Rare pics: When Mooro met Muhammad

I have had many sporting HEROES but really only two “idols” – Bobby Moore and Muhammad Ali… and as I write I unashamedly admit there have been tears in my eyes as the second of them has passed on.

Let’s not make a comparison between the two. Bob was essentialy a private man  of real dignity who would ony do a good turn rather than the opposite. As a footballer he remains unsurpassed in my eyes.

But Muhammad was a global figure and having pondered before writing this, I do actually believe he was the greatest man of my generation.

He transcended his sport…indeed all sport – stood against evil in all its forms, survived death threats because of his beliefs and  every one of them has proved correct over half a century on.

I remember him as a civil rights campaigner and refusing to go to war at one of the most politically sensitive periods of American history.

He was was ready to die rather than go to war “on the poor”..everything he stood for and fought for has proved 100 per cet correct, defying the vicious and disgustng ignorance of those times .

There’s so much to think, so much to say, so much to thank him for, but today is a day for mourning.

Bob loved him and we  reproduce a couple of pictures of the two great icons together above at the  farewell game of another – Pele – in 1977.

Mooro and Muhammad were magnificent men and I could write a million more words but only four really matter:

Thanks Muhammad …thanks Mooro!