On This Day In 1960: 20-Year-Old Jimmy Greaves Becomes Youngest Player To Score 100 League Goals

Martin Cloake

19th, November 2015

jimmy-greaves-chelsea-1960

Arch-poacher Jimmy Greaves took home the match ball with three goals in Chelsea’s 6-3 thumping of Man City at Stamford Bridge on 19th November, 1960.

Greaves’s hat-trick saw him bring about a century of league goals and, aged just 20 years and 290 days, it’s perhaps unsurprising he was the youngest player ever to achieve the feat.

He would go on to score 124 goals in 157 games for the Blues, before moving to Italy where he bagged 9 in 12 games for AC Milan. He was then coaxed into returning to England by Tottenham manager Bill Nicholson.

At Spurs, Greaves scored 220 in 321 games and secured his place as one of the greatest goalscorers in football history and perhaps the most elegant finisher England have ever produced.

Latterly, 13 goals in 38 games for West Ham during the 1970/71 season took Greaves’s career record to 366 goals in a little over 500 appearances.

You can follow Martin Cloake on Twitter at @MartinCloake and find more about his books and writing at www.martincloake.com

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