The Sports Bookshelf

In the eyes of his most fervent admirers, Bobby Moore enjoys the status of a deity, his greatness only enhanced by the passage of time and what feels like a forever diminishing likelihood that another England captain will reach the pinnacle Moore attained at Wembley on 30 July, 1966. Some, therefore, have not welcomed Matt Dickinson's new biography of their hero with particular enthusiasm, given the sides of Moore he revealed. Rob Shepherd, the Mail Online football columnist, took exception even with the choice of cover picture: "The image makes England’s original golden boy look more like an east London gangster of the Sixties than an icon of whom Pele said was the best, and most handsome, English footballer he had ever seen or played against."  Throughout his playing career and the life that followed, one that was terminated all too prematurely by cancer, Moore's inherent modesty and reserve enabled him to build and maintain an aura of benign mystery, al