As goal scorers go, Jimmy Greaves was simply the best, he thrived on scoring goals, with hat tricks being a speciality. He carried this into his England career also, twice scoring four goals in the same match, and hitting three hat tricks. As natural a goal scorer as you will ever see, he was deadly around the 18 yard box. He scored a hat trick in a Division One match just a couple of months before his 18th birthday. His goal scoring achievements in the old First Division are legendary, scoring five times in the same match on three occasions, four times on two occasions, and grabbing four hat tricks.

Greaves' talent was not just about deadly finishing, he could also carve out opportunities for himself - and how!! He could pick up the ball in the centre circle and dribble past half a team before beating the keeper. He possessed amazing intelligence; a deadly instinct; perfect balance; magnetic control; explosive pace, and ice-cool confidence - he had it all. Whenever the ball ran loose in half a yard of space, invariably he would be the first to latch on to it, and before his marker had realised, it would be too late - Greaves was a superb taker of chances. He was a firm striker of the ball, but more often than not, he would pass the ball into the net - his amazing accuracy giving goalkeepers no chance.

He first made a name for himself at Chelsea, where he scored goals for fun - bagging five goals in the same match on three occasions. He also scored four times in the same game on one Christmas morning against Portsmouth and became the first player to score 100 goals in league football before the age of 21. Then, in the summer of 1961, the Stamford Bridge faithful were outraged when Greaves moved to Italy to join AC Milan for £80,000, where he was promised fortune and fame by the Italian club. Unfortunately, his time in Italy was an unhappy one, despite scoring on his debut and netting nine goals in ten league games. However, he could not adapt to the Italian way of life, and after just 4 months with Milan, he joined Tottenham Hotspur for £99,999 - Spurs manager Bill Nicholson refused to pay a six-figure fee.

He began his career at White Hart Lane in customary fashion. He had scored on his debut at every level, and Greaves continued this outstanding record by scoring on his debut for Spurs - scoring a hat trick against Blackpool, and it wasn't long before Greaves had helped Spurs win the F.A. and Cup Winners' Cups.

He was outstanding for his country too; surpassing all England strike-rates with 44 goals in 57 matches, and would surely have added to this amazing total but for the strength-sapping jaundice that cost him four months of the 1965-66 season. Had Greaves been fit, he probably would not have missed the final stages of the 1966 World Cup, but would England have beaten the Germans to lift the Jules Rimet trophy had he played in the final? We will never know. After almost 9 years at Spurs, he left to join West Ham for £54,000 in March 1970, with Martin Peters moving in the opposite direction as part of the deal. His time at Upton Park was not a happy one, and his well-documented drink problems that threatened his life lay ahead.

After quitting football, his next major career was as a TV pundit on the 'Saint and Greavsie' show on ITV, where his good friend Ian St John joined him. Today, he is a football columnist for a well-known national newspaper. Jimmy Greaves was a household name many years ago, but everyone who saw him play say that he was England's greatest ever goal scorer, and has still yet to be matched, and when you look at his statistics, they suggest as much - and you can't argue with the facts. Jimmy Greaves was a footballing genius, at a time when money and TV rights were not a major factor in the game, and the boots and the ball were not the subject of millions of pounds worth of scientific research. Just imagine the damage he would have done, given a pair of Predators and a Tango football - there would have been goalkeepers and defenders retiring all over the country!!