‘The most vivid Christmas of all was the year I got the turkey leg. You see, I had a long wait for it. There were eight in the family and only two legs on the turkey.’ 1985

‘In the North East, the front step of your house was important. It had to be so spotless that you could have eaten your Sunday dinner off it. Ours was – it was the best in the street. It gave our mam a great deal of pride.’ 1983

‘When I was a bairn, in the era of baggy shorts, growing up in the North East meant that you were raised on stories of great centre forwards.’ 1981

‘My dad was a football fanatic and he worked in a sweet factory. What else does a boy need?’ 1976

‘Wilf Mannion was my hero. It was as if he’d walked straight out of the cinema screen. In Middlesbrough, he was like a movie star. Hollywood on our streets.’ 1976

‘I was taught the importance of clean shoes. Mind you, I had to polish them hard. I wore the toes out of most of them kicking a ball around.’ 1972

‘At school I was a failure. I suppose I was thick ... I cried when I failed my 11-plus.’ 1972

‘We used to sleep three to a bed. There was me, our Bill and our Gerald. We were never cold.’ 1990

‘At first Middlesbrough thought I was crap – too mouthy, too awkward. The club used that as an excuse not to see what I could do on the pitch.’ 1989

‘We were beaten 6-3 at Charlton once. I got the three. On the way home I said: “If we score five next week, do you think we’ll get a point?” ... That sort of thing didn’t go down well with centre halves.’ 2000

‘Alan Brown influenced me because I respected him so much. And he scared me half to death. You didn’t want to be on the end of one of his bollockings. The first thing he ever said to me was: “You may have heard that I’m a bastard ... well, they’re right.” And yes, he could be. But he was a brilliant one.’

On his mentor Alan Brown, manager of Sunderland 1984

‘I always remember trying to get up when the ball broke free. I tried to crawl after it, but I couldn’t move ... The Bury centre-half Bob Stokoe was shouting at me: “Get up ... there’s nothing wrong with you.”’

On the injury which effectively ended his playing career 1968

‘I not only did my knee, I banged my head. A lot of people have put it down to the way I’ve behaved for the last ten years.’

Making light of his damaged knee 1977

‘The best thing I ever did in my life. Oh, was I lucky.’

On marrying his wife Barbara 1990

‘He was so wrong because I was a better player than the bloke he took. He was a lad called Derek Kevan and he couldn’t play at all compared to my ability.’

On Walter Winterbottom’s decision to leave him out of the 1958 World Cup squad 1981

‘Publicity is not my strong suit. Some footballers like to see their name constantly in the headlines. I don’t.’

He protests too much 1958

‘I am very happy to have scored 250 League goals faster than anyone else.’

Typical modesty about his goal-scoring record 1976

‘It certainly wasn’t luck, and I don’t mean that conceitedly ’cause you can’t get lucky 40 times a year. You can get lucky five times, but not 40.’

On the fact he regularly scored 40 goals a season 2001