50 years of hurt

WORLD CUP FINAL

Saturday 30 July 1966

 
England 4 Hurst 18, 101, 120, Peters 78
West Germany 2 Haller 12, Weber 89
After extra time

England Banks - Cohen, J Charlton, Moore (c), Wilson - Stiles, Ball, R Charlton, Peters - Hurst, Hunt. Booked Peters Manager Alf Ramsey
West Germany Tilkowski - Höttges, Schulz, Weber, Schnellinger - Beckenbauer, Overath - Haller, Seeler (c), Held, Emmerich Manager Helmut Schön
Attendance 96,924 at Wembley Stadium, London Referee Gottfried Dienst (Switzerland)
Kick-off 3pm BST. Live on BBC and ITV.

ENGLAND won the World Cup on this day 50 years ago, beating stubborn West Germany 4-2 at Wembley after extra time.

Geoff Hurst scored a famous hat-trick, Martin Peters got the other goal and thus ensured a third West Ham United man, captain Bobby Moore, lifted the Jules Rimet trophy.

The Germans were a good but not yet a great team. Aged 20, future star Franz Beckenbauer was still just a youngster.

Nevertheless, the visitors gave England a scare by taking an early lead and then, much later, equalising with seconds left from a set-piece.

In between, England played generally well - Hurst scored his first with a glancing header from a floated Moore free-kick before Peters looked to have won it with a low half-volley from eight yards in the 78th minute.

It was never going to be that easy, though. Germany equalised - and yet, far from deflating the English players, the late German goal actually seemed to galvanise Alf Ramsey's men.

Of course, the controversy over Hurst's second goal to make it 3-2 goes on to this day.

So it was a good job then that he added his third and England's fourth in comprehensive fashion, made especially famous by Kenneth Wolstenholme's line: "They think it's all over. It is now."

Sadly, that is as good as it has ever got for English football.

By contrast, for Germany, the 1966 Final was just a starting point. The Germans - either as West Germany or as a unified team - have since won the World Cup three times in 1974, 1990 and 2014, having previously won it in 1954.

Additionally, the Nationalmannschaft have also been European Championship winners in 1972, 1980 and on English soil in 1996.

Moreover, their overall record is superb - they have reached at least the semi finals of the World Cup on 10 occasions and at least the semi finals of the Euros on nine occasions in the last 50 years, including a run of the last six consecutive tournaments under Joachim Löw.

In short, if anything, Germany are guilty of not having won even more.

England, of course, have won nothing in that timeframe, and have only made three semi final appearances in the last 50 years - in 1968, 1990 and 1996.

Now, if anything, the Three Lions are getting further away - at least in those painful 1990s shootout defeats to Germany, there was genuine hope that it might be different next time.

The mood in those days was perfectly summed up by the bittersweet refrain of Three Lions by Frank Skinner, David Baddiel and the Lightning Seeds: "Thirty years of hurt, never stopped me dreaming".

However, no matter how many times England fans closed their eyes to dream, no trophy ever arrived.

As a reaction, in the early 2000s, the Football Association (FA) took a step to change the years of failure but courted controversy by appointing a foreigner in the role of head coach for the first time.

Sven-Göran Eriksson's tenure lasted five years - and, while he ended up generating as many stories about his lurid private life as anything on the pitch, his record was at least respectable.

The Swede oversaw three successive quarter finals with England only beaten by eventual winners Brazil in 2002 before two more shootout defeats, both to Portugal, in 2004 and 2006.

Even this relatively modest level now appears difficult for England to achieve on a consistent basis.

In the last 10 years, there has been only one run to the last eight of a tournament - that came in 2012 and was somewhat unexpected given that Roy Hodgson had just taken over.

England failed to qualify for Euro 2008 under the instruction of the wally with the brolley, Steve McClaren.

Meanwhile, the 2010 and 2014 World Cup campaigns also both ended badly - the first with a 4-1 reverse to Germany in Bloemfontein, and the latter with a first group stage exit since 1958.

Such a thorough lack of achievement is branded "a national disgrace" by Daily Telegraph writer Henry Winter in the introduction of his excellent book, also called Fifty Years of Hurt.

Winter adds: "Wembley stands as part-shrine to 1966 and part-monument to catastrophe."

Now Winter's book was released prior to this summer's finals in France where England undoubtedly recorded the worst result in their finals history since the infamous 1-0 defeat to the United States at the 1950 World Cup.

There can be no doubt about it - that humiliating 2-1 loss to Iceland, just over four weeks ago, was so laughably terrible that it deserves to be ranked alongside the defeat to the Americans.

It should therefore also be seen as a watershed moment.

Already, though, the actions of the FA directors suggest they are content again with just muddling through and hoping for the best.

Indeed, outside of the fact that he is an Englishman, the appointment of the self-styled Big Sam Allardyce - that purveyor of a soul-destroying, long-ball game - makes no sense at all.

As a Newcastle United fan, it would be fair to say that this correspondent does not have an unbiased opinion of the Dudley-born 61-year-old.

However, I do write from a position of having experienced Allardyce as the manager of the club which I support, albeit for a thankfully short period of six months.

In that time, Newcastle found themselves 3-0 down to Portsmouth at home in eight minutes - and, a few weeks later, failed to have a single shot on target or a corner in a meek surrender to Liverpool at home.

The final score was 3-0 to the Reds but it was a result which could have been doubled at least.

Then, in January, the Magpies played for a 0-0 draw away at then-Championship Stoke City in the FA Cup. It was to be Allardyce's final game at the club.

Nevertheless, his reign at Newcastle will be most remembered on Tyneside for the two games against Derby County.

Derby were the worst team which the top flight of English football has even seen, collecting 11 points all season. Four of them came from Newcastle.

The first three came in a 1-0 away defeat on a bitterly cold September night in Derby. Kenny Miller scored the winner as the Rams' recorded their only win of the season.

Then, in the return game in December at St James Park, Newcastle twice had to battle from a goal down to rescue a point. Mark Viduka struck the second equaliser with three minutes left.

So, in 180 minutes of football against the worst side ever in the Premier League, Allardyce and his team were ahead for precisely none of them. The disbelief lingers even now.

All of that was almost 10 years ago - so, to be fairer to him, let us take a look at his more recent managerial spells.

At West Ham, he failed ever to win the backing of the majority of supporters even when he had guided the team into the top four at Christmas in 2014-15.

Hammers fans knew the form could not be sustained - and, following a run of only three league wins and 11 defeats after the turn of the year, the Londoners finished 12th. It was time for Allardyce to go.

Happily for him, he was not out of work long as a struggling Sunderland side turned to him salvation.

Allardyce achieved his goal of keeping the Black Cats in the Premier League, something for which he has been lauded.

But safety for the Wearsiders only came in the final week of the season, despite him having been in charge for 30 of the 38 league games. They ultimately finished 17th having won nine games.

Is that really enough even to be considered for what is meant to be the top football job in the country?

Apparently it is - but the appointment of Allardyce will do nothing to resolve England's inherent weaknesses.

As proven by the performances of many of the players in the Premier League, the national team does not lack in ability.

It does, however, lack bottle in that it fears taking risks on the field and, worst of all, outright panics at the slightest hint of a setback.

The second half headless chicken chasing in the Iceland match was perhaps the biggest example of this but there have been countless others over the years.

Brash Allardyce - with all of his bravado - may seem, on the surface, to be the ideal character to help England overcome their psychological barriers.

But hitting long passes into channels and sitting deep only ever provides a thin veneer of bravery. Eventually it will crumble.

It perhaps explains why Glenn Hoddle is still curiously admired by many England fans, notwithstanding his clearly questionable personal beliefs.

In football terms, though, Hoddle knew his stuff. His rearguard tactics away to Italy in the 1998 World Cup qualifiers and against Argentina with 10 men in the finals themselves were both notable for the way England never stopped trying to play passing football.

Hoddle, however, has been out of the game for too long now - and then there are those inescapably unacceptable views on the disabled.

Nevertheless, someone like Hoddle - a coach who would eliminate the fear felt by players by giving them genuine confidence on the ball - is who England should have been looking at.

For that is real bravery in football - wanting the ball and then expressing yourself with it, actually enjoying the occasion and the challenge rather than worrying about what people might think.

Of course, with no obvious Englishman meeting that criteria expect perhaps for the hugely inexperienced Eddie Howe at Bournemouth, that would obviously have meant another foreign-born coach.

Unlike Fabio Capello, it would have needed to be a coach who knew about English football - but, like Capello, someone who has also been a winner.

Even set against those requirements, there were still a few valid candidates - former Manchester City coach Manuel Pellegrini or, better still, an audacious attempt could have been made to pull Arsene Wenger out of his comfort zone at Arsenal.

Instead, shamefully and indeed shamelessly, the FA has made another pathetically short-sighted decision.

Allardyce - unless he fails massively like McClaren - will no doubt do enough to scrape England to the finals.

But qualification will be secured amid a set of uninspiring performances, with perhaps a couple of dodgy away results thrown in for good measure.

Once at the finals, the Three Lions will revert to their usual fearful selves, either losing a game they should win or by meekly ceding the ball to a superior team.

Certainly, it does not feel as if the 50 years of hurt are going to end any time soon. Never stopped me dreaming? Pah.

English football - for all the riches of its top division - is now enduring a living nightmare.