England legend left penniless after retirement lived in 1-bed flat and sold jumpers

Jimmy Greaves enjoyed a sensational football career, but he was the first to admit that he struggled post-retirement. The forward bagged 402 goals in 617 career matches, enjoying incredible stints at the likes of Chelsea and Tottenham.

Greaves was also a key part of England's 1966 World Cup-winning squad, although he missed the final - with Geoff Hurst stepping up in his absence and bagging a hat-trick in the final. He passed away, aged 81, in September 2021.

Despite being such a top player, football finances during his playing days were a far cry from today's game - and Greaves ultimately ended up making ends meet through selling clothing from his one-bedroom flat.

Speaking to The Guardian in 2003, Greaves explained: "Let's make no bones about it. I wish I was playing today. Some of the players get half a dozen goals a year and earn a fortune. I look back at my Chelsea days when you had to fight to get £8 a week in the winter and £7 a week in the summer, and now there are players who haven't even played in the first team on 40 grand a week."

Towards the end of Greaves' career, the Essex-born star struggled with alcohol, severely impacting his stints at West Ham, Brentwood and Chelmsford City - and it remained a problem when he dropped down the football pyramid as well.

"I lost the 70s completely. They passed me by," admitted Greaves. "I was drunk from 1972 to 1977. I woke up one morning and realised that it was a different world. I'd been living in it, but I hadn't been aware of it."

Towards the end of the 70s, Greaves was reduced to bankruptcy and divorced from his wife Irene, moving into a one-bedroom flat and selling women's jumpers to pay his bills. His struggles eventually saw him realise his issues, saying: "I realised that I had to stop drinking long before I stopped. It wasn't an overnight thing.

"A mile up the road from here is Warley mental home, where I spent five months of my last year of drinking in 1977. I spent more time in there than I spent anywhere else. It wasn't easy.

"One day I said, 'That's it' and I just walked away from it, and fortunately, to this day, I've stayed clear of it. Are there times when I really want to have a drink? Of course there are, same as everybody else; it doesn't dehumanise you. You get down the same as everybody else and you'd like to go out and have a few jars, but you know that you can't do that."

Greaves went on to forge a brief career in the football media as both a columnist and TV presenter, though he concluded that the wages were still not significant. He said: "Playing football gave me a good living and television also gave me a good living, but if you say, 'Have I got any money?', the answer's no. I've just never earned enough to pack it away."