Ball: small man who stood tall

SOCKS rolled down round his ankles, sweat staining his shirt, legs and lungs still pumping when others were out on their feet.

That is the image we will remember of Alan Ball, the youngest member of Alf Ramsey’s ‘Boys of 1966’.

If Bobby Charlton was the elegant conductor of England’s World Cup victory and Geoff Hurst the hat-trick hero, then Ball, who has died aged 61, was the engine whose energy made it all possible.