Jimmy Greaves, East End Hero

As this week the hammers face old rivals spurs for the last time at the Boleyn and with the sad news this week of of his health problems its perhaps fitting that we look at Jimmy Greaves, a Hero to some, but a legend of the English game.
Born in 1940 within earshot of the Boleyn Ground, Hitlers blitz put paid to him being brought up in Manor Park where he was born, instead after his parents house was flattened just 6 weeks after Jimmys Febuary birthday and they were moved out to Dagenham, an area that would prove to be a rich training ground for football in the 60's. 
While being East london of birth it seems though West Ham was not his club of choice as a kid, infant Jimmy says while he did visit Upton Park at times, he preferred the local non-league scene of the time which in the 50's could attract crowds numbering in the thousands for big local games. 
Jimmy was also a school boy star at football, playing for both London, and Essex School boys and soon the scouts of London's top clubs would be looking to sign him, though both spurs and the hammers showed an interest it was Chelsea who won his signature signing for them in 1955, the same year the Blues, with future hammers manager Ron Greenwood, would win the first division championship. 
Jim broke into their team as a 17 year old in 1957 making his debut against Spurs, scoring in a 1-1, he managed an amazing 124 goals in 157 games before going AC Milan in 1961. Milan was short lived but 9 goals in 12 games showed his quality, but homesick and with stories of him escaping out of windows in Hotels to try get away, Spurs soon came in for him and ended his misery in Italy. 
At Tottenham is safe to say the word Legend is not over doing it, 220 goals in just over 300 league games in 9 years in North London, before he finally came back home, to the East End, to join his best mate Bobby Moore at West Ham in the March of 1970.
His first game for the Hammers came away at 

Manchester City and as he had done for every club /team he had debuted for Jim scored on his debut, in fact netting twice in a 5-1 victory against the blue half of Manchester. 
greaves played 6 games at the end of the 69/70 season scoring 4 goals in total, so it seems he had lost none of his goal scoring exploits. 
The first game of season 70/71 would see his first return to White Hart Lane since his departure in the March, and true to form he delivered a goal for the Hammers in a 2-2 draw.
The goals were now getting harder for him though, only 2 in October and again only 2 in December showed a poor tally for the formerly prolific goalscorer. What was not known to the outside world was Jim was descending into Alcoholism. 
In the January of 1971 West Ham faced Blackpool away in a F.A Cup game, the game was in doubt

and after Greaves and Booby Moore had a chance meeting with BBC camera men in the hotel they were informed the pitch was so frozen they doubted the game would be played, and so Greaves and Moore, together with Brian Dear and the youngster Clyde Best they decamped to Boxer Brian London's night club on the Blackpool sea front. How much they drank is disputed, Best was tee total so only had orange Juice, but the other three still did take in Alcohol, Three hours they spent in the club before retreating back to the Hotel.
In the morning the pitch was declared fit to play and with the four all playing West Ham were outplayed, out fought and out of the cup 4-0. To put the result into context, Blackpool had just been promoted into the top division but were rock bottom and had just sacked their manager who would not save them from the impending relegation. 
For one West Ham fan though who made the journey the defeat was bitter, especially as he had seen the four players and the physio Rob Jenkins in the nightclub, that fan confronted Ron Greenwood on the Monday after at the Boleyn and next day the press had their teeth into the story. Greenwood wanted to sack all 5, the board though bulked at that fault, Dear though would go while the rest received suspensions. Bobby Moore would later comment years later of his treatment   "I had claret-and-blue blood, but I could never forgive the club for the way they treated me"

After a month out the team, Jimmy returned v Coventry away scoring in a 1-0 win but again his goals were too few and far apart, in fact just 3 more were added to his tally taking his season tally to 9 in 30 games, not anywhere near his usual prolific tallies in previous seasons, and so aged just 31 Jimmy Greaves retired from professional top flight football. 366 top flight goals in just over 500 games leaves him as the country greatest top flight goalscorer, in fact he is Europe's greatest top flight goalscorer with Lionel Messi still 60 goals behind him. He is also England's 4th all time greatest goalscorer with 44 goals though his came in just 57 games
Jimmy Greaves West Ham record stands at 13 goals from 38 games, and his time with us is looked at as disappointing but in comparison Dean Ashton scored 15 in 46 games and is looked at as a hero of the club.
Greaves conquered his alcohol problems and managed to forge a career on the TV for years though sadly last year he suffered a massive stroke and is now wheelchair bound with severe impaired speech. The future for him does not look great and he needs constant care hopefully the English football family will rally round to support him in his hour of need to help England's greatest goalscorer