1. The branding for the 1966 Football World Championship for the Jules Rimet Trophy was all over the shop. But at least Fifa were trying. The 1966 finals was the first to be blessed with a mascot, a small lion wearing a union jack shirt walking along with its eyes narrowed to the point of being totally shut. A myopic nationalist, who’d have thought it. Willie was the creation of the freelance artist Reg Hoye, who had first considered “a little man in a bowler hat” and “a man in a cloth cap” but wished to steer clear of class issues. “I don’t think the result’s pompous,” he insisted, “it’s just to show that we’re not as clapped out as some people think we are.” Hoye was paid a flat fee for his work while the FA creamed off all the profits from the various tat bearing Willie’s grinning boat. “The enormous success of Willie has not made Mr Hoye bitter,” reported the Guardian. “Only a little unhappy.”
2. Our man Eric Todd’s column on the opening morning of the “eighth World Cup final series” was a remarkably prescient piece of writing. “I believe that the vacillations of temperament will play a crucial part,” he predicted. “Certainly they will be awaited with trepidation in some quarters and with undisguised relish in others where ugly scenes are the beginning, the middle and the end of any football match. Is it too much to hope that no player will be sent off, carried off, or escorted off? … Not every guest will be well behaved, and I have no doubt at all that somewhere along the line discipline, judgment and manners, on and off the field, will be set aside.”
3. Argentina, then. In the group stage against West Germany, defender Rafael Albrecht planted his studs in Wolfgang Weber’s fruit bowl, yet he was the one who went away limping. Albrecht was sent off for that challenge, though whether he should have been around to make it in the first place was a moot point, as he’d earlier rather outrageously rugby tackled Helmut Haller. His manager Juan Lorenzo later tried to play down the controversy over that particular tactic by arguing: “A really dirty player would have done it with his foot.” Days later, Nobby Stiles of England arrived late on Jacky Simon of France, fortunate beyond words to stay on the field. Argentina and England would go on to face each other in the quarters at Wembley, and such was the expectation of nonsense that the BBC pundit Jimmy Hill kept a running total of fouls as the match unfolded. After 14 minutes, he announced gravely that England were winning 7-4.
4. France were a disappointment, an opening draw against Mexico as good as it got, as they crashed out in the group stage. The signs that they wouldn’t enjoy the party were there from the off, when their supporters were refused permission to let 5,000 balloons into the air before facing the Mexicans at Wembley. The Ministry of Aviation insisted a joyous jamboree of latex would “interfere with flying”. A compromise was negotiated, and fans were permitted to release one balloon into the air every 15 seconds. Organisers ditched the plan altogether, arguing: “You can’t tell 900 Frenchmen that, can you.”
5. At least the French fans were initially up for it. The opening match of the tournament featured hosts England and two-time champions Uruguay. Wembley was far from full and the clever punters who didn’t bother to turn up missed a dismal goalless draw. England’s stodgy display attracted pelters from all corners of Europe. Portugal: “England showed little variety of style!” Belgium: “Flagrant lack of imagination!” Austria: “The south Americans sometimes made the technically excellent game of the English look ridiculous!” Holland: “All the swaggering of the English that they are the new leaders of world soccer is nonsense! They failed to combine, failed to score, and particularly failed in soccer intellect!” Given that Holland’s best record at a World Cup finals to this point was played one, lost one, achieved not once but twice in the 1930s, you have to admire the chutzpah. Meanwhile former Liverpool and Scotland star Billy Liddell wrote: “Oh for Tom Finney on the wing! Let’s not talk too much about England winning the World Cup. We ought to be more worried about whether they are going to qualify from their group!” As wide of the mark as the brazen Dutch hack, but at least Liddell knew a thing or two about playing on the wing.
6. England got their act together in their next match, beating Mexico (who were staying in Finsbury Park, the age of the seven-star spa retreat having yet to come around). It was a quiet tournament for the Mexicans, though goalkeeper Antonio Carbajal became the first player to appear in five separate tournaments – only Lothar Matthäus has since matched the feat - when he turned out in the final group game with Uruguay. His first cap had come at the opening match of the 1950 finals when, with concrete still dripping from the walls of the newly opened Maracana, and opening-ceremony fireworks smouldering in the goalmouth all around him, he conceded four to rampant hosts Brazil. This would be his last, and the 38-year-old took his bow in style, sticking out a “big boot” to deny Uruguay’s brilliant striker Pedro Rocha, one of the stars of the all-conquering Peñarol, from close range. Carbajal’s World Cup career finished with a clean sheet, his first in 11 matches. He kissed both of the Wembley goalposts in celebration.
7. All teams who played at Old Trafford were presented with a Wedgwood jug for the president of the FA and a set of pottery for the players. Good news for Portugal, Hungary and Bulgaria, but pity poor Brazil, who played all of their games at Goodison Park.
8. Yes, pity poor Brazil. They went out in the groups. The main narrative arc of their 1966 story concerns the superannuated defending champions being bullied out of it, and Pelé was indeed kicked around like an old sock against Bulgaria and Portugal. But they were simply outplayed by Hungary, whose 1966 side remains one of the great forgotten teams in World Cup history. Here’s the move of the tournament, in the match of the tournament, a sequence of ball-juggling brilliance around Brazil that ended a near miss. But who needs goals? It’s an astonishing ensemble piece, right up there with the Clodoaldo-inspired move that led to Carlos Alberto’s famous strike in the 1970 final, and miles ahead of anything the total footballers achieved with all their interchanging four years later. The ball’s sent raking from left to right by Gyula Rákosi, volleyed back inside by Imre Mathesz, chested down and caressed forward by Kálmán Mészöly, headed back and forth between Ferenc Bene and Flórián Albert, and finally sent whistling goalwards by Bene, who sees his header tipped over by Gylmar. If that had gone in, Hungary should have been awarded the trophy there and then. And we haven’t even mentioned Janos Farkas’s astonishing volley that decided the game. Poor old Garrincha, meanwhile, suffered his first defeat in a Brazil shirt, in what turned out to be his final international.
9. England’s star striker at the 1962 finals, Gerry Hitchens, once of Internazionale and Torino but then at Atalanta, predicted West Germany would lose the final. So far, so good. They’d be beaten, he said, by Italy, from whom much was expected. The Azzuri certainly had all the tools. “They are the one in Europe who must seriously be considered,” argued our Albert Barham ahead of the big kick-off. “Italy, with a masterful defence based primarily on players from Internazionale – [Tarcisio] Burgnich and [Giacinto] Facchetti, and with all the wealth of experience of [Sandro] Salvadore in the centre – are as strong as any in Europe. And in attack there is the craft of [Giovanni] Rivera, who has crammed into a few short seasons a lifetime of first-class football.” In the months running up to the finals they had beaten both Poland and Bulgari 6-1, Scotland 3-0, Argentina 3-0 and Mexico 5-0. But it didn’t click for them in England. They scraped a 2-0 win over Chile in a match that was as tedious as the two sides’ meeting four years earlier had been tempestuous – Sunderland is a long way from Santiago – then lost narrowly to the USSR, before humiliating themselves against North Korea at Ayresome Park, Pak Doo-Ik and all that. What went wrong? Dark rumours surfaced regarding Fifa’s strict policies on drug testing which had, eh, compromised an approach that had previously served them well. Other less rational (ie conservative) observers blamed the malign influence of winger Gigi Meroni, who with his fashionable Beatles haircut was dragging everybody down. The team were pelted with soft tomatoes on their return home, the start of a fine cathartic tradition and the only emotional purge that goes well with penne.
10. Argentina again. And the argument as to whether Antonio Rattin should have been sent off in his side’s quarter-final against England has been raging for the best part of half a century now. Nobody’s any closer to consensus, so we’d obviously get nowhere with that here. Let’s instead try to move the discussion on, because if nothing else, Rattin was guilty of crass stupidity for putting himself in a situation where referee Rudolf Kreitlein’s patience finally snapped. After England started brightly, Bobby Charlton hitting the post straight from a corner after three minutes, Rattin wrested control of the midfield to the point where Wembley’s pantomime jeers and slow handclapping of the visitors had been replaced by anxious groans and worried muttering. Argentina fancied their first semi-final since 1930. Then three minutes of madness. Rattin got himself needlessly booked for a pointless lunge on Charlton. Then, after upending Geoff Hurst, he unleashed a two-minute torrent of forthright chat at the German referee, who didn’t understand a word of Spanish but soon decided he got the general gist. Off you go! Argentina still went on to be the better side, just about, even without their captain, but England dug in and Hurst scored the winner with 12 minutes to go. A small English lad ran on to the pitch to celebrate, and was cuffed round the ear by irate Argentina striker Oscar Más, who may well at that point have been visualising his foolish captain.
11. The brouhaha over Rattin had serious implications in the world of boxing, where there had been hope of a unification bout between WBA flyweight champion Horacio Accavallo and his WBC counterpart Walter McGowan. “What England have done to the game of football does not bear a name,” boomed the Buenos Aires southpaw. “If he wants to fight me, he will have to come here where there are no guarantees!” The fact that McGowan was Scottish seems not to have clicked with the irate Argentinian, but the pair never got it on.
12. Did England fiddle the semi-final arrangements so they could stay at Wembley? Nope, though the long-held suspicion that they did is nevertheless a result of some good old-fashioned Football Association ineptitude. The press had initially announced that England v Portugal would be played at Goodison Park, but they only did this because they’d been issued with an FA handbook which stated: “If successful in the quarter-finals, England will proceed to Liverpool to play the semi-final tie at the ground of Everton FC.” However, the FA hadn’t bothered to double-check this with Fifa, whose own tablet of stone decreed: “The two matches will be played at Everton and Wembley, but the actual allocation of grounds will not be made until the competing teams are known.” Oh FA!
13. Young West German midfielder Franz Beckenbauer was in such imperious form that, rather than evading tackles, he would simply ignore them. He helped his side reached the final, where he and Bobby Charlton cancelled each other out. It was not to be for Helmut Schoen’s side, but no matter, they weren’t that fussed about winning. Schoen impressed upon his squad the importance of not acting like spoilt bairns, given that they were visiting a country their forefathers had rained with bombs only two decades previously. They followed Schoen’s order willingly, and were politeness personified. No detail was too small. Someone sent over 200lb of German bread before the final, but the team donated it to an RSPCA shelter full of hungry monkeys. It was a PR boon. “The West Germans are obviously very satisfied with English bread,” trilled an RSPCA spokesperson. A decent bunch of fellows, then, not that their press corps appreciated them. “I know that if we win some of our people are going to say we have beaten the world, but I hate that,” one German journalist grumbled at the Observer ahead of the final, before making a point that resonates through the ages. “I will not have beaten the world. Eleven German footballers will have won a cup and I will be glad to see it. But I am not saying I have beaten anybody. Of these 11 players, how many at home would I have in my apartment for coffee or beer? Maybe two of them.”
14. The German press also had a fairly scathing handle on their counterparts in Fleet Street. “Britain’s sports writers,” we reported sheepishly, “have been described by the Bild-Zeitung, which is read wherever football supporters gather together, as chaps who write their copy in steel helmets and gas masks.” The more things change, eh?
15. On the day before the final, Port Vale general manager Sir Stanley Matthews crashed his car into a lorry and was pinned behind the steering wheel. He underwent an operation for an “abdominal injury”, and also suffered head injuries and three broken ribs. Meanwhile prime minister Harold Wilson announced a wage freeze, an economic policy primarily designed to curry favour with US president Lyndon Johnson by proving his determination to defend the pound and improve the UK’s balance of payments. Wilson came back from Washington smiling, sporting a tie with a World Cup motif on it. A penny for the thoughts of struggling freelance artist Reg Hoye.
16. Oh all right then. The ball didn’t cross the line. The epigrammatic BBC brilliance of Kenneth Wolstenholme’s “They think it’s all over, it is now!” might have stood the test of time more than Hugh Johns’s jabber over on ITV – “That is it!” – but then Johns went on to enjoy three more tournaments behind the mic while poor old Ken only got the one, so it’s swings and roundabouts. And Pickles the Dog hanged himself on his lead in 1967 while chasing a cat.
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