Unsung hero, Martin Peters
IF VAR had been around in 1966 there would be no debate involving linesmen – Martin Peters would be the country’s greatest football hero.
Peters, arguably the most unsung player in England’s 1966 gang of world champions, died peacefully at the weekend after a dignified twilight amid the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease.
He was 76. Now there are enough Boys of ‘66 in the celestial changing room to make up a formidable five-a-side team: Banks, Wilson, Moore, Ball and Peters.
According to Sir Alf Ramsey, Peters was 10 years ahead of his time but he was robbed of stand-alone hero worship as scorer of the goal that won the holy grail for England.
Peters’ exemplary opportunism had put the host nation 2-1 up in the World Cup final when Wolfgang Weber’s equaliser seconds from the end of normal time, with a suspicion of handball VAR would have cleared up, sent the game into extra-time.
His West Ham team-mate, Geoff Hurst, duly completed his hat-trick and Peters was reduced to best supporting role.
If the World Cup was his crowning glory at the age of 22, Peters would later become football’s first £200,000 player when he joined Tottenham in 1970.
The Plaistow-born Peters won the League Cup twice and the UEFA Cup with Spurs before spells at Norwich and Sheffield United.
Yesterday, the 62,000
Spurs and Chelsea fans at the Tottenham Stadium briefly set aside their mutual animosity to pay tribute (below) to the England great.
But this scribe will always remember a night out with the Boys of 66 at the Euro 96 final.
We were given a police escort, pretty much right up to the turnstiles, and on the 20-yard walk to the gates, something happened which will live long in the memory.
As Hurst and Peters made their way to the gate, only 20 minutes or so before kick-off, fans swarmed to pat them on the back. One England fan, draped in the Cross of St George, shook Peters by the hand, looked him in the eye and said: “Thank you for what you did for your country.”
Your correspondent, in awe of the respect in which footballers could be held 30 years beyond their finest hour, made a mental note to himself: What a wonderful way to be remembered by the public.
Martin, Thank you for what you did for your country.