Lineker began his football career at Leicester City and became known as a prolific goalscorer ; despite failing to score in his first ten games, he finished as the First Division's joint top goalscorer in 1984 – 85 and earned his first England cap.

Lineker began scoring prolifically in the early 1980s, helping Leicester win promotion to the First Division in 1980 and again in 1983.

However he began to break into being a regular starter in 1981 and forging a prolific strike-force alongside Alan Smith, Lineker hit 19 goals in all competitions in the 1981 – 82 season.

England internationals Peter Shilton, Gary Lineker, David Nish, Steve Whitworth and Emile Heskey, as well as Don Revie, who played for and managed England all began their careers with the Foxes.

Despite his long career, Lineker was never cautioned by a referee for foul play ( never once receiving a yellow or red card ).

In a senior career which spanned 16 years and 567 competitive games, Lineker scored a total of 282 goals at club level.

Lineker ended his career with an injury-plagued spell in Japan's J.

Lineker still helped out on the stall at the height of his playing career during the late 1980s and early 1990s, though usually only in the closed season.

Lineker scored twice and Peter Beardsley once as England went through 3 – 0 and into a quarter final meeting with Argentina, a match which again would ultimately form part of the legend of Shilton's whole career.

Lineker also worked on other programmes at the BBC.

Lineker was equally talented at both football and cricket.

While he was at Everton, they reached the FA Cup final for the third year in a row but they lost 3 – 1 to Liverpool, despite Lineker giving them an early lead when he outpaced Alan Hansen to score.

Lineker scored three hat-tricks for Everton ; at home to Birmingham City in a 4 – 1 league win on 31 August 1985, at home to Manchester City in a 4 – 0 home win on 11 February 1986, and then in the penultimate league game of the season on 3 May 1986, when they kept their title hopes alive with a 6 – 1 home win over Southampton.

After winning the Golden Boot at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, Lineker was signed by Barcelona for £ 2, 800, 000.

In what proved to be his last England match, against Sweden at Euro 1992, he was substituted by England coach Graham Taylor, in favour of Arsenal striker Alan Smith, ultimately denying Lineker the chance to equal — or even better — Charlton's record of 49 goals.

It transpired in the case that the article had actually been ghost-written by a journalist at the Sunday Telegraph following a telephone interview with Lineker.

Other famous Slade fans include, English ex-football player Gary Lineker and Welsh football player Nigel Vaughan, whom Lea and Hill visited on Boxing Day, 1989 at the football grounds of Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Wright did not make it into the squad for Euro 1992 at the expense of Clough, Gary Lineker of Tottenham Hotspur, Alan Shearer of Southampton and Arsenal team mates Alan Smith and Paul Merson.

Kewell's transfer was highly controversial because it was alleged by former England captain, Gary Lineker, in an article in July 2003 that a significant portion (£ 2, 000, 000 of the £ 5, 000, 000 ) went to Kewell's unregistered agent, Bernie Mandic to ensure that he ended up at Anfield.

The Blues opened the scoring when Gary Lineker outpaced Alan Hansen to shoot past Grobbelaar at the second attempt and held this lead until half-time as Liverpool struggled to find their usual rhythm.

* 20th century famous residents have included Richard Beckinsale, former footballer Gary Lineker, British pop group Five Star who resided at the Stone Court estate, London Road, between 1987 and 1990, Chesney Hawkes, Brian Blessed, Diana Dors and Billy Ocean.

The annual Speech Day, at which boys are awarded various prizes, has been hosted by many famous speakers, including Rory Bremner, Gary Lineker, Henry Olonga, Sir Tim Rice, Sir Roger Bannister OG, Stephen Fry, Lord Coe ( 2007 ), Professor Malcolm Grant ( President and Provost of UCL ) ( 2008 ), Sir Michael Parkinson ( 2009 ), Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson ( 2010 ) and Hugh Dennis OG ( 2012 )

It was only a last-ditch goal from Gary Lineker against Poland that saw England qualify at the expense of the Irish.

During the game, after 60 minutes and with the score at 1 – 1, Taylor substituted Gary Lineker in his final game for England.

Lineker was a great success at the Camp Nou, scoring 21 goals during his first season, including a hat-trick in a 3 – 2 win over Real Madrid.

Lineker spent three years at Barcelona, until Venables brought him back to England with his new club Tottenham Hotspur in 1989.

During his first spell at Newcastle, Beardsley became a regular in the England side and teamed up with striker Gary Lineker, who described Beardsley as " the best partner I could ever have ".

Manager Terry Venables was hoping for him to be a successful strike partner for Gary Lineker, whom he had signed from United's rivals Everton, but Hughes was a disappointment in his only season at Barcelona and was subsequently loaned out to German club Bayern Munich for the 1987 – 88 season, where he regained his form.

He ended the tournament, during which Brazil were memorably eliminated by France at the quarter-final stage, with five goals, placing him second in the Golden Boot rankings behind England ’ s Gary Lineker.

Lineker played in Barcelona's home and away defeats to Dundee United.

There they faced Paraguay, and it was a sliding, stretching Hodge who kept in an over-hit cross from Glenn Hoddle, by pushing the ball into the path of Lineker to tap home.

Ahead of Spain ’ s semi with Portugal, Lineker tweeted: “ Donetsk is a lovely town with friendly folk.

Alex Ferguson attempted to sign Lineker to partner his ex-Barcelona team-mate Mark Hughes in attack, but Lineker spurned the Manchester club.

In October 2002, Lineker backed a £ 5 million bid to rescue his former club Leicester City which recently had gone into administration, describing his involvement as charity rather than an ego trip.

Lineker met the fans ' group to persuade them to try and raise money to rescue his former club.

The team previously had its most successful season in 1995 when it was managed by current Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger, winning the prestigious Emperor's Cup and finishing runners-up in the J. League, and which featured, among others, Dragan Stojković and Gary Lineker on the team, until it was eclipsed on November 20, 2010, when the club won their first ever J.

The same year, Heskey made a six-figure donation to aid a consortium led by Gary Lineker in their bid to buy-out his former club, Leicester City, who were experiencing financial difficulties.

After forming a productive partnership with Paul Stewart, Walsh helped Spurs to a respectable sixth place, however, he suffered the following season as the White Hart Lane club brought Gary Lineker back to England from Spain.

In late 1993, Phil was widely linked with the manager vacancy at Nagoya Grampus Eight where he would get the opportunity to work with former England player Gary Lineker who-at the time, was playing for the club.

The first group game on 12 June was against an England team that included Gary Lineker, Bryan Robson and Houghton's club mates Peter Beardsley and John Barnes.

Although a reasonably frequent scorer, he never managed to gain the level of popularity that the likes of Gary Lineker and Teddy Sheringham had during their time at the club.