RIP Jimmy. Once a blue, always a blue. 
 

 

An English footballing legend. Arguably the greatest striker the country has produced.

RIP Jimmy Greaves

Very sad news. RIP Jimmy.

 

 

 

 

 

Getty Images.

 

 

 

 

 

On 19/09/2021 at 14:03, Jezz said:

An English footballing legend. Arguably the greatest striker the country has produced.

RIP Jimmy Greaves

🙂 

Congratulations to Harry Kane on setting the new all time England men's scoring mark. He is an outstanding player. I maintain that his headed flick to make it 1-1 in the 2017 FA Cup Semi-final against us is one of the best finishes I've ever seen. It was genius. Speaking of genius however, I want to compare Kane's international record with that of the greatest English striker ever, James Peter Greaves.

Kane now has 54 goals for his country, compared to Jimmy's 44. Harry has played 24 more games than Jimmy did (81 vs 57). An extra 10 goals in 24 more games is not too shabby, but the real stat that sets the players apart is that Harry has netted 18 times from penalties at international level, while Jimmy scored; none, nada, zilch, zero. Exclude the pens and Harry is still eight goals behind Jimmy, despite those extra 24 appearances. Kane is averaging 0.44 non-penalty goals per appearance for England. At that rate it would take him 18 more caps to catch Jimmy. and that would take his total number of caps to well over double the number Jimmy got. 

Jimmy Greaves was a remarkable footballer. He was his nation's designated penalty taker for several seasons, but England were not awarded any spot kicks during that time. He did score 19 pens at club level however. 19 scored and none missed. He never missed a penalty. I don't deny that there is a very good case for regarding Super Frank as Chelsea's greatest every player but, for me, Jimmy takes that honour, with Eden in second, and the rest up for debate.

High praise to Harry Kane, but he'd be the first to admit that he's no Jimmy Greaves.

5 hours ago, OhForAGreavsie said:

Congratulations to Harry Kane on setting the new all time England men's scoring mark. He is an outstanding player. I maintain that his headed flick to make it 1-1 in the 2017 FA Cup Semi-final against us is one of the best finishes I've ever seen. It was genius. Speaking of genius however, I want to compare Kane's international record with that of the greatest English striker ever, James Peter Greaves.

Kane now has 54 goals for his country, compared to Jimmy's 44. Harry has played 24 more games than Jimmy did (81 vs 57). An extra 10 goals in 24 more games is not too shabby, but the real stat that sets the players apart is that Harry has netted 18 times from penalties at international level, while Jimmy scored; none, nada, zilch, zero. Exclude the pens and Harry is still eight goals behind Jimmy, despite those extra 24 appearances. Kane is averaging 0.44 non-penalty goals per appearance for England. At that rate it would take him 18 more caps to catch Jimmy. and that would take his total number of caps to well over double the number Jimmy got. 

Jimmy Greaves was a remarkable footballer. He was his nation's designated penalty taker for several seasons, but England were not awarded any spot kicks during that time. He did score 19 pens at club level however. 19 scored and none missed. He never missed a penalty. I don't deny that there is a very good case for regarding Super Frank as Chelsea's greatest every player but, for me, Jimmy takes that honour, with Eden in second, and the rest up for debate.

High praise to Harry Kane, but he'd be the first to admit that he's no Jimmy Greaves.

 

Really good point, despite being an old fella I am too young to see Jimmy play myself. However the point like always with these historic comparisons it is comparing apples with pears. 

Jimmy - played with a full roast and couple of pints inside him on pitches that were not much better than cow fields and you would have to broke someone's neck to get be awarded a penalty 

Harry - has a dietician, personal physio and a psychologist with all the mod cons, plays on billiard tables and penalties are awarded if someone farts down wind of them 

So it becomes a subjective assessment, I didn't see Jimmy play, however my grandad was a regular at the bridge from 1930's to 1990's  he said we will never see the likes of Jimmy again so I will go with that 

 

congratulations to Harry though - now time to try and reach Ronaldo's record ! 

Edited March 24, 20233 yr by andy