This was the first World Cup I was old enough to watch and appreciate. It was 1966, the year before colour TV appeared, so black and white it was.
Colour TV, just as an aside, made its first appearance on BBC2 at Wimbledon, where everybody had to wear white! A typically well thought out introduction to the wonderful world of colour by the BBC.
So back to the World Cup and, after a laborious 0-0 draw against Uruguay, England sailed through the rest of the group beating Mexico 2-0, then France by the same score. Without playing remarkably well, England had qualified from the group and Roger Hunt had scored three goals. Worryingly, at this stage, England’s top scorer, Jimmy Greaves, hadn’t scored a goal in the opening three games.
In the quarter-final England were to face Argentina. By now Alf Ramsey had decided to drop Jimmy Greaves and picked Geoff Hurst in his place. This paid off when Hurst scored the only goal of a drab game, remembered more for the sending off of Antonio Rattin, Argentina’s captain, than for anything else.
In the semi-final, England conceded their first goal of the competition when Eusebio scored a penalty for Portugal. It made little difference as England were already leading at the time with two goals from Bobby Charlton. The game finished 2-1. (more…)
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