Tony Gale recalls his greatest hero and says that Mooro would have been the leading player in the country had he been in the Premier League of 2015-16 and says: “He was always a member of football’s royalty for me who tried to follow him.”
Tony Gale walked in Bobby Moore’s footsteps for much of his career – starting as a kid at Fulham where he became the great man’s boot boy!
He said: “I would have been about 15 and it was an honour because this was the man I’d tried to model myself upon since I started kicking a football.
And with him coming towards the end of his career I remember reading him saying that I was the guy who should follow him into the England tea after I’d inherited his No 6 shirt at Craven Cottage.
Later I did the same at West Ham and even went on to work for Capital Gold just as he did – Bobby Moore was my greatest influence and I want to believe that most of what you saw in my game was influenced by him.”
Bob was always seen as a very private person with only a few very close friends and Galey said: “That was perfectly understandable to me. He was the most famous person in England and he had to remain closed in.
“But he was a lovely, lovely bloke and the way I always saw him as a member of footballing royalty and I’ll tell you this, had he been playing today he would have been the best player in the country.
“He was by far the best of his day back then on often rubbish pitches. Today he would have been king of the game and the so called pace of the Premier League wouldn’t have been a problem – he was always bigger than all that.”
Galey explained that he was as neat and tidy off the pitch as he was on it recalling: Everybody else would throw their kit everywhere but Bobby took care to fold it up and put it back the way he found it – what a bloke. I remember too he had a beautiful yellow Jag.
“I grew up watching him and Franz Beckanbauer and other great defenders but if I have to call it. Bobby was the best. Sir Alf Ramsey called him the heartbeat of his team – he was that and more.
“I look back now at those World Cup matches and he absolutely ran everything from start to finish. What a man, what a player and he was ours and I salute him today.”
I remember when johnny lyall brought him here , everyone was saying this is the new mooro,
Not a tag I personally would have liked as everyone knew it could never be the case! Gale was a fantastic player and a true hammer ( met him several times at reunions ) the one thing nobody can take away from you are memories, an individual is a individual and is unique in his own way , you can compare but that’s as. far as it goes . There will never be another mooro, I have only ever seen one , and to me he was the best !. Until I fade and die !.
Franz Beckanbauer also rated Moore the best, and he was not just being polite ( which he always has been of course ).
It’s true it’s hard to compare him to what we have today, but I will say that Oxford has the ability to play an active role in midfield as well as at CB, just like Moore. That doesn’t say he will be as good though.
Spot on.
Lovely tribute from Galey, one of my favourite West Ham players, always thought he would have been a good manager, understands the game and is a big enough personality to keep players in their place. RIP Bobby, England’s greatest x