Jimmy Greaves Biography: Age, Wife, Family, Career, Stats, Records and Net Worth

Jimmy Greaves is the highest scorer in the history of the English top flight, with 357 goals in 516 First Division games, and his record still stands more than half a century after he last played in the division. He scored 266 goals in 379 appearances for Tottenham Hotspur, a club record that still stands, and 44 goals in only 57 games for England, a strike rate that no other leading England scorer has matched. He won the World Cup with England in 1966 without playing in the final, then became one of the most popular television football presenters of his generation.

This Jimmy Greaves biography covers his age, wife, family, career, stats, records and net worth, from a debut goal for Chelsea at 17 to a world-famous scoring record at Tottenham, the heartbreak of the 1966 final, a battle with alcoholism, and a second career on Saturday lunchtime television.

Quick Facts

Detail	Fact
Full name	James Peter Greaves
Date of birth	20 February 1940
Place of birth	Manor Park, London, England
Date of death	19 September 2021, aged 81
Place of death	Danbury, Essex, England
Height	1.73 m (5 ft 8 in)
Position	Striker
Clubs	Chelsea, AC Milan, Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United
England	57 caps, 44 goals
English top-flight goals	357 (all-time record)
Honours	MBE, World Cup winner 1966

Early Life and Education

James Peter Greaves was born on 20 February 1940 in Manor Park, in the East End of London. He grew up in a working-class family and showed a talent for scoring goals from an early age. He joined Chelsea as a junior in 1956 and made an immediate mark, scoring 114 goals for the youth team in the following year.

Greaves turned professional in May 1957. He made his first-team debut on 24 August 1957 against Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane, scoring in a 1-1 draw at the age of 17. Scoring on debut became a habit for Greaves. He went on to score on his debut for AC Milan, Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United and England.

Family

Greaves married Irene Barden at Romford register office on 26 March 1958, when both were 18 years old. The couple had five children: Lynn, born in 1959, Mitzi, born in 1962, Danny, born in 1963, Andrew, born in 1965, and Jimmy Junior, who died from pneumonia at four months old in 1960. Danny became a professional footballer with Southend United.

The marriage went through a severe test during the height of the alcoholism of Greaves. The couple went through a divorce process and separated for three months, but the divorce was never finalised and they reunited. Greaves and Irene remarried on 7 September 2017 in Danbury, Essex. At the time of his death, Greaves also had 10 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

Club Career

Chelsea

Greaves spent four seasons in the Chelsea first team, from 1957 to 1961, and became the most feared young striker in the country. He finished as the top scorer of the First Division in three of those seasons and scored 132 goals in 169 appearances in all competitions. His league record for the club was 124 goals in 157 appearances.

The 1960-61 season was his finest at Chelsea. He scored 41 league goals, a single-season record for the club that still stands. By the age of 20 he had scored 100 league goals, and he remains the youngest player to reach that mark. In June 1961, AC Milan signed him for a fee of 80,000 pounds.

AC Milan

Greaves moved to Italy in part to escape the maximum wage that limited pay for players in England. He scored on his debut for Milan and kept scoring, with nine goals in 14 matches, but he never settled in Italy. He missed London and wanted to return to England. After only a few months abroad, Tottenham Hotspur manager Bill Nicholson moved to bring him home.

Tottenham paid 99,999 pounds for Greaves in December 1961. Nicholson deliberately set the fee one pound below 100,000 pounds so that Greaves would not carry the burden of being the first 100,000-pound footballer.

Tottenham Hotspur

Greaves made a spectacular start at Tottenham, scoring a hat-trick on his debut against Blackpool. He stayed at White Hart Lane for nine years and became the greatest scorer in the history of the club, with 266 goals in 379 appearances in all competitions. His league record for Tottenham was 220 goals in 321 appearances.

Team honours followed quickly. Tottenham won the FA Cup in 1962, with Greaves scoring after three minutes in the final against Burnley. In the following season, Tottenham won the European Cup Winners Cup, with Greaves scoring twice in the final against Atletico Madrid. Tottenham became the first British club to win a European trophy. Greaves won a second FA Cup with Tottenham in 1967, against his old club Chelsea.

His individual scoring at Tottenham set records that still stand. He scored 37 league goals in the 1962-63 season, a single-season record for the club. He finished as the top scorer of the First Division in six seasons across his career, and he became the all-time top scorer of Tottenham in March 1970 when he passed the league record of Bobby Smith. In 1970, Greaves moved to West Ham United in an exchange deal that took Martin Peters to White Hart Lane.

Illness interrupted his scoring in the mid-1960s. Greaves contracted hepatitis, which kept him out for a spell and cut his output in the 1965-66 season. He recovered in time to play a full part in the 1966 World Cup, but the illness had taken the edge off his sharpest form in the months before the tournament.

West Ham United

Greaves spent one full season at West Ham, the club closest to his roots. His motivation had faded, and his form fell away from the standards he had set at Tottenham. He made 38 league appearances and scored 13 goals for West Ham before retiring from professional football in 1971 at the age of 31.

He later returned to football at non-league level, playing for Brentwood, Chelmsford City, Barnet and Woodford Town. The comeback gave him enjoyment without the pressure of the top flight, and he played on until 1980.

International Career

Greaves made his England debut on 17 May 1959 against Peru in Lima, scoring the only England goal in a 4-1 defeat. Over eight years he built a record of 57 caps and 44 goals, a scoring rate of 0.77 goals per game that stands far above the rate of every other leading England scorer. He scored six hat-tricks for England, still a national record, including four-goal hauls against Northern Ireland in 1963 and Norway in 1966, and a hat-trick in a 9-3 win over Scotland in 1961.

At the 1962 World Cup in Chile, Greaves played all four England games and scored once, the third goal in a 3-1 group win over Argentina. England lost to Brazil in the quarter-finals. Four years later, on home soil, he started all three group games at the 1966 World Cup without scoring. In the final group game against France, he suffered a cut to his shin that needed 14 stitches and forced him to miss the quarter-final against Argentina.

Geoff Hurst replaced Greaves for the quarter-final and scored the only goal of the game. Manager Alf Ramsey kept Hurst in the side for the semi-final and the final, and Hurst scored a hat-trick in the final win over West Germany. Greaves watched the final from the bench and, under the rules of the time, received no winners medal. After a long campaign, FIFA changed the rules and Greaves finally received his World Cup winners medal in 2009. He sold the medal at auction in 2014 for 44,000 pounds. His last England appearance came in 1967.

His most prolific calendar year for England was 1960, when he scored nine goals in six appearances. The following years brought steady returns, with eight goals in nine appearances in 1963 and six goals in eight appearances in 1964. Even in his quietest years he scored: only in 1967, his final year of international football, did his tally drop to a single goal in three appearances.

Playing Style

Greaves was a natural goalscorer with a rare gift for calm finishing. He combined sharp acceleration with superb balance, close control, and the ability to beat defenders with a change of pace. He scored with either foot, found space between defenders with clever movement, and rarely wasted a chance. His composure in front of goal was the quality that team-mates and opponents remembered most: he passed the ball into the net where others blasted it.

He was also a fine dribbler who could create his own chances from nothing, gliding past defenders before finishing. He read the game early, arrived in the penalty area at the right moment, and struck the ball cleanly at the first chance. His famous line about football, that it is a funny old game, summed up his relaxed view of a sport that came easily to him. He never relied on physical power. Timing, touch and temperament made him the most feared finisher of his era.

What set Greaves apart was the economy of his game. He did not chase lost causes or waste energy on runs that led nowhere. He waited, watched the shape of the defence, and moved only when the opening appeared. Defenders knew what he planned to do and still could not stop it, because his first touch took the ball away from the challenge and his second touch sent it past the goalkeeper. His low centre of gravity helped him change direction in tight space, and his balance let him shoot accurately while off balance or under pressure.

Stats

The tables below cover his club career by club, his league record by club, his England record by year, and his record at major tournament finals.

Club	Appearances	Goals
Chelsea	169	132
AC Milan	14	9
Tottenham Hotspur	379	266
West Ham United	38	13
Total	600	420

Club	League appearances	League goals
Chelsea	157	124
AC Milan	10	9
Tottenham Hotspur	321	220
West Ham United	38	13
Total	526	366

The league total of 366 goals covers 357 goals in England and nine goals in Italy. The 357 goals in England remain the all-time record for the English top flight.

Year	England appearances	England goals
1959	5	2
1960	6	9
1961	4	5
1962	10	6
1963	9	8
1964	8	6
1965	5	2
1966	7	5
1967	3	1
Total	57	44

Tournament	Appearances	Goals
World Cup 1962	4	1
World Cup 1966	3	0
Total	7	1

Records

Greaves holds the record for most goals in the English top flight, with 357 goals in 516 First Division games. His 366 goals across the top divisions of England and Italy made him the highest scorer in the top five European leagues until Cristiano Ronaldo passed the mark in 2017.

He is the all-time top scorer for Tottenham Hotspur, with 266 goals, and he holds the single-season scoring records for both Chelsea, with 41 league goals in 1960-61, and Tottenham, with 37 league goals in 1962-63. He was the youngest player to reach 100 league goals, at the age of 20. For England, his six hat-tricks remain a national record, and his scoring rate of 0.77 goals per game stands far above the rate of every other leading England scorer.

At the time of his death, his 44 England goals ranked fourth on the all-time list for England, behind Wayne Rooney, Bobby Charlton and Gary Lineker. No player with 40 or more England goals reached the mark in fewer caps than Greaves, who needed only 57 appearances. His record of 357 top-flight goals has survived every challenger since, including the Premier League era, and remains one of the longest-standing records in English football.

Awards and Honours

Greaves won the World Cup with England in 1966 as a member of the winning squad. With Tottenham he won the FA Cup in 1962 and 1967 and the European Cup Winners Cup in 1963. He finished as the top scorer of the First Division in six seasons.

He entered the English Football Hall of Fame in 2002. He was named a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2021 New Year Honours for services to football, alongside fellow 1966 squad member Ron Flowers. The two men were the last surviving members of the 1966 squad to receive the honour. Tottenham Hotspur marked his death by describing him as the finest marksman the country had ever seen.

Net Worth

No reliable figure exists for the net worth of Greaves at the time of his death. Published estimates vary enormously, from about 100,000 dollars to about 11 million dollars, and they come from low-quality celebrity wealth sites rather than from verified financial records. This article states no figure as fact, because no figure has been confirmed by a reliable source.

What is known is that Greaves earned far less from football than modern players earn. He played in the era of the maximum wage, and his later income came from television work, newspaper columns, books, and after-dinner speaking. His final years also brought heavy medical costs after a severe stroke in 2015, and friends in football helped with support.

Later Life and Legacy

After retiring from professional football in 1971, Greaves went through the darkest period of his life. He lost his motivation for the game and turned to alcohol, later saying that he lost much of the 1970s to drinking. He quit drinking on 28 February 1978, after seeking help, and rebuilt his life around media work.

He became a newspaper columnist, writing for The Sun for 30 years and later for The Sunday People. On television, he worked on Star Soccer, The Saturday Show, World of Sport and On the Ball before finding his most famous role alongside former Liverpool striker Ian St John. From October 1985 to April 1992, the pair presented Saint and Greavsie, a popular Saturday lunchtime football show on ITV, and Greaves became a household name for a second generation. He also served as a team captain on the sports quiz show Sporting Triangles.

Away from television, Greaves took part in the 1970 London to Mexico World Cup Rally, finishing sixth alongside co-driver Tony Fall. He wrote his autobiography, Greavsie, in 2003, and several other books with his friend, the journalist Norman Giller.

His later years brought serious health problems. He suffered a minor stroke in 2012 and recovered, but a severe stroke in May 2015 left him in a wheelchair with impaired speech. He died at home in Danbury on 19 September 2021, aged 81, while watching a cricket match with family members.

His funeral took place on 22 October 2021 at Chelmsford Crematorium in Essex. Family, friends and former team-mates attended, including Harry Redknapp, Pat Jennings, Cliff Jones and Steve Perryman, along with Tottenham figures such as Ossie Ardiles and Clive Allen. Tottenham sent a floral club crest with the words that the club had lost a dear member of the Spurs family. The service was described as intimate, modest, affectionate and amusing, in keeping with a man cherished as a footballer, broadcaster and raconteur.

His legacy rests on goals. He scored more top-flight goals than any other player in English history, set club records at two clubs, and scored at a rate for England that no successor has matched. The 1966 final remains the one prize that passed him by, but his winners medal, finally awarded in 2009, closed the gap. For supporters who saw him play, and for the generation who knew him through Saint and Greavsie, Greaves remains one of the great entertainers of English football.

Conclusion

Jimmy Greaves scored goals wherever he played, and he did it with a style that never changed: sharp movement, calm finishing, and a gift for being in the right place at the right moment. From a debut goal for Chelsea at 17 to a world-famous scoring record at Tottenham, a World Cup medal won the hard way, and a second career on television, his life joined rare scoring feats with rare warmth. The record of 357 top-flight goals still stands, and it remains the standard against which every English striker is measured.

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