captain for England in the 1974 World Cup. With that said, Fulham looked to have pulled off one of the most impressive pieces of transfer business in football history when convincing Bobby Moore to swap a claret and blue shirt in East London for a white one in the South-West of the capital. With his record (at the time) 108 caps for his country – 90 as captain – and having made the best part of 650 appearances for West Ham United, Moore was approached by his former England teammate and good friend Alan Mullery, who had been sent by Manager Alec Stock to Upton Park on a mission to bring Moore back with him.
“I signed him – can anybody believe that?” Mullery told at an event to mark the 20th anniversary of Moore’s death. “I said to him ‘why don’t you come for the last two or three years of your career. Come and enjoy it – we’ve got some good players and they’d love to have you.’ “Everybody knew Bobby Moore and the player he was and, consequently, he came. I played two years with him before leaving in ‘76, and then Bestie and Marshy arrived, so it was the three geniuses at the Football Club!”
The number four was symbolic when our new centre-back made his debut for the Club: it was the number he wore on his back, and it was also the amount of goals we conceded in a comprehensive home defeat by Middlesbrough. He would sport 8 and 10 as well in the 1974/75 season, before wearing his famous number 6 shirt for the first time in a 2-0 win away to Crystal Palace on the 16th April 1974. From then until he left, the number 6 jersey at Fulham was his and his alone.
It’s no coincidence that his first full season at Fulham is one of our most memorable and historic, as the Whites reached the FA Cup Final for the first time. Doing it in a Fulhamish fashion, playing a record 11 times on the route to Wembley Stadium, with Moore starting each game. Poetically, the opponents for the Final were Moore’s former club, West Ham. The Hammers were a division above, but Fulham went into the match with little fear having knocked them out of the League Cup earlier in the season, while top flight sides Everton and Birmingham City had proven beatable in the FA Cup Fifth Round and Semi-Final, respectively. Bobby Moore played admirably in front of those 100,000 spectators on the 3rd of May, but the team unfortunately failed to match the performances that had seen them reach the Final in the first place, as a quickfire Alan Taylor brace saw Fulham dreams dashed. It was to be Moore’s final appearance at the famous stadium – one where he led England out as captain on numerous occasions.
There was 11-game period at the end of the 1975/76 season and beginning of 76/77 where he was absent owing to a loan spell at American team San Antonio Thunder. That spell aside, though, Moore was an ever-present in the Fulham team following the Cup Final and ended his Whites career with a fine appearance total of 150. He paraded the Jules Rimet trophy prior to his final game at Craven Cottage (a 6-0 rout of Leyton Orient) before bowing out in a 1-0 defeat away to Blackburn Rovers a week later.
Les Strong played alongside him in the Fulham defence throughout his time at the Club, and the former left-back admitted it was a privilege to work with, and learn from, Moore. “For me, he was the best,” Strong said. “I was only a young lad, 21, and the small amount of success that I had was all down to Bobby Moore, I feel. Just to see him at Fulham was fantastic. “Technically, as a full-back, you shouldn’t be too far advanced of the centre-half, but with Bob I’d be on the halfway line, he’d knock me one ball and I’d be an attacking player. People would say that I was a fantastic attacking full-back, but once he left I don’t think I went over the halfway line! “It was fantastic to play with him and it was a real pleasure. He was well known to be a really immaculate person – you’d walk into his wardrobe and everything would be pristine, so I just used to get his shirts and tie them in knots, tie his shoelaces together and knock his pennies over, and it used to drive him mad!”
Bobby Moore later played for two teams in the North American Soccer League – San Antonio Thunder in 1976 (24 games, 1 goal) and Seattle Sounders in 1978 (7 games). During 1976, there was also a final appearance on the international field for Team USA in games against Italy, Brazil and an England team captained by Gerry Francis. This was the U.S.A. Bicentennial Cup Tournament, which capitalised on NASL and more importantly England and Italy both failing to qualify for the European Championships that year. In April 1978, he signed as a professional player with Danish side Herning Fremad to promote Danish football’s new transition to professional football, playing 9 games for the club before he retired.[35] In May 1978, he signed with Canadian side Edmonton Black Gold for a summer exhibition schedule, although he only joined the team six weeks later ahead of the June 23 match against Benfica.[36] After Moore’s second game with Edmonton against the Seattle Sounders on June 28, he was signed by the Sounders on July 7. The following year, Moore played for Highgate-based club Cracovia for a tour of Malaysia. In 1983, Moore appeared in 8 games for the now-defunct Carolina Lightnin’, after injuries left the club without cover.
He also had spells managing, at clubs such as Non-League Oxford City, Hong Kong outfit Eastern AA, and Southend United. He would later work as a pundit and journalist, before his untimely death from cancer in February 1993.
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