Noted for scoring on every debut he made for each club, Jimmy Greaves was the premier striker of his day and scored goals from every conceivable angle and with every part of his body.  It didn't matter to Greavsie, as long as the ball crossed the white line between the posts and under the crossbar. 

And his time in football could have been so different, as he was originally due to sign for Tottenham in 1955, but when manager Arthur Rowe was ill as Greaves left school, Chelsea's representatives stole the young prodigy away and made him a Chelsea player.

Raised in the football breeding ground of Dagenham, he attended Southwood Lane Primary School and came from the same area as Terry Venables and Alf Ramsey.

Started his career in 1957 at Stamford Bridge and his first game was against Spurs at White Hart Lane in a 1-1 draw and inevitably, it was Greaves' name against the Chelsea goal on the score-sheet.  He scored regularly in the Blues side and his prolific goalscoring came to the attention of the Italians, who wanted someone to unlock the rigid defensive systems in their own league.  There was a ban on signing foreign players, but when this was lifted in 1961, Greaves moved to AC Milan, who won the battle to acquire his services.

In truth, it was the worst move he could have made, with him being punished for breaking club rules and lacking the freedom he had been used to in England.  His six month spell was ended when Bill Nicholson brought Jimmy back to London for a fee of £99,999, as he didn't want him to be burdened with the tag of being the first £100,000 footballer.  His first match saw the relief in returning to football that he knew and his hat-trick against Blackpool started repaying the fee and the belief Bill Nick had in him.

At the end of the first season with the club, he had hit 21 league goals, scored the first goal in the FA Cup Final win over Burnley, winning his first medal and the following year a double in the Final of the European Cup Winners Cup set the team on to a 5-1 win over Atletico Madrid.

With a poise when bearing down on goal rarely seen in football, whether he had one player to beat or several, his balance and striking power was complemented with a calmness that allowed him sometimes to pass the ball into the net, making the whole business look easy.  Ever alert to tap-ins after a keeper had made a save, his most memorable goals are those from long mazy runs, like the ones at White Hart Lane against Leicester City (October 1968), Manchester United (October 1965) and Newcastle United (December 1966).  But other goals came from his head and whichever foot was to hand.  He topped the Spurs goalscoring charts for eight consecutive seasons from 1961-62 to 1968-69.

There was a regular place in the England side, many of the games he played were alongside Spurs team-mate and striking partner Bobby Smith and Jimmy hit 44 goals in 57 matches.  He played in the first game of the 1966 World Cup against France, but an injury and the fact that he had been recovering from a bout of Hepatitis ruled him out for the rest of the competition, with Geoff Hurst successfully replacing him.