The late, great Bobby Moore will be honoured with the Lifetime Achievement award at the West Ham United Player Awards on Tuesday night.
Bobby’s daughter Roberta will be in attendance at the InterContinental London at The O2 to accept the award in memory of her father, whose status as one of the finest players the game has ever seen remains as bright as ever, 24 years after his tragic passing at the age of just 51.
To mark the prestigious accolade, we invited four of Bobby’s former team-mates to London Stadium recently, to share their memories and stories of the World Cup-winning captain they were proud to call a friend.
With a grand total of 1,543 first team appearances, four FA Cup winners medals and three European Cup Winners' Cup winners medals between them, Ken Brown, Ronnie Boyce, Brian Dear and Sir Trevor Brooking are, of course, Hammers legends in their own right.
The illustrious quartet, who - like Moore - were all born locally and graduated through the famous claret and blue Academy, were joined at London Stadium last week by the Evening Standard’s Ken Dyer, who has followed the Hammers as both a fan and a reporter since the 1960s.
Popular defender Brown, who played alongside Bobby on his debut as a 17-year-old against Manchester United in September 1958 and in both the 1964 FA Cup and 1965 European Cup Winners’ Cup triumphs, summed up perfectly the qualities that established Moore as one of the greatest defenders in the history of the game.
“Mooro was just different class,” said Ken. “He read the game like nobody else. I lost count of the number of times I ran behind him to cover and just watched him collect the ball. And he didn’t just clear it, he always tried to create something.”
Boyce, who famously scored the last-minute winning goal in that 1964 FA Cup final victory over Preston added: “I was just in awe of him. I loved every minute of my time playing for West Ham, and I would put three quarters of that down to Bobby Moore.”
Sir Trevor, who played both with Bobby early in his career and then against him in the 1975 FA Cup final, said: “As a young player, it was a privilege to play with someone of that level. It is sometimes an over-used word, but you can look back over the last 50 years and say that Bobby Moore is a genuine world football legend.”
Brian Dear, a close friend of Bobby off the pitch, added: “Just a perfect person. He was great at everything.”
Look out for a full report from the four legends’ tribute to Bobby Moore on whufc.com soon…
