On this day on 24th February

On this day in 1809 London's Drury Lane Theatre burns to the ground. It's owner Richard Brinsley Sheridan on being encountered drinking a glass of wine in the street while watching the fire, he famously reported to have said: "A man may surely be allowed to take a glass of wine by his own fireside." Already on the shakiest financial ground, Sheridan was ruined entirely by the loss of the building.

Sheridan asked his wealthy friend, Samuel Whitbread for help. Whitbread agreed to head a committee that would manage the company and oversee the rebuilding of the theatre, but asked Sheridan to withdraw from management himself, which he did entirely by 1811.

Sheridan was born in Dublin on 30th October 1751. Sheridan's parents moved to London and in 1762 he was sent to Harrow School. After six years at Harrow he went to live with his father in Bath who had found employment there as an elocution teacher.

In March 1772 Sheridan eloped to France with a young woman called Elizabeth Linley. A marriage ceremony was carried out at Calais but soon afterwards the couple were caught by the girl's father. As a result of this behaviour, Sheridan was challenged to a duel. The fight took place on 2nd July 1772, during which Sheridan was seriously wounded. However, Sheridan recovered and after qualifying as a lawyer, Mr. Linley gave permission for the couple to marry.

Sheridan began writing plays and on 17th January, 1775, the Covent Garden Theatre produced his comedy, The Rivals. After a poor reception it was withdrawn. A revised version appeared soon after and it eventually become one of Britain's most popular comedies. Two other plays by Sheridan, St Patrick's Day and The Duenna, were also successfully produced at the Covent Garden Theatre. In 1776 Sheridan joined with his father-in-law to purchase the Drury Lane Theatre for £35,000. The following year he produced his most popular comedy, The School for Scandal.

In 1776 Sheridan met Charles Fox, the leader of the Radical Whigs in the House of Commons. Sheridan now decided to abandon his writing in favour of a political career. On 12th September, 1780, Sheridan became MP for Stafford. Sheridan was a frequent speaker in the House of Commons and soon obtained a reputation as one of the best orators in Britain. Sheridan was a strong critic of Lord North's American policy and supported the resistance of the colonists. Congress was so grateful for Sheridan's support that he was offered a reward of £20,000. Under attack for disloyalty to his country, Sheridan decided not to accept the gift.

In 1782 the Marquis of Rockingham appointed Sheridan as his under secretary for Foreign Affairs. The following year he served in the coalition ministry headed by William Pitt. Sheridan retained his radical political beliefs and in 1794 defended the French Revolution against its critics in the House of Commons. Despite his disapproval of some aspects of the new regime, Sheridan argued that the French people had the right to form their own form of government without outside interference.

Sheridan was also a strong supporter of an uncensored press and argued strenuously against attempts to use the libel laws to prevent criticism of the government. In 1798 he argued: "The press should be unfettered, that its freedom should be, as indeed it was, commensurate with the freedom of the people and the well-being of a virtuous State; on that account even one hundred libels had better be ushered into the world than one prosecution be instituted which might endanger the liberty of the press of this country."

Sheridan opposed the Act of Union with Ireland and lost office when Henry Addington replaced William Pitt as Prime Minister. Sheridan refused Addington's offer of a peerage in return for supporting the Tories with the words that he had "an unpurchasable mind". Sheridan remained remained a devoted follower of Charles Fox, until his death in 1806.

In 1806 Sheridan returned to the government as treasurer of the navy. However, he was defeated in the the general election of 1807 but soon afterwards found a seat at Ilchester. In 1812 Sheridan attempted to win his old seat of Stafford, but unable to raise the money to pay the normal fee of five guineas per voter, he was defeated. Sheridan had serious financial problems and in August, 1813 was arrested for debt. Sheridan was only released when his wealthy friend, Samuel Whitbread handed over the sum required.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan died in great poverty on 7th July 1816.

On this day in 1827 Lydia Becker, the daughter of Hannibal Becker, the owner of a chemical works in Manchester, and Mary Duncuft, was born. The eldest of fifteen children, Lydia, like the rest of her sisters, was educated at home. After the death of her mother in 1855, Lydia had the responsibility of looking after her younger brothers and sisters.

Lydia developed an interest in botany and in 1864 won an award for her collection of dried plants and in 1866 her book Botany for Novices, was published. The following year Lydia founded the Manchester's Ladies Literacy Society, which despite its name was intended as a society to study scientific matters."

In 1866 Lydia heard Barbara Bodichon give a lecture on women's suffrage at a meeting in Manchester. She was immediately converted to the idea that women should have the vote and wrote an article Female Suffrage for the magazine, The Contemporary Review. Emily Davies and Elizabeth Wolstenholme were two of the women who read the article and later that year they joined with Lydia Becker to form the Manchester Women's Suffrage Committee. Wolstenholme then arranged to have 10,000 copies of the article printed as a pamphlet.

In the House of Commons the Radical MP, John Stuart Mill campaigned with Henry Fawcett and Peter Alfred Taylor for parliamentary reform and in 1866 presented the petition organised by Barbara Bodichon, Emily Davies, Elizabeth Garrett and Dorothea Beale in favour of women's suffrage. Mill, added an amendment to the 1867 Reform Act that would give women the same political rights as men. However, the amendment was defeated by 196 votes to 73.

During the debate on Mill's amendment, Edward Kent Karslake, the Conservative MP for Colchester, said in the House of Commons that the main reason he opposed the measure was that he had not met one woman in Essex who agreed with women's suffrage. Lydia Becker, Helen Taylor and Frances Power Cobbe, decided to take up this challenge and devised the idea of collecting signatures in Colchester for a petition that Karslake could then present to parliament. They found 129 women resident in the town willing to sign the petition and on 25th July, 1867, Karslake presented the list to parliament. Despite this petition the Mill amendment was defeated by 196 votes to 73.

In 1868 Lydia Becker became treasurer of the Married Women's Property Committee and also joined Josephine Butler in her campaign against the Contagious Diseases Acts. Becker continued to write articles about the need for parliamentary reform and in 1870 she established the Women's Suffrage Journal. Becker was also involved in other feminist campaigns.

The 1870 Education Act allowed women to vote and serve on School Boards. Lydia Becker was elected to the Manchester School Board where she took a strong interest in improving the education of girls in the city. Becker criticised the domestic education of girls in Manchester's schools and argued that boys should be taught to mend their own socks and cook their own meals.

In 1874 William Forsyth MP announced he was willing to promote a bill that would grant single, but not married women, the vote. Becker, who was unmarried, created a controversy in the suffrage movement when she supported this proposal. Although Becker only suggested this as a short-term strategy, some married suffragists, such as Emmeline Pankhurst, were outraged by her views. Later that year Becker was forced to resign from the Married Women's Property Committee.

In 1881 Becker received a letter from the Central Society for Women's Suffrage offering her the post of paid secretary of the organisation. She held the post for the next three years. Becker was elected as president of National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) in 1887.

Becker's biographer, Linda Walker, has argued: "As a public speaker she lacked oratorical flair, but was noted for persuasiveness and clarity of thought; she undertook onerous lecture tours at a time when it was thought unseemly for a lady to appear on a public platform. Physically stout from early womanhood, her broad, flat face, wire-rimmed spectacles, and plaited crown of hair were a cartoonist's delight, and she was much lampooned in the popular press. However, she quickly gained recognition as the movement's key strategist, directing national policy and tactics with a statesmanlike mind: the women-only great demonstrations held throughout the country in 1880 attracted capacity crowds and enormous publicity for the cause."

By the end of 1889 Becker's health began to fail and Helen Blackburn replaced her as editor of the Women's Suffrage Journal . Becker took medical advice to visit the health resort of Aix-les-Bains. While Lydia Becker was there she caught diphtheria and died on 21st July 1890.

On this day in 1828 John Betts sent a letter to Richard Carlile about child labour. "In 1805 when Samuel Davy was seven years of age he was sent from the workhouse in Southwark in London to Mr. Watson's Mill at Penny Dam near Preston. Later his brother was also sent to work in a mill. The parents did not know where Samuel and his brother were. The loss of her children, so preyed on the mind of Samuel's mother that it brought on insanity, and she died in a state of madness."

Many parents were unwilling to allow their children to work in these new textile factories. To overcome this labour shortage factory owners had to find other ways of obtaining workers. One solution to the problem was to buy children from orphanages and workhouses. The children became known as pauper apprentices. This involved the children signing contracts that virtually made them the property of the factory owner.

John Brown, the author of Robert Blincoe's Memoir, explained how eighty children were taken from St. Pancras Workhouse: "In the summer of 1799 a rumour circulated that there was going to be an agreement between the church wardens and the overseers of St. Pancras Workhouse and the owner of a great cotton mill, near Nottingham. The children were told that when they arrived at the cotton mill, they would be transformed into ladies and gentlemen: that they would be fed on roast beef and plum pudding, be allowed to ride their masters' horses, and have silver watches, and plenty of cash in their pockets. In August 1799, eighty boys and girls, who were seven years old, or were considered to be that age, became parish apprentices till they had acquired the age of twenty-one."

Robert Blincoe was disappointed when he arrived at Lowdam Mill, ten miles from Nottingham. "There was no cloth laid on the tables, to which the newcomers had been accustomed in the workhouse - no plates, nor knives, nor forks. At a signal given, the apprentices rushed to this door, and each, as he made way, received his portion, and withdrew to his place at the table. Blincoe was startled, seeing the boys pull out the fore-part of their shirts, and holding it up with both hands, received the hot boiled potatoes allotted for their supper. The girls, less indecently, held up their dirty, greasy aprons, that were saturated with grease and dirt, and having received their allowance, scampered off as hard as they could, to their respective places, where, with a keen appetite, each apprentice devoured her allowance, and seemed anxiously to look about for more. Next, the hungry crew ran to the tables of the newcomers, and voraciously devoured every crust of bread and every drop of porridge they had left."

Pauper apprentices were cheaper to house than adult workers. It cost Samuel Greg who owned the large Quarry Bank Mill at Styal, a £100 to build a cottage for a family, whereas his apprentice house, that cost £300, provided living accommodation for over 90 children. At first the children came from local parishes such as Wilmslow and Macclesfield, but later he went as far as Liverpool and London to find these young workers. To encourage factory owners to take workhouse children, people like Greg were paid between £2 and £4 for each child they employed. Greg also demanded that the children were sent to him with "two shifts, two pairs of stockings and two aprons".

The same approach was taken by the owners of silk mills. George Courtauld, who owned a silk mill in Braintree, Essex, took children from workhouses in London. Although offered children of all ages he usually took them from "within the age of 10 and 13". Courtauld insisted that each child arrived "with a complete change of common clothing". A contract was signed with the workhouse that stated that Courtauld would be paid £5 for each child taken. Another £5 was paid after the child's first year. The children also signed a contract with Courtauld that bound them to the mill until the age of 21. This helped to reduce Courtauld's labour costs. Whereas adult males at Courtauld's mills earned 7s. 2d., children under 11 received only 1s. 5d. a week.

Owners of large textile mills purchased large numbers of children from workhouses in all the large towns and cities. By the late 1790s about a third of the workers in the cotton industry were pauper apprentices. Child workers were especially predominant in large factories in rural areas. For example, in 1797, of the 310 wortkers employed by Birch Robinson & Co in the village of Backbarrow, 210 were parish apprentices. However, in the major textile towns, such as Manchester and Oldham, parish apprenticeships was fairly uncommon.

On this day in 1836 Winslow Homer was born in Boston, Massachusetts. When he was nineteen he was apprenticed as to the lithographic firm of John Bufford. In 1859 he moved to New York where he worked as a freelance illustrator.

On the outbreak of the American Civil War Homer was sent by Harper's Weekly, to draw pictures of the fighting. He observed the battle of Bull Run before accompanying the Army of the Potomac during its Peninsula Campaign. He also drew pictures of the siege of Petersburg.

During the war Homer developed a reputation for realism and this was reinforced with paintings such as, In Front of Yorktown, Playing Old Soldier, A Rainy Day in Camp and A Skirmish in the Wilderness. His best known picture during this period, was the highly acclaimed, Prisoners from the Front (1866).

Although Homer owned a studio in New York he travelled widely, including in the Deep South, where he painted The Cotton Pickers (1876) and Dressing for the Carnival (1877).

After living in Tynemouth, a small fishing village in England (1881-82) he returned to the United States and settled at Prouts Neck, on the coast of Maine. Over the next year he concentrated on seascapes such as The Gulf Stream (1899), Moonlight - Wood's Island Light (1886), Northeaster (1895) and Early Morning After a Storm at Sea (1902).

Winslow Homer died on 29th September, 1910.

On this day in 1842 James Forten died. Forten was born in Philadelphia in 1766. Apprenticed as a sailmaker he became a foreman in 1786 and by 1798 he owned his own company in 1798. A successful businessman he amassed a fortune of over $100,000.

Forten took an active interest in politics and campaigned for temperance, women's suffrage and equal rights for African-Americans. In 1800 he organised a petition calling for Congress to emancipate all slaves. He also wrote and published a pamphlet attacking the Pennsylvania legislature for prohibiting the immigration of freed black slaves from other states.

In 1817 Forden joined with Richard Allen to form the Convention of Color. The organization argued for the settlement of escaped black slaves in Canada but was strongly opposed to any plans for repatriation to Africa. Other leading figures that became involved in the movement was William Wells Brown, Samuel Eli Cornish and Henry Highland Garnet.

In 1833 Forten helped to form the American Anti-Slavery Society. A close friend of William Lloyd Garrison, Forten contributed to his anti-slavery newspaper, The Liberator.

On this day in 1855 the Illustrated London News publish an article on Florence Nightingale on working in Scutari. "Although the public have been presented with several portrait-sketches of the lady who has so generously left this country to attend to the sufferings of the sick and wounded at Constantinople, we have assurance that these pictures are "singularly and painfully unlike". We have, therefore, taken the most direct means of obtaining a sketch of this excellent lady, in the dress she now wears, in one of the corridors of the sick".

In March, 1853, Russia invaded Turkey. Britain and France, concerned about the growing power of Russia, went to Turkey's aid. This conflict became known as the Crimean War. Soon after British soldiers arrived in Turkey, they began going down with cholera and malaria. Within a few weeks an estimated 8,000 men were suffering from these two diseases.

William Howard Russell, who worked for The Times, reported the Siege of Sevastopol. He found Lord Raglan uncooperative and wrote to his editor, John Thadeus Delane alleging unfairly that "Lord Raglan is utterly incompetent to lead an army". Roger T. Stearn has argued: "Unwelcomed and obstructed by Lord Raglan, senior officers (except de Lacy Evans), and staff, yet neither banned, controlled, nor censored, William Russell made friends with junior officers, and from them and other ranks, and by observation, gained his information. He wore quasi-military clothes and was armed, but did not fight. He was not a great writer but his reports were vivid, dramatic, interesting, and convincing.... His reports identified with the British forces and praised British heroism. He exposed logistic and medical bungling and failure, and the suffering of the troops."

Russell's reports revealled the sufferings of the British Army during the winter of 1854-1855. These accounts upset Queen Victoria who described them as these "infamous attacks against the army which have disgraced our newspapers". Prince Albert, who took a keen interest in military matters, commented that "the pen and ink of one miserable scribbler is despoiling the country." Lord Raglan complained that Russell had revealed military information potentially useful to the enemy.

William Howard Russell reported that British soldiers began going down with cholera and malaria. Within a few weeks an estimated 8,000 men were suffering from these two diseases. When Mary Seacole heard about the cholera epidemic she travelled to London to offer her services to the British Army. There was considerable prejudice against women's involvement in medicine and her offer was rejected. When Russell publicised the fact that a large number of soldiers were dying of cholera there was a public outcry, and the government was forced to change its mind. Florence Nightingale volunteered her services and was eventually given permission to take a group of thirty-eight nurses to Turkey.

Nightingale found the conditions in the army hospital in Scutari appalling. The men were kept in rooms without blankets or decent food. Unwashed, they were still wearing their army uniforms that were "stiff with dirt and gore". In these conditions, it was not surprising that in army hospitals, war wounds only accounted for one death in six. Diseases such as typhus, cholera and dysentery were the main reasons why the death-rate was so high amongst wounded soldiers.

Edward T. Cook, the author of The Life of Florence Nightingale (1913), quoted one of the men in the hospital that she treated: "Florence Nightingale is a ministering angel without any exaggeration in these hospitals, and as her slender form glides quietly along each corridor, every poor fellow's face softens with gratitude at the sight of her. When all the medical officers have retired for the night and silence and darkness have settled down upon those miles of prostrate sick, she may be observed alone, with a little lamp in her hand, making her solitary rounds."

Military officers and doctors objected to Nightingale's views on reforming military hospitals. They interpreted her comments as an attack on their professionalism and she was made to feel unwelcome. Florence Nightingale received very little help from the military until she used her contacts at The Times to report details of the way that the British Army treated its wounded soldiers. John Delane, the editor of newspaper took up her cause, and after a great deal of publicity, Nightingale was given the task of organizing the barracks hospital after the battle of Inkerman and by improving the quality of the sanitation she was able to dramatically reduce the death-rate of her patients.

Sidney Herbert wrote "There broke out in different parts of the country a feeling of immediate and spontaneous expression of public gratitude and isolated portions of the country were preparing to make gifts to her." Charles Dickens and Angela Burdett-Coutts were two people who wished to contribute. Nightingale had spoken about the "sodden misery in the hospital". On Dickens's advice, at the end of January 1855, Burdett-Coutts ordered from William Jeakes, an engineer working in Bloomsbury, a drying closet machine. It was built at a cost of £150. It was shipped out in parts and re-assembled in Istanbul.

On this day in 1868 Andrew Johnson becomes the first President of the United States to be impeached. Abraham Lincoln originally selected General Benjamin Butler as his 1864 vice-presidential candidate. Butler, a war hero, had been a member of the Democratic Party, but his experiences during the American Civil War had made him increasingly radical. Simon Cameron was sent to talk to Butler at Fort Monroe about joining the campaign. However, Butler rejected the offer, jokingly saying that he would only accept if Lincoln promised "that within three months after his inauguration he would die".

It was now decided that Johnson would make the best candidate for vice president. By choosing the governor of Tennessee, Lincoln would emphasis the fact that Southern states were still part of the Union. He would also gain the support of the large War Democrat faction. At a convention of the Republican Party on 8th July, 1864, Johnson received 200 votes to Hamlin's 150 and became Lincoln's running mate.

During the election Johnson made it clear that he supported what he called "white man's government". However, when faced with black audiences he spoke of the need of improved civil rights and on one occasion during a speech in Washington offered to "be your Moses and lead you through the Red Sea of war and bondage to a fairer future of liberty and peace."

The military victories of Ulysses S. Grant, William Sherman, George Meade, Philip Sheridan and George H. Thomas in the American Civil War in 1864 reinforced the idea that the Union Army was close to bringing the war to an end. This helped Lincoln's presidential campaign and with 2,216,067 votes, Lincoln comfortably beat General George McClellan (1,808,725) in the election.

Andrew Johnson had been a heavy drinker for several years. Both his sons, Charles and Robert, were alcoholics. Charles Johnson died in April 1863 after falling from his horse. Colonel Robert Johnson, a member of the Union Army, was found to be drunk while on duty and was sent home in order to avoid further embarrassment to the Vice President.

On inauguration day Johnson was drunk while he made his speech to Congress. After making several inappropriate comments Hannibal Hamlin, the former Vice President had to intervene and help him back to his seat. After the inauguration, one of the senators, Zachariah Chandler, wrote to his wife that Johnson "was too drunk to perform his duties and disgraced himself and the Senate by making a drunken foolish speech."

On 14th April, 1865 Abraham Lincoln went to Ford's Theatre with his wife, Mary Lincoln, Clara Harris and Major Henry Rathbone to see a play called Our American Cousin. John Parker, a constable in the Washington Metropolitan Police Force, was detailed to sit on the chair outside the presidential box. During the third act Parker left to get a drink. Soon afterwards, John Wilkes Booth, entered Lincoln's box and shot the president in the back of the head. William Seward (Secretary of State) was also attacked by one of Booth's fellow conspirators, Lewis Paine. Another friend of Booth's, George Atzerodt, had been ordered to kill Johnson. Despite making the necessary preparations he surprisingly made no attempt to do this.

Abraham Lincoln died at 7.22 on the morning of 15th April. Three hours later Chief Justice Salmon Chase administered the oath of office at Johnson's Kirkwood House. Later that day a group of Radical Republicans led by Benjamin Wade met with Johnson. It was suggested that Henry G. Stebbins, John Covode and Benjamin Butler should be appointed to the Cabinet to make sure that laws would be passed that would benefit former slaves in the South.

Johnson was unwilling to change the Cabinet he had inherited from Abraham Lincoln. This included William Seward (Secretary of State), Henry McCulloch (Secretary of the Treasury), Edwin M. Stanton (Secretary of War), Gideon Welles (Secretary of the Navy), James Speed (Attorney General), John Usher (Secretary of the Interior) and William Dennison (Postmaster General).

However, Johnson insisted that he intended to punish leading Confederates: "Robbery is a crime; rape is a crime; treason is a crime; and crime must be punished. The law provides for it; the courts are open. Treason must be made infamous and traitors punished." After these discussions Benjamin Wade told Johnson that he total faith in his new administration.

On 17th April Johnson received a deputation led by John Mercer Langston, the president of the National Rights League. Langston was a strong supporter of universal male suffrage and like the Radical Republicans left the meeting satisfied with the response of the new president. Johnson also had visits from other progressives such as Robert Dale Owen and Carl Schurz who advocated racial equality.

On 1st May, 1865, President Andrew Johnson ordered the formation of a nine-man military commission to try the conspirators involved in the assassination of Lincoln. It was argued by Edwin M. Stanton, the Secretary of War, that the men should be tried by a military court as Lincoln had been Commander in Chief of the army. Several members of the cabinet, disapproved, preferring a civil trial. However, James Speed, the Attorney General, agreed with Stanton and therefore the defendants did not enjoy the advantages of a jury trial.

The trial began on 10th May, 1865. The military commission included leading generals such as David Hunter, Lewis Wallace, Robert Foster, August Kautz, Thomas Harris and Albion Howe. The Attorney General selected Joseph Holt and John Bingham as the government's chief prosecutors.

Mary Surrat, Lewis Paine, George Atzerodt, David Herold, Samuel Mudd, Michael O'Laughlin, Edman Spangler and Samuel Arnold were all charged with conspiring to murder Lincoln. During the trial Joseph Holt and John Bingham attempted to persuade the military commission that Jefferson Davis and the Confederate government had been involved in conspiracy.

Joseph Holt attempted to obscure the fact that there were two plots: the first to kidnap and the second to assassinate. It was important for the prosecution not to reveal the existence of a diary taken from the body of John Wilkes Booth. The diary made it clear that the assassination plan was established just before the act took place. The defence surprisingly did not call for Booth's diary to be produced in court.

On 29th June, 1865 Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, George Atzerodt, David Herold, Samuel Mudd, Michael O'Laughlin, Edman Spangler and Samuel Arnold were found guilty of being involved in the conspiracy to murder Lincoln. Surratt, Powell, Atzerodt and Herold were hanged at Washington Penitentiary on 7th July, 1865. Surratt, who was expected to be reprieved, was the first woman in American history to be executed. Later Joseph Holt claimed that Johnson surprisingly ignored the Military Commission's plea for mercy.

The Radical Republicans became concerned when Johnson began surrounding himself with advisers such as Preston King, Henry W. Halleck and Winfield S. Hancock, who were well known for their reactionary views. Johnson also began to clash with those cabinet members such as Edwin M. Stanton, William Dennison and James Speed who favoured the granting of black suffrage. In this he was supported by conservatives in the government such as Gideon Welles and and Henry McCulloch.

Southern politicians began to realize that Andrew Johnson was going to use his position to prevent reform taking place. One Confederate senator, Benjamin Hill, wrote from his prison cell: "By this wise and noble statesmanship you have become the benefactor of the Southern people in the hour of their direst extremity and entitled yourself to the gratitude of those living and those yet to live."

Johnson now began to argue that African American men should only be given the vote when they were able to pass some type of literacy test. He advised William Sharkey, the governor of Mississippi, that he should only "extend the elective franchise to all persons of color who can read the Constitution of the United States in English and write their names, and to all persons of color who own real estate valued at not less than two hundred and fifty dollars."

In early 1865 General William T. Sherman set aside a coastal strip in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida for the exclusive use of former slaves. A few months later, General Oliver Howard, the head of the new Freeman's Bureau, issued a circular regularizing the return of lands to previous owners but exempting those lands that were already being cultivated by freeman. Johnson was furious with Sherman and Howard for making these decisions and over-ruled them.

Johnson also upset radicals and moderates in the Republican Party when he issued an amnesty proclamation exempting fourteen classes from prosecution for their actions during the American Civil War. This included high military, civil, and judicial officers of the Confederacy, officers who had surrendered their commissions in the armed forces of the United States, war criminals and those with taxable property of more than $20,000. Vice President Alexander Stephens was one of those that Johnson pardoned.

Johnson became increasingly hostile to the work of General Oliver Howard and the Freeman's Bureau. Established by Congress on 3rd March, 1865, the bureau was designed to protect the interests of former slaves. This included helping them to find new employment and to improve educational and health facilities. In the year that followed the bureau spent $17,000,000 establishing 4,000 schools, 100 hospitals and providing homes and food for former slaves.

In early 1866 Lyman Trumbull introduced proposals to extend the powers of the Freeman's Bureau . When this measure was passed by Congress it was vetoed by Johnson. However, the Radical Republicans were able to gain the support of moderate members of the Republican Party and Johnson's objections were overridden by Congress.

In April 1866, Johnson also vetoed the Civil Rights Bill that was designed to protect freed slaves from Southern Black Codes (laws that placed severe restrictions on freed slaves such as prohibiting their right to vote, forbidding them to sit on juries, limiting their right to testify against white men, carrying weapons in public places and working in certain occupations). On 6th April, Johnson's veto was overridden in the Senate by 33 to 15.

Johnson told Thomas C. Fletcher, the governor of Missouri: "This is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am President, it shall be a government for white men." His views on racial equality was clearly defined in a letter to Benjamin B. French, the commissioner of public buildings: "Everyone would, and must admit, that the white race was superior to the black, and that while we ought to do our best to bring them up to our present level, that, in doing so, we should, at the same time raise our own intellectual status so that the relative position of the two races would be the same."

Johnson's unwillingness to promote African American civil rights in the South upset the radical members of his Cabinet. In 1866 William Dennison (Postmaster General), James Speed (Attorney General) and James Harlan (Secretary of the Interior) all resigned. They were all replaced by the conservatives Alexander Randall (Postmaster General), Henry Stanbury (Attorney General) and Orville Browning (Secretary of the Interior).

In June, 1866, the Radical Republicans managed to persuade Congress to pass the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. The amendment was designed to grant citizenship to and protect the civil liberties of recently freed slaves. It did this by prohibiting states from denying or abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, depriving any person of his life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or denying to any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The elections of 1866 increased the the Republican Party two-thirds majority in Congress. There were also a larger number of Radical Republicans and in March, 1867, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act. This act forbade the President to remove any officeholder, including Cabinet members, who had been appointed with Senate consent. Once again Johnson attempted to veto the act.

In 1867 members of Radical Republicans such as Benjamin Loan, James Ashley and Benjamin Butler, began claiming in Congress that Johnson had been involved in the conspiracy to murder Abraham Lincoln. Butler asked the question: "Who it was that could profit by assassination (of Lincoln) who could not profit by capture and abduction? He followed this with: "Who it was expected by the conspirators would succeed to Lincoln, if the knife made a vacancy?" He also implied that Johnson had been involved in tampering with the diary of John Wilkes Booth. "Who spoliated that book? Who suppressed that evidence?"

Much was made of the fact that John Wilkes Booth had visited Johnson's house on the day of the assassination and left his card with the message: "Don't wish to disturb you. Are you at home?" Some people claimed that Booth was trying to undermine Johnson in his future role as president by implying he was involved in the plot. However, as his critics pointed out, this was unnecessary as it was Booth's plan to have Johnson killed by George Atzerodt at the same time that Abraham Lincoln was being assassinated.

On 7th January, 1867, James Ashley charged Johnson with the "usurpation of power and violation of law by corruptly using the appointing, pardoning, and veto powers, by disposing corruptly of the property of the United States, and by interfering in elections." Congress responded by referring Ashley's resolution to the Judiciary Committee.

Congress passed the first Reconstruction Acts on 2nd March, 1867. The South was now divided into five military districts, each under a major general. New elections were to be held in each state with freed male slaves being allowed to vote. The act also included an amendment that offered readmission to the Southern states after they had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment and guaranteed adult male suffrage. Johnson immediately vetoed the bill but Congress repassed the bill the same day.

Johnson consulted General Ulysses S. Grant before selecting the generals to administer the military districts. Eventually he appointed John Schofield (Virginia), Daniel Sickles (the Carolinas), John Pope (Georgia, Alabama and Florida), Edward Ord (Arkansas and Mississippi) and Philip Sheridan (Louisiana and Texas).

It soon became clear that the Southern states would prefer military rule to civil government based on universal male suffrage. Congress therefore passed a supplementary Reconstruction Act on 23rd March that authorized military commanders to supervise elections and generally to provide the machinery for constituting new governments. Once again Johnson vetoed the act on the grounds that it interfered with the right of the American citizen to "be left to the free exercise of his own judgment when he is engaged in the work of forming the fundamental law under which he is to live."

Radical Republicans were growing increasing angry with Johnson over his attempts to veto the extension of the Freeman's Bureau, the Civil Rights Bill and the Reconstruction Acts. This became worse when Johnson dismissed Edwin M. Stanton, his Secretary of War, and the only radical in his Cabinet and replaced him with Ulysses S. Grant. Stanton refused to go and was supported by the Senate. Grant now stood down and was replaced by Lorenzo Thomas.This was a violation of the Tenure of Office Act and some members of the Republican Party began talking about impeaching Johnson.

At the beginning of the 40th Congress Benjamin Wade became the new presiding officer of the Senate. As Johnson did not have a vice-president this meant that Wade was now the legal successor to the president. This was highly significant as attempts to impeach the president had already began.

Johnson continued to undermine the Reconstruction Acts. This included the removal of two of the most radical military governors. Daniel Sickles (the Carolinas) and Philip Sheridan (Louisiana and Texas) were replaced them with Edward Canby and Winfield Hancock.

In November, 1867, the Judiciary Committee voted 5-4 that Johnson be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors. The majority report written by George H. Williams contained a series of charges including pardoning traitors, profiting from the illegal disposal of railroads in Tennessee, defying Congress, denying the right to reconstruct the South and attempts to prevent the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment.

On 30th March, 1868, Johnson's impeachment trial began. Johnson was the first president of the United States to be impeached. The trial, held in the Senate in March, was presided over by Chief Justice Salmon Chase. Johnson was defended by his former Attotney General, Henry Stanbury, and William M. Evarts. One of Johnson's fiercest critics, Thaddeus Stevens was mortally ill, but he was determined to take part in the proceedings and was carried to the Senate in a chair.

Charles Sumner, another long-time opponent of Johnson led the attack. He argued that: "This is one of the last great battles with slavery. Driven from the legislative chambers, driven from the field of war, this monstrous power has found a refuge in the executive mansion, where, in utter disregard of the Constitution and laws, it seeks to exercise its ancient, far-reaching sway. All this is very plain. Nobody can question it. Andrew Johnson is the impersonation of the tyrannical slave power. In him it lives again. He is the lineal successor of John C. Calhoun and Jefferson Davis; and he gathers about him the same supporters."

Although a large number of senators believed that Johnson was guilty of the charges, they disliked the idea of Benjamin Wade becoming the next president. Wade, who believed in women's suffrage and trade union rights, was considered by many members of the Republican Party as being an extreme radical. James Garfield warned that Wade was "a man of violent passions, extreme opinions and narrow views who was surrounded by the worst and most violent elements in the Republican Party."

Others Republicans such as James Grimes argued that Johnson had less than a year left in office and that they were willing to vote against impeachment if Johnson was willing to provide some guarantees that he would not continue to interfere with Reconstruction.

When the vote was taken all members of the Democratic Party voted against impeachment. So also did those Republicans such as Lyman Trumbull, William Fessenden and James Grimes, who disliked the idea of Benjamin Wade becoming president. The result was 35 to 19, one vote short of the required two-thirds majority for conviction. The editor of The Detroit Post wrote that "Andrew Johnson is innocent because Ben Wade is guilty of being his successor."

A further vote on 26th May, also failed to get the necessary majority needed to impeach Johnson. The Radical Republicans were angry that not all the Republican Party voted for a conviction and Benjamin Butler claimed that Johnson had bribed two of the senators who switched their votes at the last moment.

On 25th July, 1868 Johnson vetoed the decision by Congress to extend the activities of the Freeman's Bureau for another year. Once again Johnson decision was speedily overturned. Johnson critics claimed that he had taken these decisions in an attempt to win the Democratic Party nomination. The party approved Johnson's actions but chose Horatio Seymour as its presidential candidate.

Johnson continued to issue pardons for people who had participated in the rebellion. By the end of his period in office he gave 13,350 pardons, including one for Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy during the American Civil War.

On 25th December, 1868, Johnson used his last annual message as president to attack the Reconstruction Acts. He claimed that: "The attempt to place the white population under the domination of persons of color in the South has impaired, if not destroyed, the friendly relations that had previously existed between them; and mutual distrust has engendered a feeling of animosity which, leading in some instances to collision and bloodshed, has prevented the cooperation between the two races so essential to the success of industrial enterprise in the Southern States."

Johnson retired from office in March 1869. He returned to his 350 acre farm near Greenville, Tennessee. Soon afterwards his son, Robert Johnson, who had been unable to overcome his alcoholism, committed suicide. His sole remaining son, Andrew Johnson, wrote from Georgetown College, promising his parents that he would never "let any kind of intoxicating liquor" pass his lips.

Andrew Johnson failed in his attempt to win a seat in the Senate in 1869. He was also unsuccessful in his bid for a seat in the House of Representatives in 1872. However, he was elected to the Senate shortly before his death at Carter Station, Tennessee, on 31st July, 1875.

On this day in 1909 Ethel MacDonald, one of nine children, was born in Bellshill. She left home at sixteen and did a variety of jobs over the next couple of years.

MacDonald joined the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and according to to Daniel Gray, the author of Homage to Caledonia (2008), she was "a working class woman of some erudition, she became local ILP secretary in her teens, and became fluent in French and German".

In 1931 Ethel MacDonald met Guy Aldred in Glasgow. Impressed by her revolutionary zeal he appointed her secretary of the Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation (APCF), an organization formed by Aldred in 1921. The APCF was breakaway group from the Communist Party of Great Britain.

In June 1934 Ethel MacDonald and Aldred and were both involved in the formation of the United Socialist Movement (USM), an anarcho-communist political organisation based in Scotland. Several members of the Independent Labour Party who had lost their belief in the parliamentary road to socialism joined the party. MacDonald, like other members of the USM, had been deeply influenced by the ideas of William Morris.

On the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War she travelled with Jenny Patrick, Aldred's wife, to Barcelona as a representative of the USM. Soon afterwards she was employed by the CNT-FAI's foreign language information centre. Later she gave nightly English-language political broadcasts on Radio Barcelona.

On 14th November, 1936 Buenaventura Durruti arrived in Madrid from Aragón with his Anarchist Brigade. Six days later Durruti was killed while fighting on the outskirts of the city. Durruti's supporters in the CNT claimed that he had been murdered by members of the Communist Party (PCE).

Over the next few months the National Confederation of Trabajo (CNT), the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI) and the Worker's Party (POUM) played an important role in running Barcelona. This brought them into conflict with other left-wing groups in the city including the Union General de Trabajadores (UGT), the Catalan Socialist Party (PSUC) and the Communist Party (PCE). MacDonald became involved in this conflict and in January 1937 she began to transmit regular English-language reports on the war on the radio station run by the CNT.

Ethel MacDonald soon had a strong following for her radio broadcasts. The Glasgow Herald reported: "A prominent news editor in Hollywood says that he has received hundred of letters concerning Ethel MacDonald, stating that the writers, in all parts of the USA and Canada, enjoyed her announcements and talks from Barcelona radio, not because they agreed with what she said, but because they thought she had the finest radio speaking voice they had ever heard."

In one broadcast she argued: "There is no doubt that they magnificent struggle of the Spanish workers challenges the entire theory and historical interpretation of parliamentary socialism. The civil war is a living proof of the futility and worthlessness of parliamentary democracy as a medium for social change."

On the 3rd May 1937, Rodriguez Salas, the Chief of Police, ordered the Civil Guard and the Assault Guard to take over the Telephone Exchange, which had been operated by the CNT since the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. Members of the CNT in the Telephone Exchange were armed and refused to give up the building. Members of the CNT, FAI and POUM became convinced that this was the start of an attack on them by the UGT, PSUC and the PCE and that night barricades were built all over the city.

Fighting broke out on the 4th May. Later that day the anarchist ministers, Federica Montseny and Juan Garcia Oliver, arrived in Barcelona and attempted to negotiate a cease-fire. When this proved to be unsuccessful, Juan Negrin, Vicente Uribe and Jesus Hernández called on Francisco Largo Caballero to use government troops to takeover the city. Largo Caballero also came under pressure from Luis Companys, the leader of the PSUC, not to take this action, fearing that this would breach Catalan autonomy.

On 6th May death squads assassinated a number of prominent anarchists in their homes. The following day over 6,000 Assault Guards arrived from Valencia and gradually took control of Barcelona. It is estimated that about 400 people were killed during what became known as the May Riots. During this crackdown MacDonald assisted the escape of anarchists wanted by the Communist secret police. As a result she became known as the "Scots Scarlet Pimpernel".

On 12th June, 1937, Bob Smillie, a member of the Independent Labour Party, who had been fighting with the POUM forces, died while being held by the Valencia police. He officially died from peritonitis. However, rumours began to circulate that he had died following a beating in his prison cell. MacDonald now began writing newspaper articles and making radio broadcasts claiming that Smillie had been executed by the secret police.

Eventually she herself was arrested by the authorities. She later told the Glasgow Evening Times: "My arrest was typical of the attitude of the Communist Party... Assault Guards and officials of the Public Order entered the house in which I lived late one night. Without any explanation they commenced to go through thoroughly every room and every cupboard in the house. After having discovered that which to them was sufficient to hang me - revolutionary literature etc."

Fenner Brockway of the Independent Labour Party worked behind the scenes to obtain MacDonald's release. He argued "she is an anarchist and has no connection with our party". On 8th July 1937, Ethel MacDonald was released in prison. However, within a few days she was rearrested again and spent another 12 days in captivity. When she was freed she went into hiding in Barcelona. She wrote to Guy Aldred and told him: "I am still here and unable to leave the country legally. I am in hiding... I cannot get a visa. If I apply I shall be arrested."

Ethel MacDonald's mother received a letter from Helen Lennox saying that her daughter's was in danger because of what she knew about the Bob Smillie case: "The Secret Service operating today in Spain comes by night and its victims are never seen again. Bob Smillie they didn't dare to bump off openly, but he may have suffered more because of that. Your Ethel certainly believes his death was intended. She prophesied it before his death took place, and said he would not be allowed out of the country with the knowledge he had. What worries me more than anything is that Ethel has already been ill and would be easy prey for anyone trying to make her death appear natural."

In September 1937 MacDonald managed to escape from Spain. After leaving the country she made speeches on the way the Communist Party (PCE) had been acting in during the Spanish Civil War in Paris and Amsterdam. She returned to Glasgow in November, 1937 and in a speech to 300 people at Central Station she said: "I went to Spain full of hopes and dreams. It promised to be utopia realised. I return full of sadness, dulled by the tragedy I have seen. I have lived through scenes and events that belong to the French revolution."

MacDonald also argued that Bob Smillie had been killed by the officials of the Communist Party (PCE). According to Daniel Gray, the author of Homage to Caledonia (2008): "she did her utmost to convince the public that Bob Smillie had been murdered, alleging that the secret police had assassinated him in cold blood."

David Murray, the Independent Labour Party representative in Spain, denied this and he wrote to John McNair saying: "Ethel MacDonald has been quite a trouble and my tactics are to choke her off. Murray's story was accepted until George Orwell arrived back in London. In his book, Homage to Catalonia (1938), Orwell argued that Smillie had died "an evil and meaningless death".

Alex Smillie, Bob's father, became convinced that his son had been murdered. David Murray wrote to him arguing: "I am convinced, and this I can affirm on oath, that Bob died a natural death. All my observations and impressions lead me to this conclusion. Judgement is a human thing and liable to error, but in spite of every curious and mysterious circumstance, I am convinced that Bob was never ill-treated nor was he done to death."

Georges Kopp, Smillie's commander in Spain, also argued that Smillie had been murdered: "The doctor states that Bob Smillie had the skin and the flesh of his skin perforated by a powerful kick delivered by a foot shod in the nailed boot; the intestines were partly hanging outside. Another blow had severed the left side connection between the jaw and the skull and the former was merely hanging on the right side. Bob died about 30 minutes after reaching the hospital."

After her return from Spain, Ethel MacDonald joined forces with Guy Aldred, Jenny Patrick, John Taylor Caldwell to establish The Strickland Press, which published regular issues of the USM organ, The Word. MacDonald considered as the unofficial manager, bookkeeper and printer of the Strickland Press.

Ethel MacDonald was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in February 1958 and lost her ability to speak. Within three years she died in Glasgow's Knightswood Hospital at the age of 51, on 1st December 1960.

On this day in 1920 Nancy Astor becomes the first woman to speak in the House of Commons. In 1904 Nancy met and married the immensely wealthy Waldorf Astor. She later commented: "I married beneath me, all women do." The couple moved into Cliveden, a large estate in Buckinghamshire on the River Thames. They also had a home in St. James's Square.

Waldorf Astor was a member of the Conservative Party and represented the Sutton division of Plymouth in the House of Commons. On the death of his father in 1919, Astor became a member of the House of Lords. Nancy now became the party's candidate in the resulting by-election. Oswald Mosley was one of those who campaigned for her in the election: "She was less shy than any woman - or any man - one has ever known. She'd address the audience and then she'd go across to some old woman scowling in a neighbouring doorway, who simply hated her, take both her hands and kiss her on the cheek or something of that sort. She was absolutely unabashed by any situation. Great effrontery but also, of course, enormous charm. People were usually overcome by it. She was much better when she was interrupted. She must have prayed for hecklers and interrupters. She certainly got a lot."

Nancy Astor beat the Liberal Party candidate, Isaac Foot, and on 1st December 1919 became the first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons (the first woman to be elected was Constance Markievicz in 1918 but as a member of Sinn Fein had disqualified herself by refusing to take the oath). Markievicz, like many feminists, was highly critical that a woman who had not been part of the suffrage campaign had been elected to parliament. She accused her being a member of the "upper classes" and "out of touch" with the needs of ordinary people. Norah Dacre Fox, one of the leaders of the Women's Social and Political Union pointed out: "the first woman to be elected for an English constituency was an American born citizen, who had no credentials to represent British women in their own parliament save that she had married a British subject." Rachel Strachey said she was "lamentably ignorant of everything she ought to know".

Astor's maiden speech was in favour of the Temperance Society and in 1923 she introduced a private member's bill that raised to eighteen the age qualification for the purchase of alcoholic drinks. Astor worked closely with Margaret Wintringham, the second woman to be elected to the House of Commons. In a speech in July 1923 she argued: "In 1920 nearly 2,000 persons were cautioned by these women police for acts of indecency in parks and public places. There were nearly 3,000 persons cautioned for unseemly behaviour in parks, and 2,700 young girls were cautioned for loitering in the streets, and advised as to the danger of doing so; 1,000 girls passed into homes and hospitals, and 6,400 respectable girls and women stranded at night were found shelter. We had the evidence of Sir Nevil Macready, Sir Leonard Dunning, and chief constables and social workers, and the Committee unanimously reported that in thickly populated areas, where offences against the law relating to women and children are not infrequent, there was not only scope, but urgent need, for the employment of women police, and they also said that the women should be specially qualified, highly trained and well paid."

In the 1930s Nancy Astor and her husband, Waldorf Astor held regular weekend parties at their home Cliveden, a large estate in Buckinghamshire on the River Thames. Those who attended included Philip Henry Kerr (11th Marquess of Lothian), Edward Wood (1st Earl of Halifax), Geoffrey Dawson, Samuel Hoare, Lionel Curtis, Nevile Henderson, Robert Brand and Edward Algernon Fitzroy. Most members of the group were supporters of a close relationship with Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. The group included several influential people. Astor owned The Observer, Dawson was editor of The Times, Hoare was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Halifax was a minister of the government who would later become foreign secretary and Fitzroy was Speaker of the Commons.

Norman Rose, the author of The Cliveden Set (2000): "Lothian, Dawson, Brand, Curtis and the Astors - formed a close-knit band, on intimate terms with each other for most of their adult life. Here indeed was a consortium of like-minded people, actively engaged in public life, close to the inner circles of power, intimate with Cabinet ministers, and who met periodically at Cliveden or at 4 St James Square (or occasionally at other venues). Nor can there be any doubt that, broadly speaking, they supported - with one notable exception - the government's attempts to reach an agreement with Hitler's Germany, or that their opinions, propagated with vigour, were condemned by many as embarrassingly pro-German."

On 17th June, 1936, Claude Cockburn, produced an article called "The Best People's Front" in his anti-fascist newsletter, The Week. He argued that a group that he called the Astor network, were having a strong influence over the foreign policies of the British government. He pointed out that members of this group controlled The Times and The Observer and had attained an "extraordinary position of concentrated power" and had become "one of the most important supports of German influence".

On this day in 1923 the Daily Express publish an article on German inflation. "A Berlin couple who were about to celebrate their golden wedding received an official letter advising them that the mayor, in accordance with Prussian custom, would call and present them with a donation of money. Next morning the mayor, accompanied by several aldermen in picturesque robes, arrived at the aged couple's house, and solemnly handed over in the name of the Prussian State, 1,000,000,000,000 marks or one halfpenny."

After the First World War Germany suffered from inflation. In January, 1921, there were 64 marks to the dollar. By November, 1923 this had changed to 4,200,000,000,000 marks to the dollar. Some politicians in the United States and Britain began to realize that the terms of the Versailles Treaty had been too harsh and in April 1924 Charles Dawes presented a report on German economic problems to the Allied Reparations Committee. The report proposed a plan for regulating annual payments of reparations and the reorganizing the German State Bank so as to stabilize the currency. Promises were also made to provide Germany with foreign loans.

These policies were successful and by the end of 1924 inflation had been brought under control and the economy began to improve. By 1928 unemployment had fallen to 8.4 per cent of the workforce. The German people gradually gained a new faith in their democratic system and began to find the extremist solutions proposed by people such as Adolf Hitler unattractive.

On this day in 1993 Bobby Moore died. Robert "Bobby" Moore, the only son of Robert (Bob) and Doris Moore, was born in Upney Hospital on 12th April 1941, during the Blitz. His aunt, Ena Herbert, recalled: "Little Robert was delivered in Upney hospital... Doris stayed in the hospital that night and came home to Waverley Gardens the next day... That night there was a very heavy German bombing raid and an explosion in the neighbourhood blasted ceilings down and blew windows in... Bob's mother and Bob laid across the baby and Doris to protect them from injury. The raid was so bad they had to evacuate Doris and little Robert from Waverley Gardens, which was near the industrial area, close to the power station on the river, which was a target for the German bombs."

The Moore family lived at 43 Waverley Gardens in Barking and Bobby attended Westbury Primary School. His parents supported Barking Football Club and attended all their home and away games. Moore passed his 11-plus and went to Tom Hood Technical High School in Leyton. Moore later recalled: "The first two months were murder. I was the only boy from my district. Up at seven a.m., on my own on the bus from home to Barking station, train to Wanstead, trolleybus to Leyton, long walk to the school. I was sick with it. I went to the doctor pining for any sort of school in Barking and got a certificate for a transfer on the grounds of travel sickness." However, Moore decided to continue at the school.

Joan Wright, one of his teachers at Tom Hood Technical High School later recalled: "At school he was a prefect... He was very popular. It was a technical and commercial school and Bobby passed the equivalent of nearly half a dozen 'O' levels in one go. whenever there were pupils who wanted to become footballers and thought they didn't have to try at academic work. I'd point out Bobby Moore as an example to show it is possible to do both."

While at secondary school Moore played for Leyton District Under-13s. During one game he was seen by a West Ham United scout and he was invited to train at Upton Park. Moore found the experience difficult: "I was ordinary. I was lucky to be there. and every time I looked at one of the other lads I knew it. Every one of them had played for Essex or London, and at least been for trials with England Schoolboys. I had nothing. All around me were players with unbelievable ability. They were the same age as me and I was looking up at them and wishing I was that good, that skillful."

Moore later pointed out: "The first time I got a representative game I played for Essex over-15s because they needed a makeshift centre forward. I kept lumbering down the middle until our keeper hit a big up-and-under clearance which their keeper caught as I bundled him into the net... The referee was weak and gave the goal for Essex. Everyone knew it was a joke. Most of all, the lads who knew they were better than me." During this period Moore suffered from an inferiority complex. "The best quality I had was wanting to succeed."

Moore was invited to train with the West Ham Colts. His ability was noticed by Malcolm Allison, the West Ham United defender who had been asked by Ted Fenton, the club manager, to coach the young players. "Fenton used to pay me £3 extra for training the schoolboys at night. It was then that I found I had a bit of a gift for spotting the boys most likely to make it as professionals.... After a fortnight of training the boys Fenton called me into his office to ask my opinion of the intake." Fenton asked him about Georgie Fenn, who had scored nine goals in one match for England Schoolboys: "I said that I didn't give him much of a chance. I didn't like his attitude, he wasn't interested enough. There didn't seem much of a commitment... At the same time I said that Bobby Moore was going to be a very big player indeed. Everything about his approach was right. He was ready to listen. You could see that already he was seeking perfection."

In August 1950, Bobby Moore signed amateur forms for West Ham United. He joined the club full-time after leaving school on 19th July, 1957. Ron Greenwood, was with Fulham when he first saw Bobby Moore play: "I saw Bobby play for London Schoolboys against Glasgow at Stamford Bridge. Even at 16 he had stature, a certain appearance, an awareness of the game others did not possess." When Greenwood became manager of the England Youth team he selected Moore as his captain: "He was thirsty for knowledge and I spent hours talking to him about the game, whenever there was a free moment. When we had trips away he almost raided you for knowledge."

Malcolm Allison also noticed his leadership qualities. "He was very inquisitive. Even then I had spotted his awareness for the game, his ability to recognise things so easily. He had a clever memory and he was very bright. Allison told Moore: "You can read the game, you know what to do... Be in control of yourself. Take control of everything around you. Look big. Think big. Tell people what to do. Be in command." Noel Cantwell was one of the senior players at the club at the time: "Bobby didn't have exceptional ability as an apprentice, although he was always immaculate. He never said very much but was a great listener and a dedicated trainer, always very curious, inquisitive guy who wanted answers. He fastened on to Malcolm Allison and myself because we talked football all the time."

Bobby Moore recalled in his autobiography: "When Malcolm was coaching schoolboys he took a liking to me when I don't think anyone else at West Ham saw anything special in me... I looked up to the man. It's not too strong to say I loved him." Eddie Lewis was a member of the West Ham squad during this period. He observed the help that Allison gave to Moore: "The man deserves a great deal of credit for bringing on the likes of Bobby Moore. As a kid, Bobby was slow, he couldn't head a ball and he couldn't tackle, but such was Malcolm's dedication he was able to help Bobby to become the player he was." Harry Redknapp claims that Allison valued Moore so much that "Malcolm would bring him to training and drive him home."

Bobby Moore put a lot of effort into his training. Geoff Hurst recalled: "I remember how impressed I'd been with this blond-haired youngster from Barking when I first started training at West Ham. When we were doing exercises to strengthen the stomach muscles we had to lie on our backs, raise our legs in the air and hold them there. Try it yourself. If you are not used to it you will quickly discover how painful this can be. Of the 50 or so players doing this exercise the last to lower his legs was Bobby Moore. Always." Frank Lampard agreed: "You could see how some trained better than others, some were good runners, some were bad, but every time you looked over at the first team training, Bobby was the one training hard." John Bond was another player who was impressed with Bobby Moore: "Bobby's ability to intake information was tremendous, he wanted to learn and allowed nothing to interfere with his football. People used to tell him things and he would learn very quickly."

Moore played in a youth match against Chelsea where he marked the highly talented Barry Bridges: "I marked Bridges and followed him all over the field, wherever he went. We drew 0-0 and I was really pleased with myself and I thought Malcolm would give me a pat on the back at the end of the game." Instead Malcolm Allison came into the dressing-room and shouted: "If I ever see you play like that again, I'll never talk to you again. You just followed Bridges all over the field. When your goalkeeper got the ball, you never dropped back and made the goalkeeper roll it out so you could start attacks from the back, did you? When your left-back got it, you didn't drop inside so he could pass it square, so you could chip the ball up to the centre-forward, did you? I want to see you do those things and if you can't, don't talk to me. I'm not giving you any more lifts home."

Moore told Harry Redknapp that this outburst completely changed the way he played the game: "If you look at Bobby's game, he would come and get it off the goalie and play it out, starting attacks, and he would drop off, get the ball from the left-back and chip it into Hurstie's chest. That was an essential part of his game."

On 16th September, 1957, Malcolm Allison was taken ill after a game against Sheffield United. Moore later recalled: "I'd even seen him the day he got the news of his illness. I was a groundstaff boy and I'd gone to Upton Park to collect my wages. I saw Malcolm standing on his own on the balcony at the back of the stand. Tears in his eyes. Big Mal actually crying. He'd been coaching me and coaching me and coaching me but I still didn't feel I knew him well enough to go up and ask what was wrong. When I came out of the office I looked up again and Noel Cantwell was standing with his arm round Malcolm. He'd just been told he'd got T.B."

Allison was suffering from tuberculosis and he had to have a lung removed. Noel Cantwell became the new captain. That season West Ham United won the Second Division championship. The authors of The Essential History of West Ham United point out that Allison was the main reason the club had won promotion: "A footballing visionary who in six short years would revolutionise the club's archaic regime and transform training, coaching techniques and tactics to secure promotion to the first division in 1958".

Allison returned to the club and played several games for the reserves but with only one lung he struggled with his fitness. West Ham had an injury crisis for its home game against Manchester United on 8th September 1958. Malcolm Pyke, Bill Lansdowne and Andy Nelson were all injured. The manager, Ted Fenton asked Noel Cantwell who he should select for the game. Cantwell told Brian Belton, the author of Days of Iron: The Story of West Ham United in the Fifties (1999): "The game against Manchester United was on a Monday night. Fenton called me into the office asking who should play left-half, Allison or Moore. He didn't really want the burden of the decision."

Cantwell added in another interview for the book, Moore than a Legend (1997): "Malcolm came out of hospital and trained while Bobby was cruising along in the reserves. Malcolm was ready for the United game but the vacancy was for a left-half. Malcolm was more of a stopper and it needed someone more mobile. When Ted asked me who to pick, it was a hard decision. The sorcerer or his apprentice?" Cantwell eventually selected Moore over Allison.

Bobby Moore later talked about this decision to Jeff Powell for this book, Bobby Moore: The Life and Times of a Sporting Hero (1997): "The Allison connection could only be dredged up from the bottom of a long, long glass. Even then, Moore probed gingerly at the memory". Eventually Moore told him: " After three or four matches they were top of the First Division, due to play Manchester United on the Monday night, and they had run out of left halves. Billy Lansdowne, Andy Nelson, all of them were unfit. It's got to be me or Malcolm. I'd been a professional for two and a half months and Malcolm had taught me everything I knew. For all the money in the world I wanted to play. For all the money in the world I wanted Malcolm to play because he'd worked like a bastard for this one game in the First Division."

Bobby Moore added: "It somehow had to be that when I walked into the dressing room and found out I was playing, Malcolm was the first person I saw. I was embarrassed to look at him. He said Well done. I hope you do well. I knew he meant it but I knew how he felt. For a moment I wanted to push the shirt at him and say Go on, Malcolm. It's yours. Have your game. I can't stop you. Go on, Malcolm. My time will come. But he walked out and I thought maybe my time wouldn't come again. Maybe this would be my only chance. I thought: you've got to be lucky to get the chance, and when the chance comes you've got to be good enough to take it. I went out and played the way Malcolm had always told me to play."

Malcolm Musgrove was a member of the West Ham side that played against Manchester United: "He played in the game as though he'd been in the side for years. I was a lot older than Bobby at the time and I was still a novice, nervous as hell. At the kickoff Bobby stood in the left-half position just looking round. He had an unbelievable temperament. Lots of players have ability, but they haven't got the temperament to make them go even further, as far as they might want to go - Bobby had that temperament."

Moore did a good job marking Ernie Taylor and West Ham won the game 3-2. After the game Malcolm Allison stormed into the dressing-room and confronted Noel Cantwell about the advice he had given Ted Fenton. Cantwell later commented: "How he got to know I had influenced Ted's decision for Bobby to play, I'll never know. I didn't say any more. It was an embarrassing position for me and it soured the night, although I had answered Ted's question with the right choice for the particular match. Later, Malcolm admitted I was right to choose Bobby."

The next game was against Nottingham Forest at home. Moore was dropped from the team after West Ham United lost 4-0. He played only three more games that season as John Smith became the regular left-half. Moore had the same problem in the 1960-61 season. Moore later told Jeff Powell that he "doubted he would ever have broken through had West Ham not sold John Smith to Tottenham". Moore added: "You've got to be lucky even if you know you're good enough to take the chance if it comes. If John hadn't gone to Spurs I might have been a reserve footballer who threw in the towel, gave up the game."

Moore was nearly 20 when he became a regular member of the first-team. He did not approve of the tactics employed by Ted Fenton: "He wanted us to hit long through balls from the half way line. We became the world's best hitters of long through balls to nobody from the half way line. We seemed to lose every match 4-0."

Tom Finney, the veteran winger, spotted Moore's ability as a defender when he was just still a teenager. He pointed out in My Autobiography (2003): "It was an outstanding display from the 19-year-old. Perfect of temperament, he (Moore) always seemed to have so much time on the ball - the sign of a great player. He was strong in the challenge and was never hassled or harried out of his easy stride. He read the game brilliantly and had undisputed star quality."

When Ron Greenwood became manager of the England Under-23 side, he made Moore his captain. Greenwood, was assistant manager at Arsenal at the time, advised Jack Crayston to buy him. According to Moore: “One of Ron’s pet journalists come on my ear about getting away from West Ham to Arsenal… If the chance had come I would have loved to have gone to Arsenal for the same reason that Spurs appealed… a big club. But I suppose when they made the official approaches West Ham knocked them back.”

Moore played in 38 games in the 1960-61 season but the club finished in 16th position. However, his own form was very good. Peter Brabrook, who was playing at Chelsea at the time, found him a very difficult opponent. "When we played West Ham, I always roasted Noel Cantwell, the left-back, who was probably the best left-back in the country. But I could never seem to get past Bobby. He was nowhere near as quick as Noel or me but he never let you get in a position to beat him - he led you into a trap and caught you by the byline or the corner flag."

Ken Brown played alongside Moore during this period: "We were centre-halves for West Ham. I was the stopper and Bobby was the play-maker. My strength was heading and safety first, his strength was control and weighted passing. He could volley or one-touch a pass without looking and you wouldn't struggle to reach it, it would drop at your feet... My natural instinct was to cover him in case he missed a ball but I can't remember him ever bloody missing it. He was so consistent."

On 16th March 1961 the chairman of the club stated: "For some time, Mr Fenton had been working under quite a strain and it was agreed that he should go on sick leave. For the time being, we shall carry on by making certain adjustments in our internal administration." The Ilford Recorder added that: "The Upton Park club are proud of their tradition of never having sacked a manager." This was untrue as Syd King had been dismissed in 1933. Fenton had also been sacked and was replaced by Ron Greenwood.

Malcolm Allison later claimed that "Ted Fenton got the sack. They were rebuilding the stand and he was pinching some bricks and paint. Putting it in the back of the car. One of the directors caught him." Ken Tucker thought he had been dismissed because he had negotiated a reduction in the price of equipment, but was only passing on a percentage of the savings to the club. However, Andy Smillie believes that Fenton was a victim of "player power".

Charles Korr, the author of West Ham United: The Making of a Football Club (1986) has argued that the appointment of Greenwood was a break with the past: "When supporters think of managers it is usually in terms of the success of the club. There is little else upon which to judge them. West Ham had been different in this respect because its pre-greenwood managers had been with the club for so long in some capacity that supporters could identify with them. The manager at West Ham was something much more than a transitory employee. Greenwood's employment changed all those perceptions. He was not 'an old boy', and he made no attempt to add affections that would give the impressions that he was part of West Ham tradition."

It is not generally known but Greenwood, who was assistant manager of Arsenal, initially rejected the job. He told one journalist that he was not interested in the job because "If they can get rid of one manager they can get rid of another." He changed his mind when he discovered that Ted Fenton was only the third manager in over 60 years. The other attraction was the quality of West Ham's young players. In fact, Greenwood's first trophy came when West Ham United beat Liverpool 6-5 in the 1963 Youth Cup. The score-line reflects the success and problems of the tactics used by Greenwood.

Bobby Moore, who had played under Ron Greenwood for the England Youth team, was pleased with the appointment. He told Geoff Hurst: "I've played under Ron at England Under-23 level. Things are going to change around here, this chap is incredible on the game." Moore informed his close friend, Jeff Powell: "Ron told me one of his major reasons for coming to West Ham was that he knew he had me there to start building his team around." Greenwood rated Moore very highly: "He was exceptional on the training ground, a coach's dream. Whatever you asked him to do, he could do it. Football came easy to him. It wasn't a question of teaching him, merely a question of honing his considerable abilities... I used him at West Ham as a sweeper, which was then an unknown position. He played loose behind the defence and he thrived there." John Cartwright agreed: "Bobby played it superbly and it was his spot forever more. There have probably been players physically and technically better than Bobby but few tackled as astutely as he did."

Greenwood sold Noel Cantwell to Manchester United and made Phil Woosnam captain. He also purchased the extremely talented Johnny Byrne for £65,000. He played him alongside Geoff Hurst. As Bobby Moore pointed out: "Greenwood turned Geoff Hurst from a bit of a cart-horse at wing-half into a truly great forward. None of us thought Geoff was going to make the switch... Playing up alongside Budgie must have helped. That man was magic." Greenwood also gave Martin Peters his debut. Moore claimed that: "He was virtually a complete player. In addition to all his talent he had vision and awareness and a perfect sense of timing."

In Greenwood's first full season, West Ham United finished in 8th place. At the beginning of the 1962-63 season Greenwood sold Woosnam to Aston Villa and made Moore captain. Greenwood argued: "I made him captain because he was such a natural leader and had everyone's respect... He was desperate to succeed and was a good captain because he didn't ask anybody to do anything he couldn't do."

Ronnie Boyce was one of those who played under Bobby Moore at West Ham: "He was quiet when he was playing. He would never yell... He was forceful when he suggested ideas, without shouting. He spoke quietly and you couldn't do anything but admire him and do what he suggested. He had immense discipline and he expected it from others. I think inwardly it disappointed him that others didn't have the same level of discipline. He knew if you didn't show that sort of discipline off the field, you wouldn't show it on it." Martin Peters recalled: "Ability doesn't happen overnight. I noticed his dedication as the years went on because he would stay after our training at Grange Farm, Chigwell, to do extra work - I was the same: first to arrive and last to leave."

Bobby Moore married Tina in 1962: "I met Bobby just before my 16th birthday. He asked me to dance at the Ilford Palais... I went out with him. From then on, we saw each other more or less six times a week... At that age, he was shy and unsure of himself, but he was a very determined man. He showed that in all aspects of his life... He always put a lot into whatever he did - like our relationship. Every hour he wasn't at football was devoted to us going out. He was wonderful. Very generous, thoughtful and considerate.... At that time Bobby earned about £8 a week and the most you could get was £16 a week, so I wasn't terribly impressed by the fact he was a footballer."

Moore continued to make rapid improvement. Jeff Powell, the author of Bobby Moore: The Life and Times of a Sporting Hero (1997), points out: "Knowing his left foot to be comparatively weak, he spent countless hours perfecting a curved pass with the outside of the right foot to achieve the same effect as a pass with his left. Knowing that he lacked a sharp change of pace, he painstakingly programmed into his make-up a positional sense which made it impossible for opponents to exploit that flaw.... That intense concentration, that search for perfection, was just one of the investments which matured Moore into the best defender in world football."

In his autobiography, Bobby Moore argued: "I look on tackling as a skill. Any time I see a defender just whacking through the back of a forward's legs to get at a ball, that to me is ignorance. You can't win the ball if you've got a body in front of you. You don't have to go around kicking people up in the air to be a good tackler. The art is to deny a forward space and force him to knock the ball away."

Ron Greenwood alerted Walter Winterbottom, the England manager, to the rapid progress of his protégé. Winterbottom decided to take Moore to the 1962 World Cup in Chile. The football journalist, Ken Jones, who worked for the Daily Mirror wrote: "'Uncapped, pedestrian, not up to much in the air, suspect stamina. How could England select the 21-year-old Moore for the 1962 World Cup finals?" Moore made his début on 20th May 1962 in England's final pre-tournament friendly against Peru in Lima. England won 4-0 and as Moore pointed out: "Walter was pleased with the defensive performance and kept virtually the same team for all four matches in that World Cup."

The England team got through the group stage but was defeated 3-1 by Brazil in the quarter finals at Viña del Mar. Moore commented: "We came home. Didn't stop to see them win it. I knew they's win it. Stuck four past Chile in the semi and three more past Czechoslovakia in the Final, always having plenty in hand to turn on the magic when they went for the kill in the second-half."

Bobby Moore liked Walter Winterbottom: "He was a warm, outgoing man who loved talking about techniques, tactics, skills, attitudes. You could bet your life he knew every good player in every country by his Christian name, knew every individual's strengths and weaknesses. The man was a walking education on football. But he was at the end of his reign." After Winterbottom resigned after the 1962 World Cup and Alf Ramsey became the new manager.

West Ham finished in a disappointing 12th place in the 1962-63 season. However, Moore continued to impress for England and when Jimmy Armfield was injured, Ramsay made him captain against Czechoslovakia in Bratislava on 29th May 1963. Johnny Haynes was convinced it was the right decision: "He was the obvious choice and nobody else even came close. He was a great user of the ball, which became far more important than it had ever done before. It's important for a captain to be in the right sort of position on the field and he was perfect being in the middle at the back. He was never too loud, but, nevertheless, there was a lot of authority about him."

Ray Wilson later recalled: "I was six years older than him and I wouldn't have wanted the captain's job. Alf made him skipper at 23 and there was no objection, because when Alf made a decision it was usually pretty sound." Moore enjoyed being captain: "I loved that first experience of leading England out. The atmosphere was magic. The crowd are fanatical in Bratislava... The Czechs were still a great side. It had taken Brazil to beat them in the World Cup Final the previous summer and the stars were all there, Popluhar, Novak, the magical man Masopust." England won 4-2 but Armfield returned to the role of captain after recovering from his injury.

Ron Greenwood was slowly building a good team round Bobby Moore. This included Jim Standen, John Bond, Jack Burkett, Ken Brown, Eddie Bovington, Ronnie Boyce, Peter Brabrook, Johnny Byrne, Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters and John Sissons. Greenwood explained: "When I first went to West Ham they employed inside-forwards and wing-halves, but eventually we changed our system to a flat back four to encourage Bobby to play - he was the lynchpin. We set standards because we had players capable of it.... Our full-backs would push up and get forward. In fact, they were more attacking than some present-day wingers... At the back, Bobby could read along the line and cover the whole area. Everyone was tight going forward and Bobby played loose, free, behind everyone else, and the team could go forward with the confidence Bobby was always behind them, reading anything coming through, mopping up. It was a joy to watch him play."

Despite this, West Ham again struggled in the Football League in the 1963-64 season, finishing in 14th place. However, they were much better in the FA Cup and beat Charlton Athletic (3-0), Leyton Orient (3-0), Swindon Town (3-1), Burnley (3-2) and Manchester United (3-1) to get to the final at Wembley Stadium against Preston North End. Moore later recalled: "We were playing against Preston North End, a Second Division side. We'd been magic in the semi-final against Manchester United. Wembley should have belonged to West Ham. We won and it was good to win the first major honour. Apart from that it was a wash-out. We played badly. We spluttered. We didn't fulfill anything we had promised ourselves. Most of us felt let down. We were lucky to beat Preston, and bloody lucky Preston were no better than they were."

The score was 2-2 as the game approached the 90th minute. John Bond pointed out that both sides were extremely tired: "Tiredness and cramp was creeping in for some of the players on the lush Wembley turf. Extra time looked on when Geoff Hurst took the Preston defence on again, stumbled and recovered before sweeping the ball to Peter Brabrook on the right wing. Peter floated a great ball over the Preston defence; and then it all went into slow motion. As the ball floated across, everyone seemed to stop and watch it. Everyone except Ronnie Boyce that is, who came racing in unmarked to head past Kelly."

Bobby Moore had won his first trophy and he was determined that it would be the first of many. As winners of the FA Cup West Ham entered the European Cup Winners' Cup. Played over two legs, victories against La Gantoise (2-1), Sparta Prague (3-2), Lausanne (6-4), Real Zaragoza (3-2) resulted in a final against TSV 1860 München at Wembley Stadium on 19th March, 1965.

West Ham won 2-0 with Alan Sealey scoring both goals. Ron Greenwood, later recalled: "Everything we believed in came true in that match." He added that it was Moore's greatest game under his management. Bobby Moore commented: "We benefited from the experience of the previous year and took part in what many people believe was one of the best matches ever played at the old stadium. There was a lot of good football and we played really well against a good side with a lot of good players."

West Ham's victory made them only the second British club to win a European trophy. Bobby Moore commented: "It was probably one of the greatest nights for a celebration the East End had known since VE Night. In West Ham, Plaistow, Bow, Ilford and Barking the pubs were packed and you could not travel very far without hearing people singing the West Ham national anthem. It was a night to remember all right... Everybody seemed to think it had been one of the finest games of football they had ever seen."

Bobby Moore eventually replaced Jimmy Armfield as England's full-time captain. Alf Ramsey explained: "He (Moore) was already in the England team when I took over as a manager and he was the first player I turned to for a breakdown of his England colleagues. We met in secret, talked our way through 20 players, and at the end of meeting I had decided that this was the man I would entrust with leading England to the glory I felt sure I could bring the country."

Roger Hunt was one of his international colleagues who thought his game had improved under Moore's leadership. "I was classed as an inside-right, but Alf Ramsay changed the formation from wingers to 4-3-3 and 4-4-2, reducing the front men to two, so I became an out and out striker... Basically it bolstered the midfield, you lost an attacker but gained an extra man in midfield and the emphasis was then on the midfield players to get forward. Another reason why it worked was because he (Alf Ramsay) had such good distributors of the ball, like Bobby, who could pick out Geoff Hurst or me at any given moment.... Usually play-makers who can pass like that are in midfield and rarely in the centre of defence. Bobby had been an attacking wing-half with West Ham before he moved into the centre of defence so his passing was as good as anyone's."

George Cohen played in the same English defence as Bobby Moore: "If one of us made a tackle, he was very quick to sweep up any loose ball. He was also very adept at choosing the right moment to close in on an opponent who had taken a poor touch. Winning balls is one thing, but Bob was particularly good at getting his body shape, balance and positioning right after making a tackle, to get himself out of any trouble. Although he might not have been a jumper like big Jack Charlton, he would always make it difficult for an opponent to get a clean head on the ball. If we were under attack, we would funnel the ball out wide, so the danger was not in front of our goal. we would attempt to channel wingers down the outside so we could pin them between the line and reduce their options."

Another member of defence was Nobby Stiles: "Bobby was only a year older than me, but he gave the impression he was much older, like later 20s, early 30s. It was this unique manner he had. You just felt at ease with him and yet, in some ways, you didn't know him. He had an aura, someone you could look up to... We had the best captain in the world. Bobby Moore was a most outstanding centre-back and a most outstanding person." Stiles played just in front of Moore and Jack Charlton, "because neither of them were that quick, my job was to hustle and intercept, but to enable any of the back four to go forward."

Alf Ramsey later argued: "He (Bobby Moore) was my captain and my right-hand man. Bobby was the heartbeat of the England team, the king of the castle, my representative on the field. He made things work on the pitch. I had the deepest trust in him as a man, as a captain, as a confidant.... I could easily overlook his indiscretions, his thirst for the good life, because he was the supreme professional, the best I ever worked with."

At the end of the 1965-66 season Don Revie, the manager of Leeds United, attempted to buy Moore, who wanted to leave the club. Moore, whose contract with West Ham came to an end on 30th June, 1966. Moore, who refused to sign a new contract, went to see Greenwood about the move: "There was no way we could negotiate. West Ham said they would not let me go in any circumstances. Ron and I had it out for hours. Finally we agreed to let it ride until after the World Cup."

The 1966 FIFA World Cup was held in Britain. Moore joined the England team for pre-tournament training at the beginning of July. However, under Football Association rules, a non-contracted player could not play for England. When Alf Ramsey heard about this, he ordered Moore back to Upton Park to sign a new contract with West Ham.

England, captained by Bobby Moore, drew the first game with Uruguay but qualified for the quarter-finals after 2-0 victories against Mexico and France. England played Argentina. According to Martin Peters: "In the quarter-final, Argentina were just hooligans. They didn't want to play, just kick and bite and fight." A headed goal by Geoff Hurst in the 78 minute won the game for England. In the semi-final, England defeated Portugal 2-1 with both goals being scored by Bobby Charlton.

It was feared that Moore would miss the World Cup Final. The England coach, Harold Shepherdson, later revealled: "On the 27th July 1966 he went down with tonsillitis, the day after the semi-final win over Portugal. we were worried it might develop into something worse, but the emergency proved the wisdom of having our own physician on the spot, Dr Alan Bass... It is imperative to get an instant diagnosis, especially in this case, when we had only two full days to get Bobby fit. Dr Bass got cracking right away but if we had left matters for a day, the tonsillitis would have got such a hold on Bobby it would have taken five days to clear up. That is how close Bobby was to missing the final."

Tom Finney, who had recently retired from playing football, was in the crowd for the final against West Germany that was played at Wembley Stadium on 30th July, 1966. "The atmosphere at Wembley that July afternoon was like no other. In the hours leading up to kick-off, long before the dramatic events infolded, the crowd seemed to sense that something special was about to take place."

For the third year in a row, Bobby Moore had the chance of winning a major trophy at the home of British football. Gordon Banks claimed that Moore was a very important figure in the dressing-room before the game going round to everyone, offering words of encouragement. Alf Ramsey told the team: "Gentlemen, you've worked hard for this, we've got this far, now let's get out there and get it won."

In an interview with Jeff Powell, Bobby Moore recalled that England got off to a very bad start: "Helmut Haller gets a goal for the Germans from a bad headed clearance by Ray Wilson. Pride stung because its the first time we've conceded a goal in open play." Nobby Stiles has argued: "We didn't start well and went 1-0 down... but it was Bobby Moore who got us back in the game... He was so far ahead of everyone else in his thinking." Geoff Hurst agreed: "Bobby, fouled by Overath out on the left, quickly took a long, accurate free kick. I knew where he'd put the ball and he knew that I'd be running into that space. It was the sort of thing we'd worked on dozens of times for West Ham. Sure enough, the pass from Bobby was perfection. I ran in from the right, met the ball with my head and steered it past Hans Tilkowski, the German goalkeeper."

It was Bobby Moore's West Ham team-mate, Martin Peters, who put England in the lead: "Geoff Hurst tries a shot from the edge of the box which is blocked and spins into the area. It falls perfect for us in oceans of space in the goalmouth. Martin Peters and Jack Charlton are tanking on to it and Martin wins the race to blast it past two full backs and a goalkeeper, all marooned on the line." Peters later recalled: "I got on the end of a deflection and volleyed it in. It was a tremendous feeling. When I was celebrating I was going back to the half-way line and my fingers were tingling. It was as though a bolt of lightning had gone through me."

England remained in the lead until the 89th minute. Bobby Moore described what happened next: "Out of the blue they get a free kick. Out of nothing, danger. You know the decision should have gone in favour of Jack (Charlton) because the other fellow's backed into him. But there's no percentage in arguing. Only a minute left. Get lined up right. Only a minute left. Deal with this and we're home. Crowded back here. Keep our heads. Here comes the free kick. Make it ours. Someone's trying to clear. Too frantic. The ball hits a body. Schnellinger handles. Come on, ref, bloody handball. No whistle. It spins across the goal. Like running too slow in a nightmare. Everyone heaving and scrambling to get there. Weber scores."

The game now went into extra-time. George Cohen recalled: "The ball comes off the Wembley turf two or three yards faster than a normal pitch because of its spongy nature. It's very wearing and the longer the game went on the more tired the Germans became." Ten minutes into extra-time Nobby Stiles played a long ball to Alan Ball: "I thought I'll never get that, but I managed to outpace Schnellinger and reach it. I knew Geoff liked it delivered early so I whipped it into the near-post space."

Geoff Hurst raced forward to meet Ball's centre: "I made my run a little too soon. This meant that instead of moving on to the ball it was falling slightly behind me. I needed to adjust my body and take a couple of touches to get the ball into a shooting position. To get the power required to strike it properly, I had to fall back. as it turned out I connected beautifully with the ball but, in doing so, toppled over. I therefore had probably the worst view in the ground when the ball struck the underside of the bar and bounced down on the line. My next clear memory is of Roger Hunt, to my left, suddenly halting his forward run and raising an arm in the air. Had there been any doubt about the validity of the goal in Roger's mind, he would have continued his run and supplied the finishing touch."

It has been argued by Chris Lightbown that Tofik Bakramhov, the Russian linesman, was always going to give the goal: "It was known round parts of Europe, but not in England, that Tofik Bakramhov, the linesman had fought the Germans in the war. Did anybody believe that a man who had seen the sort of things he would have seen on the Eastern Front was going to get the Germans off the hook? Once the referee started walking over to consult Bakramhov, the Germans might as well have packed up and gone home."

With England 3-2 up England was expected to play out time, but that was not the way that Moore played the game. As Jack Charlton pointed out: "I was brought up in the north, where defenders took no chances. Bobby Moore was different. In the last seconds of the final, he was in possession on the edge of the box and there were shouts the game was virtually over. Instead of punting it, Bobby had a look upfield... The Germans went to close him down, but Bobby played a casual one-two with little Ballie in the box. Two German players anticipated the move and Bobby ran between them. If he'd lost the ball, we were finished. He moved into the midfield with the ball and I'm still screaming at him to whack it out. It was agonising for me, but he checked, looked up, took all day about it, then delivered a curler of a ball to Geoff."

Alan Ball takes up the story: "When Bobby played that great ball to Geoff... I was running through the middle, square with Geoff, shouting at him to knock it to me. We were two against one and, if he'd passed to me. I could've walked it in." Geoff Hurst recalled in his autobiography, Geoff Hurst: 1966 and All That (2001): "It was the perfect ball. My first thought was not to give it away. We had to keep possession. I sensed that Overath was chasing me as I headed towards the German goal... By this time I was about ten yards outside their box. I can't imagine where I got the strength from to make that run. I was exhausted... I heard Ball calling me. He was chasing hard to support me. It was at this point that I decided to hit the ball with every last ounce of strength." Ball added: "I was about to curse him for being greedy when he hit it but the words stuck in my throat - then I was cartwheeling and yelling with everyone else."

Bobby Charlton believed that Moore's captaincy was a vital ingredient to England's victory: "He was an excellent skipper. He was genuine, a good leader and he linked everyone together. We won the World Cup in 1966 because we were a group, we got on well together and Bobby was our captain." Alf Ramsay went further: "We would not have won the World Cup if Bobby Moore had not been our captain."

Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters returned to West Ham United expecting to have a great season. As well as the three World Cup winners, the team included several talented individuals, Johnny Byrne, Peter Brabrook, Ken Brown, Ronnie Boyce, Harry Redknapp, John Sissons, Jim Standen, Dennis Burnett, Eddie Bovington, Jack Burkett and John Charles. The club also had a manager, Ron Greenwood, who was considered to be one of the best coaches in the country. However, West Ham could only finish in 16th place and were knocked out by Swindon Town in the 3rd Round of the FA Cup. Moore recalled that: "When we got back they had smashed in the windows of my sports shop opposite the ground. I couldn't be angry. It was as hard for us to understand how a team with three World Cup-winning players kept getting it wrong."

In an interview he gave to Jeff Powell, Moore admitted that if "you looked at a few of the individuals and felt there might have been room for improvement." Moore named Jim Standen, Ken Brown and Jack Burkett as players who fell into that category. "If you wanted to be really critical you could find better goalkeepers than Jim Standen... Ken Brown was far from being everyone's ideal at centre half... Jackie Burkett at left back was a very limited player."

Bobby Moore was also critical of John Sissons who never developed into the player he thought he could be: "He (Sissons) scored a goal in the FA Cup Final and was still only nineteen when he played in our European Final. At the time he would have been in my squad for the 1966 World Cup. But he never got any better... I'm sure there were many times in those five or six years when Ron made up his mind to leave John out of the side. Then you would see him Monday to Friday in training, up front in the road runs, fastest in the sprints, drilling them into the net with that left foot in five-a-sides, showing you ball skills which demanded a place in the team. Come the Saturday afternoon, nothing. John Sissons was non-existent. He was a thoroughbred who never matured."

Moore thought that a major problem was that Greenwood could not communicate his ideas to most of the West Ham players: "Ron talked about the game at such a high level that sometimes he went straight over the head of the average player... Some days I believe there were only a couple of us who understood a word he was on about. He never seemed to realise that he should have been talking down to more than half the team... Ron needed to work with the best, the elite players."

Ron Greenwood accused Moore of undermining his authority. Greenwood called Moore into his office and complained: "I know you take in what I'm saying, but will you please also look as if you're listening. How else can I make the rest pay attention." Moore told a friend: "Ron asked me why I didn't go to him any more, to ask about the game. He took it as a sign that I was turning against him... Although he respected me, he didn't like me."

Moore claimed that the main reason why he did not talk to Greenwood about the players was because he did not want his team-mates to think he was being disloyal to them: "Perhaps I should have been a go-between. Perhaps it would have helped when things started to go wrong. But I looked on myself as one of thirty professionals, one of the chaps. I didn't want the people I had to play with thinking I was picking the team. Budgie (Byrne) was much closer to Ron, always in and out of his office. But he had a bubbling personality and could get away with it. Nobody would accuse Budgie of getting them dropped."

In his autobiography, Moore argued that: "When we won the two cups Ron had a good team because he had a majority of good players. We could have gone on to dominate the game for a period, the way Leeds did later." Moore complained that Greenwood did not know how to motivate players: "The lads would come in the dressing room with their heads down and he would say we would talk about it on Monday. Why wait? Tell me what I did wrong. Tell another one he can't bloody play. Tell that player he bottled it. He knew, alright. No man never saw so much in a game as Ron Greenwood. But motivation was not his strength. Some games I would love to have done it. Perhaps he wanted me to. But I didn't see it as my job. Not even as captain. It wasn't up to me to slag another player, and God knows I played with enough who weren't good enough."

In 1967 Moore did go to see Greenwood about the team. He argued that the team needed more steel in defence. Moore suggested that the club should sign Maurice Setters: "I begged Ron to sign Maurice. He was tough and could play a bit and we needed to be harder at the back." Greenwood refused claiming that he was "too much of a rebel". Instead, he bought John Cushley from Celtic. Greenwood told Moore, "A nice boy. Been to college".

Cushley was also considered to be a hard player: "Ron knew in his heart that we needed someone to do some kicking... Ron tried to close his eyes to it. In John Cushley he was buying a compromise which satisfied his conscience. A nice lad who could get stuck in... He couldn't expect everyone to be like me and win by intelligence." However, soon after joining West Ham, Greenwood told Cushley after one game: "John, I've bought you to be tough but sometimes you've got to take it easy."Cushley told Moore: "I'm playing it too hard. The manager doesn't like me."

Bobby Moore argues that the same thing happened when Greenwood bought Alan Stephenson from Crystal Palace. Moore heard Greenwood saying to Stephenson: "Alan, you can't get stuck in like that all the time. Sometimes you've got to read it, hold off, use your brain." Moore commented that "Ron was looking for perfection, but it was another centre-half spoiled."

Jeff Powell has argued that Greenwood was right to try to maintain this approach to football: "Those principles guided Greenwood through his coaching and management and won him the respect and admiration of hundreds of people deeply involved in the game. The flowing, open football which Greenwood's beliefs demanded of West Ham also earned him the gratitude of tens of thousands of football-loving spectators who relished watching his team. At times West Ham stood alone against the violence, brutality and intimidation which, in the late Sixties and early Seventies, threatened to bludgeon all the enchantment out of English football."

Ivan Ponting agrees: "Greenwood had been a strong and positive influence on English football throughout his days as a coach and manager. An impeccable sportsman, he deplored the greed and hostility, the cynicism and win-at-all-costs attitude which had become increasingly pervasive. He was a deep thinker and skilled communicator who painted pictures with words on the training ground, believing simplicity was beauty and building his teams from that standpoint. He was no conventional hard man treating players as adults and expecting them to impose their own self-discipline."

Geoff Hurst has suggested that: "The style of play he developed may not have been conducive to the nine-month slog of the league championship race, some of the football West Ham played in his time was the most attractive and memorable in the world. The Upton Park loyalists appreciated the way we played and, most tellingly, came back year after year because they knew they would see a good game of football. West Ham had a well-deserved reputation for high-quality attacking football and Ron was responsible for that."

Hurst conceded that some critics, including Brian Clough, "felt that a West Ham team with Hurst, Moore and Peters should have had greater success." Hurst claims that: "What few understand outside West Ham was that Greenwood cared more about football's finer values than about winning for winning's sake. He was a man of principle and he cared about the sport in a way that many would not understand in the modern game."

In 1967 Greenwood purchased Billy Bonds from Charlton Athletic. Three of the talented local young players, Trevor Brooking, Frank Lampard and Brian Dear had also become regulars in the first team. However, West Ham could only finish in 12th place in the First Division and were knocked out of the FA Cup in the 4th Round against Sheffield United. Greenwood persevered with these youngsters and the following season they finished in 8th place.

It looked like Greenwood was building a team that might recapture the success of the mid-60s. However, the 1969-70 season was a disaster with West Ham only narrowly escaping relegation. They also lost in the 3rd Round of the FA Cup to Middlesbrough. Moore blamed Greenwood for not bringing in the right players. Geoff Hurst was more supportive of Greenwood: "He liked young players with open minds. He challenged them to learn. I took up the challenge them to learn. I took up the challenge. So did others. It was no coincidence that Bobby Moore, Martin Peters and I were among those who flourished in the environment he created at West Ham... Some, of course, ignored the opportunities he presented. There were other talented youngsters at the club, such as Johnny Sissons, Brian Dear and Trevor Dawkins who may have made it to the very top of the profession had they applied themselves more diligently."

By 1970 Martin Peters had given up of winning major honours with West Ham and was transferred to Tottenham Hotspur. As Trevor Brooking pointed out in his autobiography: "When Martin left West Ham in March 1970, the fee of £200,000, which included a valuation of £54,000 for Jimmy Greaves, was a British transfer record. Tottenham gained an international midfield player who was still in his prime whereas West Ham obtained the services of a once-great player who no longer had a zest for the game."

Another problem was that Greenwood was unaware of the drinking culture at the club. Bobby Moore, Johnny Byrne, John Cushley, John Charles, Harry Redknapp and Brian Dear were all heavy drinkers. The situation was made even worse with the arrival of Jimmy Greaves in 1970. Trevor Brooking believed that before he left the club, Byrne caused serious problems for Greenwood. "Johnny Byrne was a delightful fellow whom it was impossible to dislike... but he was very undisciplined, particularly when it came to drinking."

Bobby Moore, was one of Byrne's drinking companions. He admitted that Byrne damaged his career with his drinking. "If it hadn't been for the drink aggravating his weight problem Budgie would have been with us in the 1966 World Cup Final." However, Moore felt that his drinking never had an impact on his performance on the pitch. "When I first started out as a young professional I wouldn't dream of taking a drink after Thursday." This changed when Byrne arrived at the club. Moore claimed alcohol helped him unwind but admitted that some West Ham players drank too much: "Ron Greenwood said he felt we were getting a team of nice lads together. I sat and wondered who the hell had ever won anything in football with eleven nice people. But in the next room John Cushley and John Charles, two of the nice boys, were falling off their beds drunk at three in the afternoon."

The problem was that as captain, Bobby Moore was setting a terrible example to the young players at the club. Geoff Hurst pointed out: "He (Greenwood) wanted players to accept responsibility for themselves. But there are risks involved... Players let him down. Some let him down spectacularly, none more so than Bobby Moore." Harry Redknapp admitted much later about the drinking habits of the players: "Did we have some nights out or what? There's a few that I couldn't repeat." After one bad performance the players were banned from going out while in a Stoke hotel. "We used to like going out in Stoke because there were a couple of good clubs, so some of us sneaked out the window at the back of the hotel, ran across the motorway and found some cabs. We had a good time and came back about four in the morning. Climbing over a fence to sneak back in, Bobby slipped and a spike went into his leg... When we got home we had to report back in the afternoon and Bobby turned up saying he had tripped in the garden and landed on a fence. But Bobby was out for three weeks before he landed on a spike while out on the booze in Stoke."

The 1970 FIFA World Cup was held in Mexico. England's manager, Alf Ramsey, decided to take a pre-tournament tour of South America. While the English team was in Colombia, Moore was arrested for allegedly stealing a bracelet from a jeweller's shop in the Bogotá. The shop girl, Clara Padilla, claimed to have seen Bobby Moore, near the glass wall cabinet, where the gold bracelet studdied with emeralds, was on show. After the England players had left the shop, Padilla found the bracelet missing.

The prime minister, Harold Wilson, applied pressure on the Colombian authorities and on 29th May 1970, Judge Dorado offered conditional release, subject to Moore signing a declaration that he would make himself available for future questioning at Colombia's consulates in Mexico or London and return to Bogotá if requested. Many years later, The Sunday Times reported that declassified documents "most graded secret or confidential, also show that the embassy was informed almost immediately by the Colombian authorities that Moore had been deliberately set up with the objective of blackmailing him."

England's first game in the 1970 World Cup was against Romania. Despite his recent trouble, Moore had a good game and Geoff Hurst scored the only goal of the game. The next game was against Brazil. According to Jeff Powell, the author of Bobby Moore: The Life and Times of a Sporting Hero (1997):: "By common consent, Bobby Moore produced the paramount performance of his own career, his tackles being captured on film and relayed down the generations as classic examples of the defensive art." Pele claimed: "Bobby Moore is the best defender I have ever played against." However, Moore was unable to stop Jairzinho scoring in the 1-0 victory. At the end of the game Moore and Pele swapped shirts: "I like to think our admiration was mutual because I never resorted to foul tactics against him. It would have been an insult to myself. the way I was brought up to play the game was as a contest of skill and ability and thought."

England qualified for the next stage of the World Cup by beating Czechoslovakia. Their quarter-final opponents were West Germany. The game was played on 14th June. Geoff Hurst pointed out: "The match in prospect was a fascinating one. The Germans had outscored every other nation in the three qualifying matches, Gerd Muller scoring seven of their ten goals. But England had conceded just one goal in three matches and were generally acknowledged to possess the best defence in the world. A key component of the defence was Banks, probably the best goalkeeper in the world."

Gordon Banks, was suffering from gastroenteritis and was replaced at the last moment by Peter Bonetti. England took a 2-0 lead after goals from Alan Mullery and Martin Peters. Moore later commented: "We'd done everything right. The performance was almost as good as against Brazil, and this time we'd got the goals. They had been the only question mark against us until then. The game was won. Done with. Over. England 2-0 up with twenty minutes to go could not be beaten. We'd been proving for years that our defence was unbreakable. No one had put two or three goals past us since 1967."

With England 2-0 up and with the semi-final only three days away, Alf Ramsey decided to take off Bobby Charlton and Martin Peters and replace them with Norman Hunter and Colin Bell. It turned out to be a tragic mistake. Franz Beckenbauer, who had been marked out of the game by Charlton, began to have a strong influence on the game. Bonetti let in a soft shot from Beckenbauer. Moore complained that "when Franz struck the ball it was nothing special" and suggested the Bonetti should have saved it. Geoff Hurst agreed: "It was an unexceptional drive, but it seemed to surprise Peter Bonetti. He dived late and the ball squirmed under his body and into the net."

In the 73rd minute a tired Brian Labone miss-hit a clearance to Karl-Heinz Schnellinger. The West German drove the ball back into the middle and our defence failed to move quickly enough to catch Uwe Seeler offside. Moore believed that once again it was the fault of the England defence: "There was an iffy clearance and not everyone got out quickly enough and Seeler was left deep at the back but still onside. So they lobbed the ball back in. Only hopefully. Really it was too far. On any ordinary day any player in the world would have given it up. but not in a match like that. Uwe did a feat, straining to get his head to the ball. He admitted he had no intention of scoring. He was just trying to keep the ball in play. Yet it flopped over Bonetti into the net. Bonetti's concentration might have been adrift."

West Germany were now the clear favourites to win the game. Moore recalled: "We were doing all we could to stop it but somehow you knew it would come." The German substitute, Juergen Grabowski, was causing terrible problems for the full-back, Terry Cooper. As Geoff Hurst pointed out, "Grabowski's mastery of the shattered Cooper proved decisive. Grabowski crossed, Johannes Loehr headed the ball back into the middle and Muller met it with a thunderous volley past Bonetti who was rooted to his goal line. That was it. England, the holders, were out of the World Cup."

Despite bringing in Jimmy Greaves and Tommy Taylor from Leyton Orient West Ham finished in 20th place in 1970-71 season. West Ham also lost 4-0 to Blackpool in the 3rd Round of the FA Cup. Bobby Moore later recalled: "We were totally outplayed... They were steamed up to have a go and West Ham were never in it. We were left once again with the feeling of utter disappointment at being beaten by a team from lower down the League. Our position in the First Division didn't mean much at the time and everything that season hinged on a good Cup run. But those results had become a regular occurrence."

On the Monday following the game, it was discovered that Bobby Moore, Jimmy Greaves and Brian Dear were out drinking the night before the game. Moore explained: "People will throw up their hands in horror at the thought of professional sportsman going for a drink the night before a game. But it was hardly a diabolical liberty. In fact we thought very little about it. We were in bed by one-thirty and got up about ten o'clock the next morning. That's a good night's sleep by anyone's standards.... The problem was not the drinking. It was the result."

Moore went to see Ron Greenwood about what had happened: "I've come to apologise. We know we did wrong but it wasn't done with any ill intent. All we can do now is apologise." Greenwood replied: "You've hurt me. Let me down. I don't want to talk about it any more. It will be dealt with in due course." The punishment was a two week suspension for Moore, Greaves and Dear, plus a fine of a week's wages, in Moore's case £200.

Moore, who suffered from insomnia, believed he played better after going out for a drink on Friday night than spending several hours tossing and turning in bed. "If you don't have trouble sleeping, you don't know what a hell it can be. Sometimes I'll go downstairs and fall asleep reading. So I'll stir and go back to bed. Then I can't get back to sleep again. There is no way having a drink is worse for me than all that nonsense."

He defended himself against the charge that he was a bad influence on the younger players: "I hope I didn't influence other players, particularly younger players, to drink. I always invited a young player into my company if he was feeling left out of things. If he didn't want to drink that was fine by me. Every individual knows what he's capable of and what's good for him."

Moore continued to try to get a transfer away from West Ham United. In the summer of 1973 Moore was told by Nigel Clarke, who worked for the Daily Mirror, that Brian Clough, the manager of Derby County, wanted to buy him. Moore spoke to Clough on the phone and told him that he was keen on a move to Derby. In September 1973, the West Ham directors agreed a £400,000 bid for Bobby Moore and Trevor Brooking. However, once again, Greenwood blocked the deal. Moore went to see Greenwood: “I had to accept a sort of compromise. If I stayed to help them through that season they would let me go on a free transfer at the end. So I would be able to negotiate a good deal for myself. Transfers are often about luck and timing. It wasn’t long before Cloughie left Derby and Ron was telling me about what a favour he’d done me by stopping me from going up there.”

Moore won his 108th and final cap in the gameagainst Italy on 14th November 1973. At the time he was England's most capped player, beating Bobby Charlton by two appearances, and equalled the record of 90 appearances as captain that Billy Wright had established between 1946 and 1959. Moore's club form also went into decline and he was replaced in the West Ham team by Mick McGiven.

Ron Greenwood was now willing to sell Moore. However, other First Division teams were unwilling to take him. Moore wanted to go to Crystal Palace where Malcolm Allison was the manager. "I believed Malcolm could give me the lift and the appreciation I needed to go on playing well, raise my game again. I wanted Malcolm to tell me where I went wrong and to pat me on the back when I did well. No matter how long you're in the game you need that just like you do when you're a schoolboy."

However, Allison failed to make an offer and the only serious bid for his services came from Alec Stock, the manager of Fulham, who were in the Second Division. Alan Mullery told him: "Glad you're coming, Bob. You'll love it at Fulham. When I was leaving Tottenham I wanted another First Division club, just like you do. But when I got the opportunity to go back to Fulham I couldn't wait. The atmosphere's different class and all the lads are dying to learn from you. They'll do anything for you."

Bobby Moore, who cost £25,000, found it difficult to recapture his form in the Second Division. In his first game for the club, on 19th March, 1974, Fulham suffered a 4-0 home defeat. moore later commented: "We were hammered out of sight. Yet in a way it excited me. Middlesbrough exposed all Fulham's shortcomings in the first night and although the crowd were disappointed, I knew all the information would be invaluable if I was going to make a contribution. I started trying to help out a bit here and there. The lads were so eager to learn and it was lovely watching them mature."

A fre weeks later Fulham played Malcolm Allison's club, Crystal Palace, at Craven Cottage. Moore recalled: "It was Good Friday and Palace came to Fulham and gave us a good hiding, 3-1. I hated it because Malcolm was watching and I wanted to show him what he'd missed in not signing me. My pride was hurt so much that I went off up-field and scored one of my few goals."

Four days later Fulham went to Crystal Palace for the return Easter fixture. They won 2-0, virtually dooming Malcolm Allison to relegation to the Third Division. "There were 30,000 people in Selhurst Park and I always loved a big crowd. On top of that I had a score to settle. I played from the heart and felt great." At the end of the game Allison walked up to Moore and said, "Well done."

Fulham had a much better season the following year. This included a good run in the FA Cup where the beat Hull City, Nottingham Forest, Everton and Carlisle United. In the semi-final Fulham beat Birmingham City with a goal from John Mitchell. Bobby Moore was going back to Wembley Stadium. The great irony was that their opponents were to be West Ham United.

The final took place on 3rd May, 1975. The first-half was goalless but in the 60th minute, Peter Mellor, the Fulham goalkeeper, failed to hold a shot from Billy Jennings and Alan Taylor knocked in the rebound. Five minutes later, Mellor dropped a shot from Graham Paddon and Taylor once again pounced and hit the ball into the roof of the net. Despite the best efforts of Bobby Moore, Fulham were unable to get back in the game.

Moore played for two more seasons for Fulham. His last game was against Blackburn Rovers on 14th May 1977. He then moved to the United States where he played for San Antonio Thunder and Seattle Sounders. In April 1978 he joined Danish side Herning Fremad. It was hoped that the larger crowds would pay for his high wages. This did not materalise and after playing ten games and being paid £24,000 he agreed to cancel his contract with the club.

When Don Revie resigned as manager of England, Bobby Moore wrote to the Football Association about the England managership: "I have gained considerable experience in assisting with coaching both with my clubs in England and abroad during the latter stages of my playing career. I know you are aware of ... how proud I was of my years with the England team." The FA did not even reply.

On 12th December, 1979, Moore was appointed manager of Oxford City in the Isthmian League. Once again he was put on a generous contract. The Oxford chairman, Tony Posser, the owner of a chain of local newspapers, commented: "If Mr. Moore is half as good a manager as he is a negotiator he will do extremely well." Moore failed to achieve success for the club and after being in post for less than a year his contract was cancelled.

In 1984 Moore was appointed manager of Southend United in the Third Division. The club had severe financial problems and was threatened with bankrupcy as well as relegation to the Fourth Division. Moore had some success in the 1985-86 season and were in the promotion race until a poor second-half of the campaign resulted in them finishing in 9th place. In May 1986 Moore resigned as manager.

Bobby Moore, who divorced Tina Moore in 1986, became involved with air-hostess, Stephanie Parlane Moore. The couple married on 4th December 1991. Moore admitted: "There are some things you can't disclose to acquaintances, some things you could never tell a friend... The only person who can do that is the one who cares for you and is deeply involved in the outcome. Stephanie became something deeper, more profound." Stephanie commented: "Bobby epitomised everything I could possibly have wanted. He was my soulmate. He had a tremendous thirst for life and new experiences and he treasured his family above all else."

In the 1990s Moore worked as a columinist for the tabloid newspaper, The Sunday Sport and as a football analyst and commentator for Capital Gold. His friend, Jonathan Pearce, who worked with Moore at the radio station, later recalled that he was a very successful interviewer: "Because of the respect Bobby had from everyone, he got some amazing interviews. Bobby did a very good one with Gary Lineker after he was substituted by Graham Taylor in the European Championship and he got the greatest interview I've ever seen with Paul Gascoigne. Gazza was so awe-struck with Mooro he told Bobby stuff he wouldn't tell anyone else."

On 22 April 1991 Moore had an "emergency stomach operation" and it was discovered he was suffering from colon cancer. This was kept a secret but after media speculation it was decided on 15th February, 1993 to make a public statement admitting that Moore was suffering from bowel and liver cancer.

Moore commented on the England match against San Marino on 17th February, 1993. The Observer reported: "Moore was a bigger story than what happened on the pitch. The previous day, the world had learnt that he had cancer. The press cameras were trained on Moore, the collar of his leather jacket turned up, his face gaunt and pallid."

Bobby Moore died at his home in Putney seven days later. His funeral was held on 2nd March 1993 at Putney Vale Crematorium, and his ashes were buried in a plot with his father Robert Edward Moore and his mother Doris Joyce Moore.