Interviewing Jimmy Greaves. Or was that Norman Hunter?

Look, let’s start with a confession. Beyond being a lifelong supporter of Bright & Hove Albion (I can no longer name a single member of the team), I know very little about football.

So imagine my joy when, upon entering the office this morning, I discovered that that raft of great players who were in the England squad but did not play in the World Cup final in 1966, were going to get Fifa medals for having been in the squad.

My producer told me excitedly that I was to interview Norman “Break your legs” Hunter, who never kicked a ball in the entire World Cup competition of that year.

So I Googled him, Wikipedia’d him, and thoroughly boned up on him. 28 caps for England, a career that ended in Barnsley, and a management life that ended as caretaker at Leeds.

How expert I felt as I sat in the studio chair waiting for Mr Hunter to grace the end of our lens at Wembley.

“He’s there, Jon,” I heard an engineer shout in my ear. I looked up on the large studio screen – and there was Jimmy Greaves. My hero. Perhaps HIS real name is Jimmy “Break your legs” Greaves and I just got the front and the back bit wrong…

But can I remember why, as a schoolboy, I found Greavesey so heroic? Peer pressure, in part. But if you were ever to ask me great footballers I could remember, Jimmy would be dribbling towards the goalmouth ahead of most.

But I couldn’t remember a single detail of his part in that World Cup squad. Somebody whispered “It was Geoff Hurst what did it.”

I opened up. “So, Jimmy, how do you feel about Geoff these days?” And being the old pro, Greavesey set off down the pitch, dribbling the question at his feet. And I found myself in the midst of a singularly well-informed soccer dialogue.

What a mirage. I emerged from the interview merely able to say that I now know everything there is to know about Jimmy Greaves’s role in the 1966 World Cup. Poor guy, he was injured before the quarterfinals. Hurst took his place and Alf Ramsey never risked switching him thereafter.

I should have let Krishnan do it. But does he know anything about football? I’ll check.