Football
PA Sport 9y

England legend Jimmy Greaves 'fighting fit' after severe stroke

Former England and Tottenham striker Jimmy Greaves is "feeling good" as he recovers from a severe stroke.

The 75-year-old was admitted to intensive care on May 3 but left hospital just over a month later and is now in a rehabilitation unit.

Greaves, who also suffered a minor stroke in 2012, received messages of support from across the football world after it emerged he had been hospitalised and he is now determined to get as well as he can.

"I should be dead," he told the Sunday People. "But I'm here and I'm fighting fit. Now I want to live until I'm at least 90.

"Hopefully there's a few years left in me yet. I've promised my grandkids I'll go and watch them play rugby and hockey when they go back to school so I've got to get better."

He added: "I'd like to be a bit better but I'm taking every day as it comes and I'm feeling good. I'm much better than I was. I'm getting my speech back and I can move my right leg now.

"I haven't got any feeling in my right arm but my left arm and hand are absolutely fine so I can still sign my autograph perfectly.

"I'm a long way from being back to my best and I don't know whether I can ever get back to it, but I'm determined to do everything I can. I'm a fighter.

"Every day is a new day. The doctors reckon after a year if something isn't working it'll never work.

"I've got another nine months until then and I've come on a lot already so hopefully it'll come."

The Essex-born striker spent nine seasons at Spurs during one of the most successful periods of the club's history.

Greaves scored the opening goal in Tottenham's FA Cup final victory over Burnley in 1962 and he also found the net in the European Cup Winners' Cup final against Atletico Madrid, which the London club won 5-1.

He started his career at Chelsea, where he broke into the first-team squad after scoring 114 goals for the youth team and once he had been promoted to the seniors, he scored 132 goals in 169 games.

After nine years at Tottenham, Greaves moved across the capital to West Ham before seeing out his career lower down the leagues following a battle with alcoholism.

In his retirement, he presented the popular Saturday lunchtime football show Saint and Greavsie alongside former Liverpool forward Ian St John.

Despite a fine international record, Greaves missed out on a place in the 1966 World Cup final as Sir Geoff Hurst replaced him in England's starting XI after Greaves suffered a shin injury in the group match against France.

Hurst kept his place in the team until the final, where he famously scored a hat trick in the 4-2 win over West Germany.

At the time, only the starting XI received winners' medals but Greaves was finally awarded one, alongside the rest of Sir Alf Ramsey's squad, in 2009 after a change to FIFA rules.

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