LONDON: Greavsie, a new film about the Spurs and England legend premiers on BT Sport 2 on Wednesday at 10.30pm, to tie in with his 80th birthday this week.

The documentary tells the tale of the rise, fall and re-birth of one of England’s greatest strikers with rarely seen archive footage and interviews with some of the game’s biggest names.

Harry Redknapp, Sir Geoff Hurst, Ian St John, Denis Law, George Cohen, Cliff Jones, Pat Jennings, Gary Lineker, Glenn Hoddle, Barry Davies, John Sillett, Alan Mullery, Ron Harris, Steve Perryman, Jimmy Tarbuck, Rio Ferdinand, several members of Jimmy’s family and more have helped contribute.

The story began in the 1950s with Greaves a target for every major club in London and opting for Chelsea , the 1955 league champions. He became a teenage superstar, scoring 124 league goals in 157 games.

Frustrated by Chelsea’s inconsistency and the maximum wage, Greaves moved to AC Milan but a disappointing spell saw him head to Spurs for a club record £99,999 fee (Manager Bill Nicholson did not want him burdened with the label of being the first £100,000 player).

Greaves was a major success, scoring 21 goals in 22 games before the end of the season and between 1962 and 1965, some 101 league goals in 123 games.

In 1965-66, the year before England’s home World Cup, the country’s star striker contracted hepatitis. He made the World Cup squad and started the first three games but injury against France ruled him out of the quarter-final against Argentina. Sir Geoff Hurst took his place and the rest is history.

Lost without football, Greaves spent much of the 1970s battling alcoholism but once sober he took up a newspaper column with The Sun and co-wrote a book with friend Norman Giller, called ‘The Sixties Revisited‘ which has been re-released by G2 Entertainment in both paperback (RRP £9.99) and as an Ebook (£7).

After spells on ATV in the Midlands, and on the panel for the 1982 World Cup, in 1985 ITV decided that Greaves needs his own vehicle.

Saint and Greavsie was born when ITV paired him with former Liverpool stalwart St John. The show was a hit and Greaves was a major public figure again, as evidenced by his Spitting Images puppet.

In 2015 Greaves suffered a severe stroke which has left him wheelchair-bound with speech difficulties.

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