Former Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp has sent his best wishes to club legend Jimmy Greaves, who has been admitted to hospital.
The 80-year-old is receiving treatment for an unspecified illness, although it is believed it is not coronavirus-related.
Greaves, who has been wheelchair-bound since suffering a severe stroke in 2015, is Tottenham’s record goalscorer and was a part of England’s famous 1966 World Cup-winning squad.
He is regarded as one of the finest strikers in the history of football, with Redknapp branding his former teammate a ‘genius’.
“Jimmy is such a great guy,” said Harry, who played with Greaves when he joined West ham towards the end of his career.
“You talk about good players, Jimmy was a genius.
“As a 17-year-old he scored five goals in one game against a Wolves side that had the England defence!
“He’s a few years older than me and I used to watch him, we rarely got any football on TV, but we might have had England schoolboys on and you’d see Jimmy play and he was just an incredible player even at that age.
“I would think nobody taught Jimmy, he was just a one-off.
“When he got the ball in the penalty box it was like the world stopped, everything seemed to freeze. He’s make out to shoot and players would slide in to block the shot, he’d move the ball half a yard, somebody else would dive in and slide past him, he’d look to put it in the right side and the keeper would dive full length across the goal and he’d just roll it in the other corner.
“And he’d just walk away like, that’s what I’m supposed to do. He was amazing.
“He is such a great guy. You’d love him, Ally,” he told Rangers and Scotland legend Ally McCoist on the Sports Breakfast.
“He is proper one of the boys, even when he was in his pomp and he was the greatest there was no arrogance about him he was just so down to earth. Jim is a special person.
“I couldn’t speak highly enough of him, he just had this amazing ability to score goals, he never broke the net, he just used to roll the ball in the corner, send the goalie the wrong way or walk around the goalkeeper and score.
“It was great to have Jim come to West Ham even if it was at the end of his career.
“Just to be around him was special, he was that good.”
