Graham Kelly: Bobby Moore was an undoubted English hero - and he didn't even know it

The country certainly needed a hero at the time England won the World Cup in 1966. Despite the swinging Sixties image that has prevailed in folk lore, Harold Wilson's Britain was, in fact, experiencing serious economic difficulties and England's triumph couldn't have been more timely in providing a national uplift.

Central to the victory, of course, was the captain Bobby Moore, about whom a new video, 'Hero – The Bobby Moore Story' (Global Visions), has just been released.

If you want to watch lots of football action, this may not be the film for you. Anyway, there's rather a lot of that coming up on our screens soon. But if you want confirmation of why Moore was considered by many observers to be among the very best players ever to have graced the game, you have it here in spades. You will find it in the words of Sir Bobby Charlton, expressing wonder at the timing of Moore's tackling. In the comments of Charlton's brother, Jack, marvelling at his skill in anticipating and negating attacks.

Also, in the words of Moore's first professional coach and formative influence at West Ham United, Malcolm Allison, who speaks of how his teenage pupil was eager to acquire the ability, so evident when the captain played the 30-yard ball for Geoff Hurst's third goal in the World Cup final, of knowing where he was intending to send the ball before he received it.

Terry Venables, born in Dagenham, not far from Moore's birthplace, Barking, tells how it was important to stay on your feet while making a tackle in street football. Meanwhile, Franz Beckenbauer believes it was Moore's character and personality that made him the best defender in the history of the game. Some accolade from a man who has World Cup winner's medals as player and manager!

But was Moore truly a hero who stood apart from ordinary men or are we indulging in the hyperbole of the times and sliding into sloppy sentimentality because of his wickedly early and possibly preventable death from bowel cancer at the age of 51 in 1993?

Certainly, I've never seen a true-life film in which so many grown people shed tears, as those who had the great privilege to have been close to the essentially private man that was Bobby Moore recounted the little idiosyncrasies of his life.

His engagements were pencilled into his diary so as to avoid messy crossings-out, he had a particular way of doing the washing up, he never stepped out of the bath without completely drying himself, he stood on the dressing-room bench to avoid getting muck on his trousers. And so it went on, as they dabbed at their eyes.

Yes, for heaven's sake, of course he was a hero, despite the fact he did not go on to make a success of management, trying his hand at lowly Southend United and Oxford (City, that is, of the Isthmian League, not United of the Football League). Trouble was, as his biographer Jeff Powell said, he only saw good in people. I suspect he was far too much a gentleman to bawl out those players who might have deserved it.

He was an immaculately clean player in every sense of the word, beautifully turned out with kit pressed, while the idea of Moore committing a deliberate foul was virtually unthinkable. Both on the field and off, he was courteous and well mannered. If trouble developed he would just smile and walk away. There is a wonderful shot of him scoring a rare, long-range goal and shrugging off his team-mates' congratulations with embarrassment.

Moore led his men by intelligent example, by inspiration, and by courage and composure in the heat of the fiercest battle, never compromising style or dignity.

He was a man at ease with himself, proud of his own high standards, yet too modest to flaunt his achievements and always aware of those around him. Jack Charlton said, "He was one of us, but he wasn't like us."

With the recent commercial explosion in football, there has come a resurgence of interest in the 1966 team, after previous anniversaries were ignored by a football establishment churlishly worried about pointing out how long it had been since England last enjoyed success. Bobby, naturally, did not argue, but now, had he lived, he would have had little choice. He'd have been fêted throughout the world, pressed for a valued opinion on every football issue under the sun. Polite as ever, he would have complied. But I doubt whether he would have been too critical.

For, when his final illness was announced, he anxiously enquired of his daughter, Roberta, whether anybody had said anything detrimental. The man hadn't the faintest idea how much he meant to people.

grahamkelly@btinternet.com