Jimmy Greaves can lay claim to being the most prolific England goalscorer ever.

Although Greaves was pushed into third-place on the overall charts by Bobby Charlton and Gary Lineker, his goals-per-game ratio is much higher.

The east Londoner netted an amazing 44 goals in 57 appearances for the Three Lions as he became one of the most lethal strikers in the world.

Greaves was a natural born goalscorer, breaking records aplenty in youth football and with Chelsea where he netted 124 League goals in 157 appearances and became the first player to reach 100 league goals by the age of 21.

His elevation to the full national side came as a 19-year-old against Peru in 1959. Unsurprisingly he marked his debut with a goal in a 4-1 win.

It was a sign that the Chelsea striker would easily adapt to the step up in level and that was fully proved in an amazing scoring run in 1960-61 when he netted 13 goals in just eight games - including hat-tricks against Luxembourg and Scotland.

Greaves played every game of the 1962 World Cup Finals in Chile, but England were beaten at the quarter-final stage by Brazil who went on to lift the trophy.

The striker was expected to be a key member of the Three Lions side four years later on home soil and went into the tournament on a high with a foul-goal blast against Norway in a warm-up fixture.

Before that he had also enjoyed success with Tottenham, who he joined after a short spell in Italy with AC Milan, by winning the European Cup Winners Cup in 1963 and scoring two goals in the Final against Atletico Madrid.

That came a year after he had lifted The FA Cup, so expectations were high that Greaves would be the main striker to ensure that Alf Ramsey's assertion that England would win the 1966 World Cup would be proved correct.

However, in the final group game against France he suffered a serious shin injury that required 14 stitches and which ultimately put him out of the rest of the tournament.

It was a massive disappointment for the 26-year-old, and although he continued to play for the Three Lions and helped the team qualify for the 1968 European Championships, his own international career ended in 1967.

By that stage he had easily moved past Tom Finney's tally of 30 to become England's highest goalscorer and he retained top spot until Bobby Charlton overtook his figure of 44 a year later.