You well know by now that my latest trip to the other side of the Pond was more than spectacular it was absolutely life-changing, in my case. The new League has been brought to our attention by the introduction of firstly David Beckham and lastly Thierry Henry and in between much lesser names. Sorry old is better, and my new book is taking a walk down Memory Lane with my ex- team-mate, pal, and like me, former captain, Adrian Webster. Before I go any further, we at Greatest Card will be introducing this to those in Seattle, Tampa Bay, Philadelphia and New York. I was captain at Seattle for four fantastic years, and Frank Worthington made quite an impression in a Tampa Bay Rowdie shirt around my time.  We were just two out of Rob Steen’s book ‘The Mavericks’ to grace the NASL. In my time at Seattle they could boast several big names and like in New York actual World Cup winners. In Seattle the greatest captain ever (who would be on Greatest Card if still with us) Bobby Moore graced the Kingdome in the Great North West, as did the only man to score a hat-trick in a World Cup final, Sir Geoff Hurst, who was also a team-mate of mine at Stoke City, but we won’t go into that as I lived with him for the first few months of my arrival and almost got him in the divorce courts. And he NOT one of ‘The Mavericks’ like Stan Bowles, Tony Currie, Charlie George, Peter Osgood and of course Frank and I.

I am really enjoying my b]new project and that is because it takes me right across the USA and that means playing in Giant Stadium against Stadium against the great ‘Keizer’ Frank Beckenbauer and Bogicevic, although I put one over Franz in a German shirt at Wembley in 1975 on my England debut. I waited five years to play against the Keizer, after missing Mexico 1970 through injury and then being banned for three years by Ramsey, but caught up with him five years after our first meeting and stuck the ball through his legs (a nutmeg in those days) at the Kingdome, which was something to tell the grandchildren. To go one further I must be the only player to have done that same trick to both the 1966 World Cup finalists and World Cup winning captains in history as I applied the final touch to getting Bobby Moore, the man we call God, at Stamford Bridge.

That it not a boast, simply a wonderful memory in the days when today’s players cannot get the ball from 35-year-old Andre Pirlo, and no, that is not slamming our players today, it is simply telling you that the Seventies players like those just mentioned would have not been knocked out the Group stages of any competition. We have the best manager England have produced on Greatest Card, my old Chelsea hero Terry Venables, who I followed at the Bridge and his exploits in 1996 were our best, well, our only moments to shout about since ’66 and ’70 when we only fell because of Alf Ramsey messing up in his substitutions bringing Bobby Charlton off to save him for the next match, that never existed. Why was Terry so good, because he is the only manager who picked the best players – to explain that I give you Paul Gascoigne, Teddy Sheringham and Alan Shearer.

Yeah, as as always say a manager is only as good as the players he picked, and that is why the managers, apart from ‘El Tel’ have failed because they have not got the simple ability to know who they are. Weird but true, but as Harry Enfield once told Jimmy Greaves, “It’s a Funny Old Game” Well, it is if you don’t realize who the best players are, and if there was one thing ‘El Tel’ knew it was just that.