A graceful footballer of guile and grit ghosted into a pivotal role in Alf Ramsey’s 1966
World Cup triumphIn the hours after the announcement of Martin Peters’s death someone on the radio described the wearer of the No 16 shirt in the 1966 World Cup final as a typical English footballer of the era. Although clearly meant as the profoundest of compliments, no words could have been further from the truth.
![Martin Peters was an elegant, stealthy guide to England’s day of days | Richard Williams](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/b2fb94a818b0251a835dfa3d0d43c85d20288e61/0_191_4863_2918/master/4863.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=4dfd8bb399917a157a9b8436c69d549d)
In terms of English football in the mid-1960s the 22-year-old Peters was an extraterrestrial. With slender limbs and wraith-like movement, he had wandered into the bone‑grinding world of strapping centre-forwards and muscular wing‑halves as an emissary from another world.