PRIME MINISTER Harold Wilson made two predictions on World Cup final day.
The first he got slightly wrong. The second has haunted us for 50 years.
The Labour leader, who had rushed back from government business in Washington to see England’s dramatic 4-2 win, said: “I was a bit shattered it went into extra-time. I said it would be 2-1 and I was only one minute out!”
Wilson, though, would make a more accurate forecast that night. Ushering a reluctant Alf Ramsey on to the balcony of the Royal Garden Hotel to receive the acclaim of the fans, Wilson told him: “It’s only once in a lifetime, you know.”
How right he was. Not in his lifetime. Not in Ramsey’s. Maybe not in any of our lifetimes.
Ramsey inherited a team whose stock wasn’t much higher than the class of 2016.
The ‘masters of football’ myth had long been exploded by the time he took the job in 1962. Ramsey was in the team humiliated by the USA in 1950 when England first deigned to enter the World Cup and his final cap came as Hungary taught us a football lesson at Wembley three years later.
By the time he was appointed, we were licking our wounds after a fourth successive World Cup flop.
Ramsey had led Ipswich from the Third Division South to the First Division title.
That was one miracle. Now he needed another.
His comments on the day he accepted the job revealed how he would produce it.
Contrary to legend, he didn’t promise we would win the World Cup. That bold pledge didn’t come until the following summer.
Instead he confined his prediction to: “We have the potential.” Significantly, though, he added: “Even in the days when England had great players like Stanley Matthews, Tom Finney and Raich Carter the team would have been better with a rigid plan. Any plan must be adapted to the strengths and weaknesses of the players.”
Over a three-year period, Ramsey pieced together his jigsaw. Star quality counted for nothing if a player didn’t fit his “rigid plan”.
He had, arguably, three world-class outfield players. Bobby Moore, Bobby Charlton and Jimmy Greaves. But even they weren’t safe.
Moore was almost stripped of the captaincy over a lack of off-field discipline, Charlton was dropped as Ramsey flirted with using Terry Venables and the debate over whether Greaves was too much of an individual for the manager’s tastes would rage until the very day of the final.
Ramsey quickly brought in young keeper Gordon Banks and identified the likes of Fulham full-back George Cohen and hard-working Liverpool forward Roger Hunt as reliable team men.
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Results were mixed and Ramsey faced calls for his head after a disastrous South American tour in 1964. Ipswich tried to lure him back but he pledged: “I am now engrossed in my job of building a team for the World Cup.”
Slowly, results picked up and the pieces fell into place. Jack Charlton and Nobby Stiles made their debuts in April, 1965. Alan Ball a month later. Geoff Hurst in February, 1966. Martin Peters in May, 1966.
Eyebrows were raised at the selection of workmanlike players like Big Jack and Stiles, but Ramsey would not be swayed.
The tactics slowly evolved too. In December, 1965, he named a team with no wingers to face Spain in Madrid. This was unheard of and his selection was ridiculed. England won 2-0 and were hailed by Spain boss Jose Villalonga as “phenomenal”.
Ramsey had found his magic formula, but he hardly returned to it in the coming months, throwing our World Cup rivals off the scent.
When the finals began, Ramsey used a winger in each of the group games. We qualified, but our uninspiring football did nothing to convince the critics we could go all the way.
Then, with a quirk of fate, it all came together. With Greaves injured for the quarter-final against Argentina, Geoff Hurst came in to score the winner and Peters and Ball provided the width as Ramsey unleashed his Wingless Wonders formation.
A stubborn Ramsey also resisted pressure to drop Stiles after he was warned for rough play.
It was the first time the XI who would win the final had played together.
Having edged ten-man Argentina in an ill-tempered battle, England were superb in the semi-final win over Portugal.
Now only West Germany – and one last big decision – stood in Ramsey’s way. Should he recall the fit-again Greaves?
Today much is made of Ramsey’s choice and, yes, leaving out Greaves would have been used as a stick with which to beat him. In truth, though, is it was a no-brainer.
Ramsey had dropped Greaves several times previously and a bout of hepatitis kept him out for most of World Cup season.
Just before the tournament Greaves scored four in Norway. Yet Ramsey’s reaction was hardly a ringing endorsement. “I was glad Greaves scored four, but he was only one of the XI. I am glad when anyone scores four.”
Greaves then started the finals poorly and there was a growing campaign among press and pundits for him to be dropped even before he was injured.
With England winning twice without him and the industrious Hunt, Hurst, Ball and Peters all executing the Ramsey plan so well, there was no going back.
Hurst scored a hat-trick, Moore lifted the Jules Rimet Trophy and Ramsey, suddenly a national treasure, was knighted.
That, though, would be the peak for Ramsey and his Wingless Wonders. The FA sacked Sir Alf in 1974 and, in the years which followed, English football inexplicably left him and Moore out in the cold as our fortunes faded.
Maybe it is only now, after the pain of 24 major tournaments in which we have managed a pitiful three semi-final appearances, that we can truly appreciate Sir Alf and the Boys of 66.
They only come along once in a lifetime, you know.
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