It was 55 years ago today and Euro 2020

 It was 55 years ago today. 

You must remember what happened 55 years ago today. Or to be more technically precise it was actually tomorrow but let's not be fussy here. You might have been celebrating with a beer while watching another dramatic episode of Dixon of Dock Green on the BBC or you could have been listening to the Light programme before popping down to the local boozer for a light ale. Such alcoholic refreshments would have been well deserved, right and proper as well as being appropriate.

 The England football team were revelling in their finest hour and half and then yet another half an hour for extra time. England had won the World Cup, the ultimate prize after years of wearisome endeavours, toil and struggle and mundane progress in innumerable international tournaments. These had been the barren years when it never really looked as though England would ever win anything in a sporting context. We knew we hadn't produced a Wimbledon winner in tennis for over 70 years and the cricket team gave us sporadic opportunities to drape the Union Jack flag across our roads and streets. But it wasn't the same. Still, we are world champions at cricket and we did win the Rugby Union World Cup at the beginning of the 21st century.

Of course we were good at elitist sports or pursuits such as croquet, badminton, yachting, squash from time to time and we were very watchable in both rugby league and union but football was an entirely different project. For one day though, on the penultimate day of July in 1966 England were crowned football World Cup winners at the old Wembley Stadium. In hindsight, it probably sounds quite impressive although as an isolated achievement it now seems quite embarrassing. Historically it's a great sentence to utter but nothing has ever crossed England's radar since then.

Back in this June and the beginning of July it looked as though we'd finally cracked it. The code had been deciphered and England would finally win something of substantial note. They had only Italy to beat in the Euro 2020 Final at the new Wembley Stadium and then it all collapsed in front of us like the proverbial deck of cards- again. We knew the Italians would be tough as old nails, efficient, defensively disciplined and all that palaver. We knew the Italians would shove a bolt and lock at the back and just look impenetrable.

But after Luke Shaw had hammered home a low half volley, rushing in at the far post to drive home England's opening goal, it all went to pieces. For the rest of that first half England gave a stark indication of what would follow in the second half. It was almost as if England knew that the Italians were still wide awake up and about, dangerous and resilient. Italy had completely out passed Gareth Southgate's battle hardened troops and the game was up for England on the hour. Italy used all of those familiar psychological tools to carefully wedge open the England defence with a display of delightful passing, brilliant running on and off the ball and instinctive movement which shifted the English players all over the pitch. 

When the Italians equalised and then won the game on penalties suddenly the balloon dropped to the ground. England had lost again at tournament football which, in the eyes of some cynics, was wholly unsurprising because this is the way it had always been and nothing had changed. They had though, come so far in Euro 2020 and it must have been a genuine body blow. So England have now reached the total of several semi final misses and now a major Final for the first time since 1966 and they couldn't quite negotiate that formidable looking hurdle. 

Now though, all we have as some kind of historic consolation is that 1966 World Cup winning team which is where you came in and those who watched the game with you. England had gone all radical and revolutionary, fashionable and flamboyant, the Kinks and the Beatles were battling it out for number ones in the singles and album charts and Simon Dee looked like a college student in his very own TV chat show. 

For the first time in their history, England had been awarded the football World Cup in England and manager Sir Alf Ramsey had declared a couple of years before that England would win the World Cup quite convincingly. Some thought he was delusional and just totally misguided. There was no harm in dreaming but hey, what chance had the England football team of ever winning the World Cup. It was in England, in their own back yard and this was the opportune moment to capture the mood of the nation.

So Her Majesty the Queen proudly opened the World Cup of 1966 and the fanfares could be heard in nearby Neasden. First up were the unknown quantity of Uruguay who spent 90 minutes just blocking or pushing back Sir Alf's men deep into their own half. Because they were South American we knew the Uruguayans had something deceitful up their sleeve. They were never though remotely as good or flashy as Brazil and Argentina but they were still capable of giving England a game. The game finished goal-less and flat as a pancake. 

Then England faced both Mexico and France during which Bobby Charlton literally shot England to victory with two sticks of dynamite from long range. On a momentous semi final night against Portugal the whole country stood on the Wembley terraces biting fingernails or glued magnetically to a black and white TV screen. Charlton hit two thunderbolts from outside the Portuguese penalty area. The ball flew into the corner of the net like the proverbial missile, blowing the netting like a sheet on a washing line. 

On the morning of the 1966 World Cup Final, Nobby Stiles headed straight for the local church for a private conversation with a priest. Bobby Moore, the adorable pin up poster boy as captain for the day, may well have laid out all his clothes and kit in some impeccable and punctilious order. Jimmy Greaves may well have been cursing the injury that kept him out of the World Cup Final although, as we later discovered, Greaves was perfectly fit enough to start the game but Sir Alf had second thoughts. 

Then all of our iconic heroes traipsed down to Golders Green in North London, literally a kick away from the old Hendon hotel, for a spot of window shopping. The wives and girlfriends had to be considered even though the players minds must have been completely pre-occupied with more important considerations. There had to be an escape valve and moment of distraction. It would be the perfect release for the England players hours before the World Cup Final. The country was set fair, sitting on the edge of their settees and chairs, racked with nerves and waiting for a coronation. 

And then the referee blew the whistle for the start of the 1966 World Cup Final. Sir Alf Ramsey, England's sadly emotionless and taciturn manager, sat on a bench rather like a worried husband waiting for his wife to give birth. Wearing a red, white and blue track suit top, Sir Alf 's  head was ramrod straight and immobile, face creased with terror, fear and constant anxiety. Deep within his mind, Sir Alf was wrestling with a thousand emotions, tormented with doubt, probably longing to watch Dixon of Dock Green and wishing he could be on some imaginary desert island where nobody could disturb him. 

Then all of the central characters and major protagonists were called onto the main stage. The tigerish, tireless, wonderfully competitive and grittily tenacious Alan Ball was a fireball, a powerhouse, full of non stop running, hard graft, industry and energetic endeavour. Ball wore his factory boiler suit, clocking on at 3pm and always conscientious. In the opinion of some Ball was a man of the match, at the time a Blackpool player then Everton followed by Arsenal. He was here, there and everywhere, a jack in the box, responsible for the diagonal cross that led to that controversial third goal from Sir Geoff Hurst. 

But the spine of the side including that tower block of a defender Jack Charlton, seemed to blend seamlessly with Martin Peters Ray Wilson, George Cohen, Alan Ball, Sir Geoff Hurst, Roger Hunt and Bobby Charlton. All of the class of 66 sounded like a biblical chapter from long ago,  names with an almost household familiarity about them all, players to conjure with, legendary characters with the hearts of lions. 

That Saturday afternoon at the end of July was rather like the arrival of a new era, the turning point of their lives and quite possibly yours. Where before dullness and grey austerity existed, now the coupons and rationing of the early 1950s would be discarded forever into some distant time warp. That day England experienced a most startling renaissance, a country now fixed on the future, garish, if spellbinding fashions, high class art, art deco architecture and a palette of crazy colours. 

When Bobby Moore patted his hand on the ball for a free kick straight to Geoff Hurst's head for England's equaliser just before half time, the balance of the game had swung inexorably in England's favour. Shortly into the second half, after a moment of almost surreal, slow motion action in the West German penalty area, Martin Peters, a mere slip of a lad, latched onto the ball in front of the West German goal and slammed the ball low and emphatically into the net for England's second goal. 

Then melodrama collided into yet more drama. Yet another West German free kick came flying into the England penalty area and once again time was suspended. The ball seemed to stop and pause, hitting the backsides of German defenders and then crawling along Gordon Banks goal line before another equaliser this time from West Germany seemed to crawl its way almost reluctantly over the line. 

Now for extra time. Alan Ball had run himself into the ground, Jack Charlton was patrolling his defence rather like Jack Warner from Dixon of Dock Green, Nobby Stiles was simply thrusting his body in front of every West German attack, Ray Wilson and George Cohen were sweating from every pore, Bobby Charlton was simply ambitious enough to think that every time he hit the ball it would just explode in the West German net and Geoff Hurst was convinced that the ball had crossed the line for the third goal.

In a sense, and after repeated showings and well documented recordings, it did look as if the ball had marginally come down over the line. Hurst flung out his arms adamant that the goal should have been allowed almost immediately. The goal, after almost shameful deliberation, was given by a benevolent Russian linesman who obviously thought his reward for giving the goal would be a plate of caviar and a huge glass of vodka after the game. 

Then the rousing finale gave us another impressive display of sheer attacking bravado. Out on their feet and running low on petrol, the ball fell to captain Bobby Moore on the edge of his own penalty area. Then there followed a thoroughly amusing piece of theatre. Next to Moore, the pleading, despairing voice of Jack Charlton simply deafened his colleague with what seemed a stream of understandable four lettered expletives. It was the kind of offensive language and vituperation that could only have been excusable with the last kick of a World Cup Final. 

Moore gently lobbed the ball over a non existent West German defence to his West Ham brother in arms Hurst. In what would probably have now been penalised as a country mile offside, Hurst just kept running and running, shepherding the ball next to him as if he was about to keep the ball until his parents told him to come in for dinner. Hurst then let go of the shot, cheeks puffing, and then clobbered a grenade of a shot that could have ended up in Piccadilly Circus but just billowed the net. The tension had been broken and England were world football champions for the first and sadly only time. 

That now historic July night at the Royal Garden Hotel celebrations every single England player stepped out on to their hotel balcony and acknowledged the adoring acclaim of every England fan gathered below. Sir Alf Ramsey, you suspect, probably had a quiet night in with his wife and maybe a modest tot of rum. Ramsey was the man who, on the final whistle, just sat impassively next to Harold Shepherdson, the obedient England trainer while Shepherdson was ordered to sit down. 

While Shepherdson threw his towels into the air at the final whistle, Ramsey was just motionless, disbelieving, phlegmatic, underwhelmed by the wild commotion around him, the raucous mayhem and joyous pandemonium. England had just won the World Cup but the always self conscious and self critical Ramsey couldn't get his head around this one. It was almost as if Ipswich, the club he guided to an old First Division winning League trophy a couple of years before had never won anything and of course they had. Perhaps he thought it was a figment of his imagination.

Still, here we are 55 years later and 1966 is still vividly imprinted on our minds rather like some anniversary of a bloody war from the Middle Ages. By now of course the jokes and cheap jibes are wearing thin, the mockery almost knockabout fun and irreverent satire. Maybe 1966 will morph into another victory for England at an as yet provisional date in the future. Meanwhile Sir Geoff Hurst will continue to light a cigar and relax in his armchair, bitterly disappointed at the trials and tribulations of the latest class of 2020 or 2021 but grateful for just being there on that day in 1966. Oh who cares Sir Geoff  we will never forget where we were and why we there on July 30 1966. It was England and it was truly unforgettable. Three cheers for Blighty.