I only vaguely remember Jimmy Greaves as a player, he left the Sham when I was about 10, around when his serious problems with alcohol were really becoming public. I remember being told by my uncle (Yes, a real one, who used to take me to matches and totally whose fault it is that I have been subjected to living this life as a Baggie, where were protective services back then

), "watch his feet". Off the field, he struck me as that 'loveable cockney Jimmy', that guy that none of the adults want to come to the party, but all the kids did, because he was so much fun. He was to pundits back then as Des O'Conner was to Morecombe and Wise, the butt of the jokes, but in the most endearing loveable way possible, if memory serves he even had a slot on one of the shows called 'Ask Greavsie' (that could have been made up by my old hole riddled memory though). He carried this through when he became a pundit himself with some great attributed quotes such as “He hit the post, and after the game people will say, well, he hit the post” and “The only thing Norwich didn’t get was the goal that they finally got”. He also had that cheeky chappy quality who could tell a story which if anyone else was telling it would sound awful, but from him it sounded funny, like the one he used to tell about, I think it was Tommy Smith who at a warm up came over and handed him a piece of paper, which was the evening menu for the Liverpool Royal Infirmary. We should not forget how good he was, (I went back and checked) over an 8 year international career his goal to game ratio stood at a goal every 1.3 games, his domestic ratio was 1.5. RIP Jimmy Greaves MBE