ENGLAND WORLD CUP PLAYER GRAVELY ILL IN HOSPITAL

Jimmy Greaves, one of England’s greatest ever goal scorers, was being treated in hospital on Tuesday (April 7), his former club Tottenham Hotspur said.

Greaves, 80, has been in poor health since suffering a stroke five years ago. There was no suggestion that he had been suffering from any symptoms related to the coronavirus.

“We can confirm that our record goalscorer Jimmy Greaves is currently being treated in hospital. We are in touch with his family and will provide further updates in due course,” Tottenham said on Twitter.

“Everybody at the club sends their best wishes to Jimmy and his family.”

The club did not give any further details about Greaves’s condition.

A prolific goalscorer throughout his career, Greaves also played for Chelsea and West Ham, but his greatest success came at Tottenham during a golden era for the London side that saw him score a club record 266 goals in 379 matches from 1961-70.

For decades Greaves held the record for most goals scored in Europe’s top five leagues, his tally of 366 goals in 528 appearances during a career that also included a spell at Italy’s AC Milan only broken by Cristiano Ronaldo in 2017.

Greaves’s record of 357 goals in the top flight of English football remains unbeaten nearly half a century since he retired as a professional player.

Greaves was equally prolific at international level, scoring 44 goals in just 57 appearances for England, making him the country’s fourth highest scorer behind Wayne Rooney, Bobby Charlton and Gary Lineker.

He was a member of the England squad that won the 1966 World Cup on home soil but an injury in a group game against France cost him his place in the side and paved the way for his replacement, Geoff Hurst, to score a hat-trick in the final against West Germany.

-Reuters/AFP