IT was the moment every England fan had dreamed of.
July 30, 1966, and the roar inside Wembley Stadium was deafening as Bobby Moore lifted the World Cup.
The victory was sweetest of all for Bobby’s wife Tina.
Just 18 months earlier, her husband had defied the odds to win a punishing battle against testicular cancer.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun 50 years on from that epic World Cup win, Tina, 72, recalls: “Bobby had overcome cancer and there he was holding up the cup at the peak of his beauty and his footballing power.
“The whole of England was cheering for him. It was too much to take in.
“I remember Bobby walking up the steps to receive the trophy wiping his hands. That was typical of him.
“He wouldn’t have wanted to have sullied the Queen’s gloves. I was so proud of him. He was my world.”
Tina told how she wasn’t sure if Bobby knew for certain that he had cancer when the illness was first diagnosed.
She was pregnant at the time with their first child Roberta.
Tina says: “Believe it or not, it was up to the next of kin to decide whether a patient was told they had cancer. It was a death sentence in those days.
“I pleaded with the surgeon not to tell him. I was very worried for the baby and for Bobby. I didn’t know if he was going to live or die.”
Bobby had a testicle removed and amazingly got fit to lead his country into the World Cup.
The couple met when Tina was 15 and Bobby, then a West Ham trainee, was 16. He left love letters under her pillow.
Their romance is the subject of a new three-part ITV drama starring former Corrie favourite Michelle Keegan as Tina.
Tina And Bobby is based on her memoirs, which tell how this unassuming couple became massive celebrities — then split after Bobby was shunned by the sporting world.
After what Tina calls a “low-key” start to the ’66 World Cup, the fan interest exploded on that July Saturday.
She says: “That was the day football became glamorous and the whole country became football-mad.”
After the win, they celebrated at a Playboy club and were besieged by fans. One of the “Bunnies” sat on Bobby’s lap.
Tina laughs: “He belonged to the world that night.”
The parties didn’t stop there. Soon they were hanging out with movie stars in nightclubs.
They became such good friends with James Bond star Sean Connery that one night he ended up babysitting for them.
Tina says: “There would be Sonny and Cher, Omar Sharif, Sammy Davis Jr and Tom Jones. As much as we’d be fascinated by them, they were fascinated by Bobby.
“Sean lived in Spain and so did Jimmy Tarbuck and we were all friends and would hang out together. One day, Sean had Roberta over for the day for us.”
Tina did some modelling work, appeared in an ad for Bisto and posed in an England shirt that barely covered the top of her legs, left. But fame had a nasty sting in its tail.
In 1970 there was a plot to kidnap Tina and their children, plus a threat to shoot Bobby during a West Ham game.
Tina recalls: “At the end of the match, all these policemen ran on and surrounded Bobby.
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“He said, ‘I know I played badly but surely I don’t need to be arrested’.”
What proved harder to cope with was the end of Bobby’s playing career in 1978.
Money pressures and professional setbacks brought on depression — and led him to stray.
Tina says he was hit hard by missing out on the Watford manager’s job in 1977.
Tina says: “That was the biggest letdown. We thought it was a done deal, he and (Watford chairman) Elton John had shaken hands.
“We were on holiday and saw a newspaper and on the back it said the job had gone to Graham Taylor.”
In 1982, Bobby returned from a managerial job in Hong Kong — the best post he could find.
The FA refused to give him the ambassadorial role he craved and job applications went without reply.
Tina reveals: “When he came back from Hong Kong he shook for two days. That’s not normal.
“He was crying all the time. He was in a terrible, terrible situation. Looking back, he was obviously deeply depressed.
“He couldn’t get a job. He had no money. It was dreadful for him.”
They had a big house with a costly mortgage, while a dud investment in a country club cost Bobby £100,000.
Eventually the strain took its toll on their marriage and Bobby began to see another woman behind his wife’s back.
Tina says: “I think Bobby felt he hadn’t achieved what he should have done and that’s why he looked outside the marriage.”
Tina says Bobby was a caring man, not a womaniser.
But she admits she could not accept it when he started an affair in 1984.
She recalls: “I said, ‘Bobby, I am not going to live like this — you have to make a decision.’ And he went.
“I was still in love with him. I was devastated. I had been with Bobby for 28 years.”
They divorced in 1986 and Bobby wed his second wife Stephanie Parlane in 1991.
Tina quit the UK to live away from the spotlight in the US.
She says: “I would go into restaurants and people would say, ‘Oh, there is the ex-Mrs Moore.’ I couldn’t stand it.”
She now spends six months of each year in New York with her new partner.
Bobby died of bowel and liver cancer in 1993, aged 51.
And tragedy continued to dog the family.
Their son Dean struggled with alcohol and died in 2011 aged just 43 as a result of his diabetes.
Tina says Dean struggled with the pressure of having an icon for a father.
She says: “Any child of a very famous father grows up a bit in their shadow. He was like Bobby — very shy. People had very high expectations of Dean.”
Dean lives on via Bobby’s first great-grandson Oliver, who Dean’s daughter Poppy gave birth to 11 months ago.
Tina beams: “Oliver is the spitting image of his grandad. The baby has his golden hair, chin and blue eyes.”
Footie fans still adore Bobby and many believe he deserves a knighthood like fellow 1966 legends Sir Bobby Charlton and Sir Geoff Hurst.
Yesterday, a blue plaque was unveiled to honour Bobby at his childhood home in Waverley Gardens, Barking, east London.
And Tina thinks the 50th anniversary of England’s World Cup win is the right time to give Bobby a posthumous award.
She says: “He is getting more recognition now than he ever did in his life, which is a bit too late because he’s not here to enjoy it.
“When you see other players rewarded for not so much input as Bobby gave, it does seem a bit strange.”
Tina believes the win in 1966 was a one-off and reckons today’s players lack the passion and pride shown by Bobby and his team.
She says: “Perhaps the money and the club they play for means more than playing for your country.
“In our day the players didn’t earn big money and women weren’t attracted to them because they had huge amounts of money.
“But that seems to be what girls aspire to these days.”
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