When the footballer acclaimed by Pele and Franz Beckenbauer as the best defender of all time won his 100th England cap, the occasion was marked by Bobby Moore doing one of the things he enjoyed most.
Driving the Scots demented with frothing frustration, suppressed rage - and grudging admiration.
On St Valentine's Day, 1973, the commanding figure of the only English captain ever to raise the World Cup aloft led his country to the massacre of Scotland at Hampden Park. Great and terrible was the gnashing of sporrans.
Otherwise, the celebration of that noble century was largely confined to a few mentions in the papers, something said by Sir Alf Ramsey, then a few beers with the chaps when we got back to London.
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If the caps fit: Bobby Moore poses with 99 boys from the primary school opposite Upton Park on the eve of his 100th England game
Bobby dazzler: Moore (right) wins his 100th cap as he and Billy Bremner lead the England and Scotland teams out at Hampden Park in 1973
An earlier battle with the Auld Enemy in 1968 set the pattern for what to expect when we landed at Glasgow airport. An intrepid tartan sportswriter had ventured: 'Welcome to Scotland, Sir Alf.'
The glowering reply from the England manager in those less politically correct times, was: 'You must be effin' joking.'
The Scots never took to Alf but Bobby was a different matter. No matter how feisty the sporting enmity, admiration of greatness at the fitba' resides deep in their soul.
The score that day was 5-0. Take good note of the nil.
When, after games like this in which their finest foundered on his haughty defending and they called him 'that bastard Moore,' it was said with enormous respect. When the bloody English failed to knight him, the Scots were first to take to calling him 'Sir Robert.'
Little or no fuss was made by the FA as Moore joined the ranks of England’s precious few centurions.Certainly nothing like the Wembley presentation of a golden cap in a gold-plated case to Goldenballs when David Beckham reached his 100.
And, most damning of all, nothing like the palaver that was being planned for the crass Ashley Cole when expected to reach that landmark next week.
Cole is a very fine defender but Bobby Moore he is not. Nor, as a leader of men, inspirational figurehead, honourable gentleman or human being, would he have been fit to breathe the same air as Mooro, let alone lace his boots.
Moore was intensely loyal but he would have castigated John Terry, not least for his own good, for that ugly, vulgar abusing of Anton Ferdinand.
The most imperial of captains had his issues with the FA but - steeped as he was in the true values and manners of genuine, old- fashioned working-class London - he would never have stooped to tweeting crude insults had such a thing existed in his day.
How soon the inhabitants of Chelsea’s Bridge of Lies - along with so many of their foul-mouthed, cheating, threatening colleagues in the Premier League - have forgotten the dignified example of men like Moore. Forgotten those who paved the way for them to bank their inordinate (some would say obscene) pay cheques.
The Mooro generation took their modest stipend and played their hearts out.
Although not poor while their careers lasted - Bobby drove nice cars, lived in a detached house in stockbroker Chigwell and dined in fine restaurants - they had to find work once the glory days came to an end.
Class, he would have informed Master Cole, does not come with the flash motor he almost crashed when told Arsenal were only going to pay him as much in a week as Moore earned in a year, at best. Class comes dressed in humility.
As arrogant Ashley struts his inflated value of himself in the louche hideaways of today’s privileged footballers, he might pause to ponder the truly great Bobby’s response to a fan who came up to him in a pub after he had performed miracles for West Ham and said: ‘People say you come across as aloof but you seem really down to earth.’
Moore bought the guy a beer and said: ‘You know, if you’re quite good at something you don’t have to tell everybody.’
Quite good? Of all the players in English football history, Moore is one of the elite who might have been forgiven for considering themselves worthy of just a modicum of special treatment. Not him.
When he set the then-record of 107 caps in a friendly against Italy in Turin in the June of ’73, it was the press, again, who had to salute the achievement.
We took a collection, bought an ornate piece of Capi de Monte porcelain and presented it to him back at the hotel after the match.
The celebration went on until we boarded the buses to the airport the following morning - but the party was almost over.
Unforgettable: Moore remains the only Englishman to captain his side to World Cup glory
Moore had made a rare error - so rare as to be a collector’s item - in a World Cup qualifier in Poland which preceded the Italy game. Ramsey dropped Moore for the return match at Wembley, only for his replacement Norman Hunter to make the identical mistake.
Thus England drew a match, in which Poland barely got out of their own half, and failed to qualify for the 1974 World Cup.
There was one Wembley game left in ’73, peculiarly another friendly with Italy. Ramsey recalled Moore as captain for what was to be his 108th and last cap — a world record at the time.
‘I sort of sensed it was the end,’ said Bobby. ‘But nothing was said on the night. I just went home.’
No grand farewell for a magnificent symbol of the national game. Not trumpets blaring. Just went home to wait for the letter.
Back then, even the greatest players only found out whether they had been selected for the next England game when the envelope from the FA dropped through the letter box.
For the first time since he made his England debut in the 1962 World Cup in Chile, the letter did not come. And that was the end of that.
Imagine the indignant, affronted, self-righteous fury of Crass-ley and JT - and Becks for that matter - if their England careers were abruptly ended without a personal, sympathetic conversation with the manager and a sycophantic tribute from the FA.
Scotland's 'Sir' Bobby Moore simply said: 'The next World Cup is four years away. It’s time for younger guys, fresh faces. I know they don’t need old Mooro any more.'
If the scorn being poured on Cole - as well as his mate Terry - ignites a bonfire of false egos it will perform a service to the game almost as important as that given by England’s greatest captain.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2215262/Bobby-Moore-reached-100-caps-dignified-way-sharp-contrast-Ashley-Cole.html#ixzz28uYMJZgs
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