An update after today's Premier League meeting
England's Paine
There aren’t many members of England’s 1966 World Cup winning squad who don’t spring to mind when you think about that famous tournament, but Terry Paine, who celebrates his 81st birthday today, is possibly one of them. He was one of four members of the squad who played in the tournament, but not in the final itself - alongside Jimmy Greaves of Tottenham, Ian Callaghan of Liverpool and John Connelly of Manchester United. But perhaps it was the fact that Paine played for unfashionable Southampton that has largely consigned him to the forgotten category.
At Southampton, and in Hampshire more widely, Paine is absolutely not forgotten. Between 1957 and 1974 he played an incredible 815 matches for the Saints, scoring nearly 200 goals. Add to that 19 England caps, which included a Wembley hat trick against Northern Ireland, and his relative anonymity is surprising. A generation of supporters at the club still talk fondly of how Paine and his fellow winger John Sydenham would supply the ammunition for target men Ron Davies and Martin Chivers.
After leaving the Dell, Paine played a further 111 times for Hereford, before a brief spell as manager at Cheltenham Town. He emigrated to South Africa in the 1980s, and enjoyed a second career in broadcasting.
Southampton Football Club rightly holds Terry Paine in the highest regard, appointing him as Honorary President in 2013, an ambassadorial role in the UK and overseas, and his status at the club is measurable against the better known names of Matt Le Tissier and Mick Channon.
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