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Martin Peters was a wonderful footballer and the most unsung of England's 1966 heroes


Round up as many of England’s 1966 World Cup winners as possible, herd them on a coach, drive up Wembley Way and take them to the match.

At face value, the task was tricky enough – but this was the Euro 96 semi-final.

Tickets were pure gold dust, executive coaches don’t grow on trees and Scotland Yard don’t allow any old bus up English football’s most famous boulevard.

Oh, and the Boys of ’66 were in high demand. Thirty years of hurt had elapsed, and the market for nostalgia was at fever pitch.

With respect, a night out with the Daily Mirror was not the obvious choice for England World Cup heroes at the nation’s biggest football match for three decades.

Peters celebrates with the World Cup after scoring in the 1966 final

Remarkably, a decent core of Sir Alf Ramsey’s legends agreed to join Mirror Tours – Sir Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters, George Cohen and Gordon Banks among them.

We were given a police escort, pretty much right up to the turnstiles, and on the 20-yard walk to the gates, something happened which will always live long in the memory.

As Hurst and Peters, England’s goalscorers on that invincible summer afternoon in July 1966, made their way to the gate, only 20 minutes or so before kick-off, fans swarmed to pat them on the back.

One England supporter, draped in the Cross of St George, shook Peters warmly by the hand, looked him square in the eye and said: “Thank you for what you did for your country.”

Your correspondent, in awe of the respect in which footballers could be held 30 years beyond their finest hour, made a mental note to himself: What a wonderful way to be remembered by the public.

Martin Peters, arguably the most unsung player in England’s 1966 gang of champions, died peacefully at the weekend after a dignified twilight amid the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease.

Peters (R) celebrates scoring England’s second goal in the 1966 World Cup final

He was 76. Now there are enough Boys of ’66 in the celestial changing room to make up a formidable five-a-side team: Banks, Wilson, Moore, Ball and Peters.

According to Sir Alf, Peters was 10 years ahead of his time – which puts him up there with Doctor Who and Marty McFly in the pantheon of elite time travellers.

He was also a wonderful footballer who was robbed of stand-alone hero worship as scorer of the goal that won the holy grail for England.

Peters’ exemplary opportunism had put the host nation 2-1 up in the World Cup final when Wolfgang Weber’s equaliser seconds from the end of normal time, with a suspicion of handball VAR would have cleared up, sent the game into extra time.

His West Ham team-mate Hurst duly completed his hat-trick, with assists from an Azerbaijan linesman and Kenneth Wolstenholme, and Peters was reduced to best supporting factor for his contribution to Jules Rimet gleaming in the sunlight.

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If the World Cup was his crowning glory at the age of 22, Peters would later become football’s first £200,000 player when he joined Tottenham in 1970.

And when his contribution to the coaching manual is assessed, he is not just the MP who would get our vote in every English constituency.

Peters was the man who turned “ghosting” in at the far post into an art form.

His winner against Scotland at Wembley in 1973 – a game which also deserves to be remembered for Peter Shilton’s sensational one-handed save to deny Kenny Dalglish – was a classic example of his stealth.

But this scribe will always remember his night out with the Boys of 66, that short but symbolic coach journey to the gates of Wembley and that fan’s invincible tribute.

Thank you for what you did for your country.





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