Make Bobby Moore a Knight! High time to bend the rules and honour England's finest, the humble hero, loyal friend and immortal giant of our game, writes JEFF POWELL

Early one Saturday evening after a West Ham home win – back in the early 70s when famous footballers and sportswriters mingled socially – Bobby Moore and I were propping up one corner of the historic pub next door to the old ground.

The Boleyn Tavern lays claims to the longest horse-shoe bar in Britain. An elderly gentleman wrapped in a large claret and blue scarf edged his way through the happy throng clutching his match programme.

'Would you please sign this for me, Mr Moore,' he requested. 'Of course,' said Bobby, while also buying him a pint to lubricate his celebrations.

At which the old chap said: 'If you don't mind me saying so, you always carry yourself with so much dignity that people tend to think you're, well, a bit aloof. I'm going to make it my business to tell everyone I can that you're as modest as you are great.'

Moore smiled and whispered confidentially in his ear: 'You know, if you're quite good at something you don't have to tell anyone.'

Quite good at something? Not least at being described by his old friend and great German rival Franz Beckenbauer as superior to himself as the best defender of all time on one occasion when they were playing each other at chess in the garden of Moore's Chigwell home.

And no, Bobby Moore never, ever suggested to anyone how exceptional he was. Not only as a footballer but as a human being.

Nor, heaven forbid, did he ever give the slightest hint that it might be appropriate for him to be knighted, as the driving force of that unique Wembley triumph of '66. Not even as the only England captain ever to raise aloft so much as a rusty tea-pot.

Not even given his impeccable ambassadorial conduct on England duty. Nor his selfless fund-raising on behalf of the charity seeking a cure for the bowel cancer which he knew was condemning him to a tragically premature passing.

Now the knighting of one of his successors to the armband, David Beckham, has thrust back into the domain of public debate the historic failure to apply that touch of a sword to one of Bobby Moore's trusty shoulders. 

Ancient tradition insists that no such honour can be bestowed after death. A petition for unique exemption to be made for a national icon – the one whose imposing statue guards the portal to the new Wembley - is fast gathering momentum. Surely the time is long overdue for this wrong to be righted.

In the jubilant aftermath of this country's solitary World Cup success only manager Sir Alf Ramsey was knighted. The players who defeated Beckenbauer's Germany in extra time would receive a menage of awards – some of them years later – and in Moore's case an OBE. The withholding of further knighthoods was generally blamed at the time on the snooty attitude of the blazered burgomasters at the Football Association, who looked down upon mere footballers as muddied oafs.

Fortunately that archaic prejudice gave way to enlightenment in time for Bobby Charlton to be knighted before he died. For Geoff Hurst to carry that distinction into his old age. But too late for Bobby Moore who succumbed to his cancer a seemingly impossible 32 years ago, aged only 51. Still, never a week goes by without my remembering the most loyal and generous friend any man could wish for.

Whenever he and I were going through difficult times in our lives and his chronic insomnia at its most sleep depriving, my phone would ring any time between three and five in the morning and that familiar voice would inform me: 'All is well. Just coming through.' After a half hour's drive he would arrive at my apartment, a six pack of lagers in hand. We would repair to the balcony, wrapped in blankets if it was winter, to talk all things football, life and the state of the world.

As dawn broke it lit up the garden square and the church below. We could set our watches to 6.15am as the priest emerged from a side door to make his rounds. 'Good morning, vicar,' we would chorus, raising our cans to him. This was always the reply: 'Morning, Sir Bobby.'

The Reverend assumed he must have been knighted. As did most of the population. As an early morning person 'Mooro' was, by universal acknowledgement of all who managed him or played with him, always first into training. In and out of season. 

When we were working on Bobby's biography he had to travel to South Africa. No matter how long and late we wined and dined in Durban's finest restaurants, he knocked on my hotel room door at six o'clock sharp every day to get me up for our morning run on the beach. As in most things, Bobby was better at holding his drink than almost everybody.

When he was placed under house arrest in Colombia – on that preposterous trumped-up charge concerning the disappearing Bogota Bracelet – he would start his 6am run by jogging past the guards sleeping in the doorway of the diplomatic mansion to which he was supposed to be confined. 

Upon his return he would bring those policemen a carton of milk each for their breakfast. A kindness they told him they would miss when he was exonerated and sent flying on his way to rejoin his England team-mates at the Mexico '70 World Cup Finals. Without so much as a hint of jet-lag or anxiety fatigue in the opening match.

With the knighthood factor now reignited, Bobby's reaction whenever the issue was raised comes to mind: 'There are many more deserving than myself.' He was thinking among others of military heroes who made the supreme sacrifice. Forgetting that medals all the way up to the Victoria Cross can be awarded after death.

Comparisons are relevant in this particular case, this year. With Beckham and Gareth Southgate ennobled for simply coming close to England glory, is it really too much to ask that protocol be set aside just this once? For an immortal giant of our sporting world. The rock upon which the England of '66 were built. The legend voted Player of those World Cup Finals who went on to share with another defensive maestro of yore – Arsenal's Billy Wright – the record of 90 matches as England captain.

Enough said. Except by Pele, the late GOAT no less, who made a point of exchanging shirts with Moore four years later after a 1-0 victory in Mexico by a Brazil team en route to succeeding England as world champions. Who hailed Moore as the greatest defender he ever played against.

When it comes to charities, work for which counts heavily towards honours, Moore is still doing good beyond his early grave through the fund for Imperial Cancer research in his name, to which his widow Stephanie is constantly dedicated. At the latest count that effort has raised £31million despite Bobby's untimely demise.

Beckham oft remembers that he too rose from London's East End to global prominence. I am in possession of a letter in which he exalted Moore as an idol. Might he use his association with the King and the football-loving Prince William to leverage a plea for a one-off posthumous knighthood exemption? 

Perhaps reminding Charles III that before collecting the Jules Rimet Trophy from his mother's gloved hands Mr Bobby Moore - ever the working man's gentleman but deprived of his proper accolade - took royally courteous care to wipe his stained hands on the rail of Wembley's royal box.

The last time we met, on his final outing from home a few days before the phone call came, he managed a lunch so light it can barely have touched the sides. Washed down by a few sips of 'just one' lager he was not supposed to drink. Smiling as he did so.

Then he pulled on a long red leather overcoat given to him years before by his long-ago mentor Malcolm Allison. It was February. We stood on the steps of the Royal Garden Hotel, below the balcony from which he had displayed that trophy to the jubilant thousands gathered in Kensington High Street that balmy evening of July 30, 1966. We both knew. As we grasped shoulders he said: 'All is well.'

All will be better if only the Establishment will bend their regulations, just this once, to give an immortal Englishman the honour he should have received half a century ago.

To sign the petition, visit www.change.org/p/official-honour-bobby-moore-petition

For more information about the Bobby Moore Fund, visit http://cruk.ink/4e8eKrp