BOOING and hissing at a World Cup winner? True confession time - yes, I'm guilty on all accounts.

The target for such fear and loathing was none other than Alan Ball, the youngest member of England's 1966 World Cup-winning team, who sadly died this week of a heart attack.

Ball is the second to die of those 11 heroes of old Wembley 1966 who on a sun-sizzling summer afternoon beat West Germany 4-2. Bobby Moore, the then skipper who elegantly elevated that gleaming 12 inches Jules Rimet trophy into the north London skies, was the first member of that famed and feted team to pass away. He was stricken by cancer several years ago.

But Alan Ball, that fiery redhead of perpetual motion, to steal a phrase from an admiring Everton fan? The breaking of that news item this week left football fans of a certain age quite shaken.

Ball in his initial playing pomp - how could it get any better than to be a World Cup winner at the age of 20 - was the epitomé of energy. He was a Blackpool-born fizzball of dynamism, relentlessly hounding down the opposition.

One of the late-night radio tributes to the galloping Lancastrian was that amidst a venerable venue of Moore, Beckenbauer, Charlton (Bobby), Seeler, Banks and Haller, the man of the match that afternoon was the coltish red-headed scamperer who almost matched fellow midfield harrier Nobby Stiles' socks-rolled-down jig of joy during the victory parade beneath the Twin Towers.

It is a credit to Ball's undiminished enthusiasm for the game that rather than let his head be turned by becoming the world's best at such a tender age he blossomed further into the complete modern-day midfielder.

He would not have looked out of place in today's game. Indeed, for all those flash footballers presently prancing around in multi-coloured footwear, Ball was even one of the pioneers of white football boots during the 1970s as were Tommy Smith and Terry Cooper. Somehow, the white boots suited Ball more than those two dreadnought defenders.

Shortly after his World Cup exertions, Ball left Blackpool for the Goodison Park home of Everton. And that, readers, is where my hatred' of the flame-haired one originated. As an avid Anfield resident anyone in the blue half of Merseyside engendered a perfectly understandable detestation. Ball was at the top of that podium of odium.

It seemed almost a personal mission not just to wind us Reds up but to always produce a match-winning display at the heart of an all-English midfield trio of Howard Kendall and Colin Harvey. Even when Ball headed south to Arsenal, he continued to terrorise and taunt Liverpool as his high energy was matched by precise one-touch skill.

But I, and many thousands of other Kopites, only booed the ginger nut because he was always a danger to us. He was always a menace, he was always sticking one on us. So Alan, I don't regret the boos one minute, because you were one of the best of a true golden generation. RIP.