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Player Jimmy Greaves
- Thread starter B-0-Sspurs
- Start date
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Real human beings you can relate to, unlike the vanilla egoists we suffer today.
Saint was good as the straight man but Greavsie could be genuinely funny
Danny Murphy best of a bad bunch
Dipping their cox in the river :mourlmao:
Yeah I hate it when these threads get randomly bumped. Gazza one always fills me with dread!
Don't panic. I know what you are all thinking.
Literally felt sick then
JimmyGreaves.net
It looks like good news in the honours list. All will be revealed in a couple of days. The family and myself would like to thank the Daily Mail and always the Sunday People for supporting Jimmy. For now we'll just say a very Merry Christmas to all of you that love Jimmy so much and hold him in your hearts like we do and there will be a further announcement early in the New Year.The greatest English goalscorer and probably the greatest English footballer in history still with us and as great as he ever was and at long last will receive a small amount of recognition for his greatness
Should be a knighthood!!!
That's amazing, i'm shocked he wasn't give one before now.
Telegraph Article today
Thank you Jimmy Greaves MBE, but it is a stain on our nation that official validation has taken so long
Civil servants are knighted for doing their jobs, donors are made peers but football has always been shabbily treated by honours system
Here’s all the evidence you need that 2021 is going to be better than 2020: Jimmy Greaves is to be made an MBE in the New Year’s honours list. Though there are many who will be wondering why it took so long.
Greaves is now 80, his health compromised by a stroke he suffered five years ago. A man who defines the term self-deprecating, who has never displayed the slightest hint of swagger or swank about his phenomenal achievements, will doubtless take the honour in his stride. As he has done everything life has thrown at him, from being excluded from the 1966 World Cup winning team, through the demons of addiction to his latter ill-health.
But those of us who had the privilege of both seeing him in action on the pitch, then enjoying his second career as a superb broadcaster, not to mention the many individuals whose lives he touched with his steadfast approach to facing down alcoholism, should be furious on his behalf. The fact that it has taken so long for us as a society to acknowledge what this remarkable man did for us is nothing less than shameful.
In a sense it was ever thus with footballers. They may excel at our national game, providing for millions of us across the generations entertainment, community and sense of purpose. But when it comes to offering formal appreciation of what they have done, they have long been at the back of the queue. While civil servants are knighted for doing their jobs, while donors to political parties are gifted access to the House of Lords for handing over lucre, while backbench MPs are made knights in lieu of elevation to the cabinet, those who have lifted the nation have been routinely ignored.
Only 14 men associated with the game have ever knelt in front of the Queen; six for what they delivered on the pitch, five for their management skills and three for being administrators. It is indicative of the way we prefer to do these things that Bert Millichip, the FA chairman who presided over the organisation in the time of the Bradford and Hillsborough disasters, was knighted for services to sport 29 years before Jimmy Greaves was granted an MBE. Explain that one.
Greaves, naturally, would be the first to point out his name is not the only omission from the higher ranks of our national roll of honour. In 1967, Bobby Moore was made an OBE. Apparently, it was thought by those who decide these things that lifting the World Cup was the equivalent of doing a term as mayor of a market town. The dignified, statesmanlike Moore suffered throughout his post-playing life from the whispered disdain of those in charge of the game because of what they deemed to be the shadiness of some of his old associates. And that haughtiness seemingly fed into the honours system.
By the time the scale of what the 1966 winners had achieved was put into proper perspective when Bobby Charlton and Geoff Hurst were knighted some three decades after the event, it was too late for Moore.
That Greaves has gone similarly unrecognised can only be the consequence of the same snobbery that so egregiously snubbed his captain. If we are to retain an honours system in the 21st century - and the arguments about that would take up more space than is available here - then surely its principal purpose should be to reflect those things we as a wider society regard as important.
And what Greaves has done for so many of his fellow citizens is worthy of honour. Seeing his graceful, fluid, elegant sashay as he dribbled the ball into the net was to have the spirit lifted as it would be watching the finest ballet dancer. To observe his natural, easy broadcasting wit was to be temporarily removed from the daily fray and dipped in a warm bath of entertainment. Unless, that is, you were a member of the fraternity that was the butt of a significant proportion of his jokes: Scottish goalkeepers.
The truth is what he gave us deserved validation long, long ago. Thank you Jimmy Greaves MBE.
Admin
- can you change the thread title to Jimmy Greaves MBE?
Thank you Jimmy Greaves MBE, but it is a stain on our nation that official validation has taken so long
Civil servants are knighted for doing their jobs, donors are made peers but football has always been shabbily treated by honours system
Here’s all the evidence you need that 2021 is going to be better than 2020: Jimmy Greaves is to be made an MBE in the New Year’s honours list. Though there are many who will be wondering why it took so long.
Greaves is now 80, his health compromised by a stroke he suffered five years ago. A man who defines the term self-deprecating, who has never displayed the slightest hint of swagger or swank about his phenomenal achievements, will doubtless take the honour in his stride. As he has done everything life has thrown at him, from being excluded from the 1966 World Cup winning team, through the demons of addiction to his latter ill-health.
But those of us who had the privilege of both seeing him in action on the pitch, then enjoying his second career as a superb broadcaster, not to mention the many individuals whose lives he touched with his steadfast approach to facing down alcoholism, should be furious on his behalf. The fact that it has taken so long for us as a society to acknowledge what this remarkable man did for us is nothing less than shameful.
In a sense it was ever thus with footballers. They may excel at our national game, providing for millions of us across the generations entertainment, community and sense of purpose. But when it comes to offering formal appreciation of what they have done, they have long been at the back of the queue. While civil servants are knighted for doing their jobs, while donors to political parties are gifted access to the House of Lords for handing over lucre, while backbench MPs are made knights in lieu of elevation to the cabinet, those who have lifted the nation have been routinely ignored.
Only 14 men associated with the game have ever knelt in front of the Queen; six for what they delivered on the pitch, five for their management skills and three for being administrators. It is indicative of the way we prefer to do these things that Bert Millichip, the FA chairman who presided over the organisation in the time of the Bradford and Hillsborough disasters, was knighted for services to sport 29 years before Jimmy Greaves was granted an MBE. Explain that one.
Greaves, naturally, would be the first to point out his name is not the only omission from the higher ranks of our national roll of honour. In 1967, Bobby Moore was made an OBE. Apparently, it was thought by those who decide these things that lifting the World Cup was the equivalent of doing a term as mayor of a market town. The dignified, statesmanlike Moore suffered throughout his post-playing life from the whispered disdain of those in charge of the game because of what they deemed to be the shadiness of some of his old associates. And that haughtiness seemingly fed into the honours system.
By the time the scale of what the 1966 winners had achieved was put into proper perspective when Bobby Charlton and Geoff Hurst were knighted some three decades after the event, it was too late for Moore.
That Greaves has gone similarly unrecognised can only be the consequence of the same snobbery that so egregiously snubbed his captain. If we are to retain an honours system in the 21st century - and the arguments about that would take up more space than is available here - then surely its principal purpose should be to reflect those things we as a wider society regard as important.
And what Greaves has done for so many of his fellow citizens is worthy of honour. Seeing his graceful, fluid, elegant sashay as he dribbled the ball into the net was to have the spirit lifted as it would be watching the finest ballet dancer. To observe his natural, easy broadcasting wit was to be temporarily removed from the daily fray and dipped in a warm bath of entertainment. Unless, that is, you were a member of the fraternity that was the butt of a significant proportion of his jokes: Scottish goalkeepers.
The truth is what he gave us deserved validation long, long ago. Thank you Jimmy Greaves MBE.
Admin
- can you change the thread title to Jimmy Greaves MBE?They are awarded by the government
True yes, but established by the monarchy. Guess I'm just not a big fan of these kind of honours personally (especially the knighthood stuff), but if others value them then fair enough.
Nice for Greaves and his family to have the recognition though
It's just a way of saying thank you to people for their efforts or achievements in their field of excellence. The problem is that, as the article suggests, the people that truly deserve the awards often get passed over for people who have better connections.
Indeed. One reason I'm not the biggest fan - too much cronyism.
So true about “connections”. Some people know how to do an honours nomination and find someone to support it whereas I suspect most of us “working class” types don’t know where to begin and certainly don’t have the connections available to support nominations.