In his fine tribute to Sir Bobby Charlton, who died on Saturday aged 86, Michael Walker wrote of the World Cup-winning midfielder: “Few footballers can claim to be their country’s finest, but his nomination to be England’s greatest feels unquestionable.”
It is a line that had us here at The Athletic wondering: if the former Manchester United player is England’s greatest, then who is second?
Here, six writers offer their nominations. Please let us know who you would nominate and why in the comments.
Bobby Moore
England caps: 108 England goals: 2
Club appearances: 795 Club goals: 28
Bobby Moore holding the World Cup aloft is still the defining image of English football. The only picture to offer much challenge is the one capturing him and Pele, arm-in-arm, in 1970. In that sense, he is a highly literal sort of icon.
It is a special status and part of a legacy guarded by what he achieved, despite what should have been a prohibitive lack of speed. Moore is elevated, too, by what fate denied him. He died before he could become a statesman, like so many of his teammates from ’66, and he never took the after-dinner victory laps that would have gilded his memory and developed it for future generations.
England’s iconic captain (Getty Images)
His achievements for West Ham do not compare to Sir Bobby Charlton’s for Manchester United. Nor does he stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him technically, as a player. But as a Captain Emeritus, he gets as close as anyone else.
Sebastian Stafford-Bloor
Jimmy Greaves
England caps: 57 England goals: 44
Club appearances: 707 Club goals: 469
I struggle to settle on any kind of hierarchy among the English players I’ve seen, even going back to the likes of Kevin Keegan and Bryan Robson in the early 1980s. There are so many who have excelled at club level in particular without quite elevating themselves to the forefront of this kind of debate.
So I hope you don’t mind, but I deferred to my dad, whom I’ve always considered a decent judge. He always says that, alongside Bobby Charlton, the one who really stands out is Jimmy Greaves, whom he calls a “genius”. He gives honourable mentions to Bobby Moore and Duncan Edwards and suggests those older than him would make a case for Tom Finney.
Oliver Kay
Wayne Rooney
England caps: 120 England goals: 53
Club appearances: 763 Club goals: 313
Wayne Rooney was approaching the end of his career when I accidentally bumped into him in the corridor at Goodison Park.
He’d made a goalscoring return to launch his second spell at Everton. Rooney is smaller than you think, and at that time, he was also leaner. I remember telling a friend it felt like being hit by an old church bell.
Rooney was a freak in every sense. Can anyone seriously argue that England has ever produced a more physically robust and technically gifted footballer?
Critics will say he never won anything for England but only 22 players in the history of football can claim that. Like Sir Bobby Charlton, he held England’s goalscoring record for a decent length of time, even though goalscoring was not even the outstanding feature of his play.
Simon Hughes
Paul Gascoigne
England caps: 57 England goals: 10
Club appearances: 468 Club goals: 110
OK, so he didn’t lift a trophy with England but there’s surely no other player who captured the hearts of a nation more than Paul Gascoigne.
A generational talent, who played with his chest puffed out and glided past opponents with the feet of a ballet dancer, Gazza just loved pulling on an England shirt.
Gazza enjoys his “dentist’s chair” celebration (Photo: Alexander Hassenstein/Bongarts/Getty Images)
Gascoigne took us on the highs and lows of following England. We sobbed with him at Italia ’90, the tournament in which he announced himself on the world stage. We partied with Gascoigne in that glorious summer of ’96 — the Colin Hendry flick and the dentist’s chair — before that agonising, oh-so-near miss in the semi-final.
He was the lion in England’s midfield living out every fan’s dream. It was a wild ride with Gazza but, boy, were we all on it.
Tom Burrows
Harry Kane
England caps: 87 England goals: 61
Club appearances: 511 Club goals: 306
Bringing up an active player always feels unwelcome in these nostalgic conversations, a choice smacking of laziness and recency bias.
But Harry Kane has to enter the conversation having overtaken Charlton’s goals record and looking set to reach the top 10 for all-time appearances.
Yes, international goals are easier to come by with more fixtures, weaker relative opposition, and an abundance of friendlies. But Kane has also been central to England’s revitalisation.
Punchlines after the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Euros, the current squad are the group most loved by the nation since the 1990s. Kane has been captain and top scorer — in 10 years’ time, his place in this pantheon will be uncontroversial.
Jacob Whitehead
Sir Geoff Hurst
England caps: 49 England goals: 24
Club appearances: 674 Club goals: 299
They think it’s all over. The Russian linesman (who was in fact Azerbaijani). Did the ball really cross the line?
In the history of English football, there is one date, name and moment that stands above all others: 1966 and Geoff Hurst’s hat-trick against West Germany in the World Cup final on home soil.
Fourteen England players scored more goals than Hurst, while many others made their mark over a longer period of time. But only one scored a hat-trick in a World Cup final. (France’s Kylian Mbappe became only the second player to manage it in last year’s final.)
Hurst was no one-hit-wonder; he scored 21 other England goals, including one at the 1970 World Cup. Few people remember those… but who cares?
Joey D’Urso
David Beckham
England caps: 115 England goals: 17
Club appearances: 719 Club goals: 129
For those of us who grew up falling in love with England in the mid to late 90s, you can’t look further than David Beckham.
His redemption arc from public enemy No 1 after that petulant kick on Diego Simeone at France 1998 to national hero after his solo performance and dramatic late free-kick against Greece in qualifying for Japan and Korea 2002 was seismic.
He exacted revenge with his penalty against Argentina, only for England to be knocked out by that Ronaldinho free-kick in 2002 before being knocked out of both Euro 2004 and Germany 2006 on penalties to Portugal and seemingly arch-nemesis Cristiano Ronaldo.
He may never have won a trophy for England, or even got past the quarter-finals of a major competition, but with 115 caps and 17 goals over 13 years it’s hard to argue there has ever been a player who was more proud to pull on the Three Lions shirt.
Jordan Halford
(Top photos: Getty Images)
