QUESTION - who was Bolton born and bred, went to Castle Hill School and became arguably England's greatest centre-forward?

Take your pick! Nat Lofthouse, scorer of 30 goals in 33 internationals, or Tommy Lawton, who scored 22 in 23 England appearances in a career seriously curtailed by the war years.

Lofthouse himself rates Lawton - his illustrious predecessor in the England No 9 shirt - as one of the all-time greats while Lawton, six years his senior, always spoke with pride at having been an inspiration to young Lofty.

They were never rivals at international level but they could have been team-mates at Burnden Park, if Wanderers' legendary manager Charlie Foweraker had been prepared to give Lawton's grandad a job!

All Wanderers were prepared to offer the 14 year old Lawton was 7/6d (37p) a week as a butcher's delivery boy while Burnley, then only a Second Division club, made him assistant club secretary on a wage of £2/10/0 (£2.50) a week and employed Grandad Riley as assistant groundsman on £3/10/0.

Thus one of the most exciting centre-forwards to grace the game entered the League ranks. Twenty-five games and 16 goals later, he was transferred to Everton for £6,500 to replace the prolific Dixie Dean ... and a legend was in the making.

When he died in 1996, he'd hit the heights of fame and plumbed the depths of despair with a failed marriage, the shame of court appearances and penury before he restored his pride as a respected pundit and journalist.

The story is told in "The Complete Centre Forward - the authorised biography of Tommy Lawton" by David McVay and Andy Smith, journalists who never saw him in his prime but came to know him well in his latter years and traced his contemporaries to provide a fascinating insight into a legend who graced the game either side of the war years.

Thomas Lawton was born in MacDonald Street, Farnworth on October 6, 1919. His father was a signalman on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway at Moses Gate and his mother was a weaver at Harrowby Mill. After his parents split up when he was just 18 months, young Tommy grew up in a crowded terraced house in Folds Road under the influence of his soccer-mad grandfather.

His schooling at Tonge Moor, Castle Hill and Folds Road Central saw his talent and enthusiasm nurtured to such an extent that his dream of one day following in the footsteps of another Bolton goalscorer - the great David Jack - would become reality.

Chelsea, Notts County, Brentford and Arsenal would profit from his power and goalscoring ability but the Lawton story is more than just a chronicle of games and goals of a hero who grew up in the back streets of Bolton.

It serves to illustrate the contrast between the show business lifestyles of today's sporting heroes and their illustrious forebears.

Consider the facts: Roy Keane reputedly earns £52,000 a week while our nation's top footballers are paid megabucks for endorsing anything from burgers to Brylcreem and the Premier League is sponsored by Carling; in 1955, when he was earning £17 a week playing for Arsenal, Lawton, who would later become penniless, had to turn down an offer of £10,000 from Guinness to head a poster campaign ... because Arsenal players were not allowed to be associated with alcohol!

True, he made mistakes along the way, living to regret two particular events - his ill-fated first marriage and his decision, after moving from Everton to Chelsea and still in his prime, to drop down to the Third Division with Notts County.

"That first marriage was the worst day's work I did in my life," he admitted. "The second was joining Notts County. I should have stayed at Everton and transferred the wife!"

McVay and Smith tell the Lawton story with equal measures of respect for the legend and sympathy for the fallen hero.

What the book (published by SportsBooks Ltd and priced £14.99) doesn't tell us is what would have happened if Charlie Foweraker had looked after Grandad Riley and Tommy Lawton had, as he dreamed of doing, signed for Wanderers?

And, if he had, would they ever have needed Nat Lofthouse?