World cup Legends

WORLD CUP LEGENDS
other places which were taken by Argentina,
Bulgaria, Chile, France, Hungary, Italy, North
Korea, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland,
Uruguay, the Soviet Union and West Germany.
All of England’s games were held at Wembley
and, while the team started slowly with a 0-0
draw against Uruguay, they then went on a
sensational run of victories that took them
straight to the inal.
The night before the big day, Ramsey
– with a nagging sense that the occasion
could overwhelm his men – tried to help the
players relax. Without fanfare, they went to
watch Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying
Machines at a local cinema. “Alf loved going
to the pictures so we all strolled down to the
picture house,” recalls winger Terry Paine,
who had just achieved promotion to the
First Division with Southampton and played
against Mexico in the second game. “And
you know what? Not one photo was taken or
autograph was asked. Can you imagine that
today? You wouldn’t get within 100 metres of
anybody but that was a remarkable feature of
football in those days.”
It wasn’t the irst time Ramsey had tried to
relieve anxieties among the squad. You could
say it had become a speciality of his. After
that group stage draw, he took the players to
Pinewood Studios. “We mixed with stars such
as Sean Connery and went on the set of the
James Bond ilm,” says Paine. “That was extra
special and it got us over the disappointment.”
Ramsey treated the international side as
if it were a club team. He adopted similar
principles to those that had seen him turn
Ipswich Town into league champions at the
irst time of asking. The team became closeknit
and fostered a feeling of togetherness
that would serve them well on the pitch.
On the eve of the inal against West
Germany, most of the talk concerned striker
Jimmy Greaves and whether or not he would
play in place of Geof Hurst. For most of the
tournament Greaves had partnered Roger
Hunt up front, but an injury granted Hurst a
“I GOT TO THE DOOR OF THE DRESSING
ROOM JUST AS BOBBY ARRIVED CARRYING
THE GLEAMING JULES RIMET TROPHY”
Norman Giller, sports historian
LEGEND OF
MANAGEMENT:
SIR ALF RAMSEY
What Alf Ramsey lacked in pace
and height, he more than made
up for with an uncanny knack
for ensuring he was in the right part
of the pitch at the right time. He made
his professional debut on 26 October
1946 in a second division game for
Southampton against Plymouth Argyle
and proved himself to be an intelligent
right-back. But after 96 appearances for
the club, scoring eight goals, he left for
Tottenham Hotspur and won the irst
division in 1951.
When his playing days were over,
Ramsey went on to manage Ipswich
Town in the Third Division (South) in
1955, leading them to promotion as
champions. He won the irst division with
the club in 1961-62, an incredible success
that led to him managing England. After
winning the World Cup in 1966, he
took England to third place in the UEFA
European Championship in 1968 but
quarter-inal defeats at the 1970 World
Cup and 1972 Euros, coupled with failure
to qualify for the 1974 World Cup were
disappointments that saw him sacked
by the FA.
The leather ball used
in the 1966 World Cup
inal, originally claimed
by West Germany’s
Helmut Haller
Ramsey was inducted as a manager into the English
Football Hall of Fame in 2002 and again as a player
in 2010
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