When England won the World
Cup, Moore discovered that there was no way West Ham would ever sell him. Ron
Greenwood was a fantastic coach but a poor manager of men, and Moore, more
insecure than his calm persona suggests, wanted someone to tell him he was a
great player occasionally. He also responded well to having big name players
around him and Dickinson suggests that West Ham’s stupid refusal to sign Gordon
Banks because of Ron Greenwood’s principles and their lack of other star signings
helped contribute to Moore’s disillusion.
Dickinson writes of West
Ham’s reputation as a drinking club in the late 1960s with crates of lager in
the treatment room. He reveals one new signing was told that as long as he
could stand at the bar at the Black Lion he was fit enough to play for West Ham. Even
Jimmy Greaves was shocked by the boozing at the club. By the time of the
infamous 1971 Blackpool nightclub incident when Moore, Dear, Greaves and Clyde
Best went clubbing on the eve of an FA Cup tie the drinking culture had become
toxic. Moore played many great games for West Ham, but at times Greenwood felt he coasted, and
with three World Cup winners the side hugely underachieved. The club needed a
stronger manager than Greenwood to get the best from him.
Moore’s love of lager is
fully explored and Dickinson details one session where Moore and pals downed 20
cans each. Mooro would try to sweat off his sessions the next morning, but he
could certainly have prolonged his career without the boozing and you wonder if
the alcohol contributed to his bowel cancer.
It’s a shame that when the
end came Moore signed for Fulham after the West Ham board refused to deal with
the brash Brian Clough. The Derby boss might have extracted the best from Moore
during his final years.
Moore was a difficult man to
get to know, but Dickinson reveals much about his personality through his
compulsive neatness and his obsessive ordering of his shirts, coded by colour
from light to dark. He describes how combating his lack of pace and aerial
ability through positioning and intercepting the ball made Moore the great
player he was. His other great asset was calmness on and off the pitch, as
exemplified by the Bogata bracelet arrest and his reaction to it at the 1970
World Cup when he produced "that tackle by Moore".
Dickinson covers the way the
game ignored Moore after his retirement and is not aftraid to mention rumours of
unwise friends among the East End underworld. Moore’s ex-wife Tina thinks that
like many people, some gangsters wanted to be associated with Bobby through
being seen at the same venues, but that was at far as it went.
Dickinson does wonder why
Moore chose to buy the Blind Beggar, scene of an infamous Kray Twins
murder. The arson attack on the Woolston Hall country club that Moore invested
in was because another director was thought to be a grass, claims Dickinson.
Though he fails to discover why Moore appeared to have “his own personal
arsonist” as his ill-advised pub ventures floundered.
Moore was a poor businessman
and wouldn’t have been a good manager, even if he had found a bigger club than
Oxford City or Southend, believes Dickinson, because the England captain
disliked confrontation. Although he would have been a tremendous smartly-dressed
diplomat for West Ham or the FA. Moore knew he was dying at the end and like
everything else in his life, he greeted death with dignity and stoicism.
This is a riveting read and a
vivid portrayal of a genius with some very human flaws.
Bobby Moore: The Man In Full is published by Yellow Jersey, price £20
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