It was July 1966 and I was ten years old and four months. Remember how a few months added on to your age seemed so important when you were young? My interest in football had only started the year before after a change in school. My old school did not play football or even have a school team. At my new school every playground was for kicking a ball around or chasing a girl, it was so much more fun. I picked the game up quickly, football that is, and was in my new schools team but I was still a year away from going to Upton Park, the home of my favourite club, West Ham United. My mum and dad, who both had no interest in football, had gone up to the East End the night the Hammers won the Cup in 1964. The stories they told me of how the locals were celebrating, the singing and dancing, were enough even at my young age to let me know, this was the club I was going to support for life.
Our family was one of the breed then, large family moved onto the new housing estates in Essex designed to take in the East Enders who had been bombed out during the war. Every time you went outside there were either kids kicking a ball about or heading down onto the local playing fields, knocking on doors on the way, rallying up enough to make at least 20 a side. There was no 45 minutes each way, you just played until it was dark.
But this was July 1966 and something big was happening. England were hosting the World Cup. Our manager, Alf Ramsey, was telling everyone we were going to win it! He was bonkers, everyone knew it, how could anyone beat Brazil? They had Pele. In fact we were lucky to be playing for anything at all. Someone had nicked the Cup a few weeks earlier only for it to be found in a brown paper bag in a hedge by a now notoriously famous dog named Pickles. Famous that is for the amount of trivia questions surrounding the event since that day! Colour TV was still a year away and another three before both BBC and ITV had regular broadcasts. For most it was even longer than that due to the expense. It was exciting waiting for the first game of the tournament to begin. Live football was a rarity in the UK back then, from memory I think it was only the FA Cup final that was usually shown live and perhaps the European Cup finals? Match of the Day and the Big Match were Saturday night and Sunday lunchtime offerings that showed highlights of one pre-selected game and the goals from some of the others in the English first division. It was certainly the famine before today’s feast, and all in black and white too!
England played Uruguay in that first game and drew 0-0, but we went on to top our group with 2-0 wins over France and Mexico. The big shocks were happening in groups three and four though, with Brazil losing out to Portugal and Hungary, and North Korea qualifying at the expense of Italy. Poor Pele had been kicked all over the place and Brazil failed to adapt and nothing was known about North Korea but it meant the Italian players would have tomatoes thrown at them when arriving back home at the airport.
In the quarter finals the Koreans led Portugal 3-0 after just 22 minutes and the whole World wondered what was going on! However, Portugal with the goal machine Eusebio, restored sensibility and came back to win 5-3 and West Germany and the Soviet Union also made the semi finals. England beat Argentina in a spiteful match 1-0, with Alf Ramsey famously branding Argentina and their captain Rattin “animals”. West Germany and England of course made the final as both won their semis 2-1 against the Soviets and Portugal respectively. By this time the form of Geoff Hurst, who had replaced the injured Jimmy Greaves earlier in the tournament, was in line to make it three Hammers playing in a World Cup final. West Ham skipper Bobby Moore was already proving himself World class and Martin Peters was a player Ramsey was later to describe as “ten years ahead of his time”.
The final between England and West Germany was played at 3pm on Saturday the 30th July 1966. A date that has gone down into British history. I knew it was going to be a big day then as mum and dad had organised their day to watch the game on TV. I am sure it was the first game of football they had ever watched in their lives! No need to tell anyone here what happened but it is still the most famous and proudest date in English sporting history. West Ham of course, made an overwhelming contribution with Moore as captain and Hurst and Peters scoring all four goals. Like me, I doubt there are too many of you reading this now of similar age that could not recite the team sheet of that day. The following weeks down the fields saw kids puffing their cheeks out, just like Geoffrey, as they blasted the ball into the back of the imaginary net, followed by the self commentary of “they think it’s all over – it is now!” Imaginary net of course, as all goals back then were just two piles of jumpers.
A few weeks later our local catholic church hall managed to get a cinema tape of the game and they played the whole game again in their function room. It was on a big screen but it was also in colour! What a treat. I will never forget that day as hundreds of kids sang England and cheered as our Hammers scored their goals, every moment relived in pure innocent ecstasy. In a few days time it will be the 50th anniversary of that famous afternoon at Wembley Stadium. Those halcyon days seem so heady now, such a long time ago. Fantastic memories, but if you told me then that 50 years later I would be writing about that day, and that England had won nothing since and not even played in a final, I would not have believed you.
I have decided to release this article a week before the anniversary so as not to clash with Dan Coker’s three part series on the event next week. Not a bad effort on Dan’s part as he is getting married next Saturday, 50 years to the day we won the Cup! I think everyone on here will all join me in wishing Dan and his bride all the very best for their special day and the future.