Those Boys of ’66 still stand above all the rest in our sporting heritage

TIME does not wait even for our most cherished sporting heroes and when it was announced yesterday that Martin Peters had died 10 months after the passing of Gordon Banks, our grip on E n g l a n d ’s g r e a t e s t sporting moment was loosened once again.

Five of that fabled side who beat Germany 4-2 in the 1966 World Cup final — Peters, Banks, Ray Wilson, Alan Ball and the captain, Bobby Moore — are lost to us now and with the death of each one our links with history grow more tenuous, the moment seems more distant.

It is more than 53 years since that final now and still we are searching for heroes to emulate them.

Emulate them, not replace them, because they will never be replaced. Only twice since then have we even reached the semi-final of the World Cup. It is one of the reasons why Peters and the Boys of ’66 remain so revered.

Many of the team who remain — Sir Bobby Charlton, Sir Geoff Hurst, Jack Charlton, Nobby Stiles, Roger Hunt and George Cohen — are frail now, too, but for what they did on that summer’s day under the gaze of Wembley’s Twin Towers, t hey wil l a l ways be Engli s h football’s immortals.

Peters was known as The Ghost for his ability to arrive unnoticed in goalscoring positions and, if t here i s one moment we will remember him for, it is his goal in that final in 1966.

He had not played in the opening group game but by the time the game against West Germany had arrived, he had cemented his place in the starting line-up on the left side of midfield.

Hu r s t , of course, scored a hat-trick in the final but it was Peters who scored the other goal to put England 2-1 up. When Hurst stepped outside his marker and fired a shot into the box, it l ooped up off t he defender and when it dropped, Peters was there to volley it into the net from 10 yards out.

Sir Alf Ramsey, the England manager, said that Peters was ‘10 years ahead of his time’. He appeared 67 times for his country in an era when caps were not won cheaply. He was a goalscoring midfielder who had the invaluable knack of being in the right place at the right time. Speed of thought was one of his greatest assets.

He will also be remembered as a gentleman, a player who was a tough competitor but a man without an edge, a man who was always courteous and friendly, a player who was a crowd favourite at Spurs, Norwich City and most of all, West Ham.

His presence in the team alongside Moore and Hurst allowed fans to claim it was West Ham that had won the World Cup.

Tall and elegant, Peters was the thinking man’s midfielder, a player moulded at West Ham by Ron Greenwood, the start of a tradition of stylish players t hat would extend to Trevor Brooking, Alan Devonshire and others.

‘I wasn’t a winger,’ Peters once said. ‘Alan Ball and I were midfield players who broke wide. We had to get back and defend. We worked hard to defend when we played against a midfield player opposite us and then would break to support attacks.

‘I wasn’t quick but I could run and run and run, so I would run into the box, see a space, run into there. If the ball didn’t come in you’d get out again, run in and then would come in and bang — goal.’

Peters was afflicted with Alzheimer’s in the later years of his life. It has also blighted the old age of Stiles and Jack Charlton at a time when more and more research is suggesting that footballers of their era were vulnerable to the effects of heading heavy leather balls repeatedly. Peters, of course, was a fine header of the ball.

His passing is also a reminder of the injustice of the fact that he and most of the rest of the Boys of ’66 were not given knighthoods. Only Hurst and Bobby Charlton were granted that honour. It should be extended to the surviving members of the team before it is too late.

Peters made 880 appearances for club and country in all, scoring 220 goals. He was inducted into English football’s Hall Of Fame in 2006 and will always remain one of the pre-eminent figures in the history of the sport in this country.

His passing tugs at our heartstrings because his was the triumph we cherish the most. He was part of something that still defines us. He was one of a group of men who still stand above the rest in our sporting heritage.

Those who live on may be growing infirm but, like Peters, they will always be the Boys of ’66.