James Lawton's sporting greats: Moore reigns supreme as the ultimate sportsman

Botham was the hero of that Headingley Test, Redgrave proved himself peerless in Sydney, but England's 1966 hero was the greatest

Victory for Sir Winston Churchill in the "big house" of the BBC's brilliantly conceived historical popularity parade – and the relegation of the late Princess of Wales to a mere third place – encourages a previously unlikely idea. It is that a similar show based on sport would not necessarily leave some of us raging uncontrollably at the moon.

Winnie's win, which also involved a triumph over John Lennon, does, after all, suggest that if we did have a search for the greatest British sportsman David Beckham might not come home in a canter.

Who knows, the blinding force of celebrity could just run second to epic achievement and some ultimate judgement of both raw talent and competitive character.

Though my own chances of siding with the winner are probably remote – I voted for Shakespeare in the big one after flirting with the Virgin Queen – I remain bold enough to offer my own top 10.

We are considering here, among other timeless qualities, the emotion provoked by action, and on that basis my list would be: 1 Bobby Moore; 2 Ian Botham; 3 Gareth Edwards; 4 W G Grace; 5 C B Fry; 6 Lester Piggott; 7 Fred Perry; 8 John Charles; 9 Sir Steve Redgrave; 10 Ted "Kid" Lewis.

You really ought to be able to offer such a compilation with a nice flush of contentment, but of course you can't because your careful statement about what is important in sport, that labyrinthine search for balance and critical integrity and scrupulous fairness which has left you as drained as a tail-end England batsman walking out to face a combination of Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne, is no doubt somebody else's travesty.

Is it arbitrary, sexist, and not far short of flippant? Well, arbitrary, inevitably. Flippant, possibly. But sexist? Not if the pursuit is of a weight of achievement, something which represents a union of ultimate talent and character and, in some cases, also happens to have moved a huge part of the nation on occasions which will never be forgotten. Moore and Botham occupy my first two places because all that criteria was covered at Wembley when Moore so magnificently led England to its only World Cup win and at Headingley, when Botham conspired to beat the Australians in arguably the most remarkable Test match ever played.

The absence of women is probably a matter for excoriation, which might have been avoided by settling on Ellen MacArthur's brilliant circumnavigation (which unfortunately caused more of a stir in France than Britain) or Virginia Wade's Wimbledon, or the stirring deeds of Mary Rand and Ann Packer in Tokyo or Mary Peters in Munich or Sally Gunnell in Barcelona or Denise Lewis in Sydney, but tokenism is tokenism, however superior the applicants.

It could not fail to be arbitrary. No Tom Finney or Stanley Matthews, George Best or Jim Baxter or Bobby Charlton; no Sebastian Coe or Daley Thompson; no Stirling Moss or Jim Clark or Jackie Stewart; no Nick Faldo; no Walter Hammond or Sir Jack Hobbs or Denis Compton ; no Barry John or Phil Bennett or Andy Irvine; no Kenny Buchanan or Howard Winstone or Lennox Lewis. That, if you are counting, is 20 rejects who long ago laid claim to the sporting heavens.

But you cannot pick 'em all. You can't send out some great lasso. You have to cut out from the herd your own critters for you own reasons and let the snarls of disagreement rest where they may.

Bobby Moore is No 1 because of who he was and what he did – and how he did it. They say that the World Cup-winning inspired celebration in London was equal only to that experienced at the time of Victory in Europe, and if ever a sporting nation en fête could point to the captain of their side and see some of the best of itself – calmness under pressure, an inherent modesty, and a beautifully realised talent – it was surely the English on that summer's day in 1966.

At Headingley, Botham turned Dunkirk into Agincourt. The Aussies sneered that he had produced a glorified "slog'" but Churchill, had he been alive, might have said, "some glory, some slog".

When Gareth Edwards met the mercurial Barry John at a Welsh practice session, he asked politely: "How do you like the pass?" John said: "You pass it, I'll catch it." John was a shooting star – Edwards burned more slowly, and for a much longer period. Pushing into his thirties, he agonised on one last tour of New Zealand, but decided to do it because, as he said: "I'll spend the rest of my life regretting if I don't – because this only comes once, doesn't it?" No sportsman alive has less reason for regrets.

W G Grace is obviously wafted in by the force of history. The father of batsmanship, the first huge crowd pleaser of the game, the curmudgeon-god, could not be denied by any judge of another day, another climate, and the same is true of C B Fry. The beautiful batsman, who captained England, was also an FA Cup final footballer with Southampton, a thrilling wing-threequarter, and world long jump record-holder. As a scholar he was so brilliant he finished ahead of the prodigious future Lord Chancellor, F E Smith, in the roll of Wadham College, Oxford, and was so busy scoring hundreds (96), writing novels, and serving the League of Nations he could not quite fit in the kingship of Albania, which nobody regretted more than the Albanians, who had to settle for somebody called Zog.

The art of Lester Piggott was defined well enough by the great trainer Sir Noel Murless, who said that what happened between Piggott and a horse at the decisive moment of a great race was a mystery known only to the horse and to Piggott – and to God.

Fred Perry was arrogant and unliked at Wimbledon, but he made tennis his battleground and fought with such ferocious brilliance that we can only sigh today as we contemplate the burden heaped on Tim Henman by middle-class England.

Not so long ago someone said to arguably the greatest, certainly the gentlest, footballer ever bred in these islands: "Didn't you used to be John Charles?" The big man smiled kindly and agreed that indeed he once answered to that name. In Turin they still call him The King, but of course they know about football there – and they would no doubt recoil that such a man could become such a marginal figure in the land where he first announced a talent that was as strong as it was sublime.

Sir Steve Redgrave transcends his fierce, almost closed world of rowing. His five gold medals from five Olympics is the unique reflection of a spirit that, when the fifth medal was gathered in on a brilliant morning in Australia two years ago, received its most eloquent tribute from the Italian stroke Carlo Mornatti. "Redgrave," said the Italian, "is beyond praise, beyond imagination. You look at what he has done and you just cannot believe it. You never want to be beaten at this level, it is the hardest thing but, if it is to happen, let it happen at the hands of great men."

Ted "Kid" Lewis was born Gershon Mendeloff in Whitechapel in 1893, and now a blue English heritage plaque is attached to the wall of the house. He fought 283 times, won 215, lost 44, drew 24, and twice held the world welterweight title. He went to America to win it from the formidable Jack Britton. He lost to Georges Carpentier for the world light-heavyweight champion. He lopped four years off his age and served in the RAF during the Second World War. He was, good judges said, the best pound-for-pound fighter in the history of the British ring. He died some years before Prince Naseem Hamed made his first ring entrance. Most old ringsiders agreed it was just as well.

Yes, an arbitrary list, it is true. But any journey that starts with Bobby Moore and finishes with Ted "Kid" Lewis, one likes to think, is probably worth the trouble – and the strife.

1 BOBBY MOORE
2 IAN BOTHAM
3 GARETH EDWARDS
4 W G GRACE
5 C B FRY
6 LESTER PIGGOTT
7 FRED PERRY
8 JOHN CHARLES
9 STEVE REDGRAVE
10 TED KID LEWIS

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