Ron Flowers, a Yorkshire miner’s son and football legend for Wolves and England

File photo dated 16-02-1963 of Ron Flowers, who was a member of the 1966 World Cup-winning squad, has died at the age of 87, the Football Association has announced.

placeholder image — File photo dated 16-02-1963 of Ron Flowers, who was a member of the 1966 World Cup-winning squad, has died at the age of 87, the Football Association has announced.

RON FLOWERS will always be synonymous with Wolverhampton Wanderers, where he enjoyed prolific success, but he should also be remembered as one of Yorkshire’s greatest football sons following his death at the age of 87.

Gifted enough to be a member of England’s 1966 World Cup-winning squad, he grew up in the coal mining village of Edlington and owed his football prowess to a special pair of boots gifted to him by his parents on Christmas Day in 1939 after they had put money aside each week.

The young player also saw football as a way to escape from a lifetime’s toil as a coal miner – his father worked underground – and enable him to follow his uncle George who played for Doncaster Rovers.

Yet, despite such success for club and country, he never lost touch with his working class roots and it speaks volumes of his character that he regarded his Christmas gift of 1939 as “one of the proudest moments of my life”.

File photo dated 12-07-1966 of England's Ron Flowers (l) and Gordon Banks (r) share a joke with actress Vivien Ventura (c). Flowers, who was a member of the 1966 World Cup-winning squad, has died at the age of 87, the Football Association has announced.

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