July 30 – Three Lions Roar To World Cup Victory
It was a match that had everything, two fiercely rival teams, plenty of goals, controversy, extra time and a pitch invasion. Oh, and it was the World Cup final at Wembley. It was on this day that the Three Lions roared their loudest and England reached the pinnacle of their footballing achievement by winning the World Cup in 1966.
The tournament was being held in England for the first (and so far only) time and England managed to avoid conceding a goal until they came up against Portugal and Eusebio in the semi-final, who was the tournament’s top scorer with nine goals.
98,000 fans packed into Wembley to watch England come up against the old enemy West Germany in the final, with another 400 million viewers around the world watching the match on television.
Ever his own man, manager Sir Alf Ramsey left out star-striker Jimmy Greaves despite his return from injury, and instead opted to keep faith with the front two pairing that had fired England to the final: Geoff Hurst and Roger Hunt. Greaves was distraught, but Sir Alf would be proved right in sensational fashion.
Despite going a goal down when Helmut Haller scored early in the first half, Hurst equalised minutes later, with Martin Peters putting England 2-1 ahead with just 13 minutes of the match remaining.
The Cup looked to be in England’s hands, but the Germans had other ideas and Wolfgang Weber scored late on to take the score to 2-2 and the match to extra time.
Sir Alf rallied his troops and told the players: “You’ve won it once. Now you’ll have to go out there and win it again.”
It was in the 11th minute of extra time that the match took a controversial turn when Hurst’s shot on goal hit the cross bar and bounced down on to the line. Roger Hunt was near enough to tap in the rebound but instead wheeled away in celebration of the goal.
Swiss referee Gottfried Dienst did not see it, but Tofik Bakhramov, the linesman from Azerbaijan gave the goal, to the disbelief of the Germans. Tofik later said that he believed the ball had bounced down from the roof of the net, not the cross bar, meaning the ball had already crossed the line before it bounced down on to the goal line.
In 1995 some Oxford University boffins put technology on the case, and using computer video analysis concluded that the ball did not cross the line and the goal should not have been given.
The Germans never got over this injustice, and to this day a controversial goal that bounces off the cross bar is known as a Wembley-Tor (Wembley goal) in Germany.
There was to be yet more drama before the final whistle however. In the last minute of extra time as the Germans pressed for an equaliser, Captain Bobby Moore won the ball and passed it long up to Geoff Hurst. As he ran towards the goal fans started running on to the pitch in celebration prompting commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme’s famous words, “There’s some people on the pitch, they think it’s all over.” Hurst then smacked the ball into the top corner to take the score to 4-2 and England victory. “It is now!” Wolstenholme said with brilliant timing.
Hurst’s hattrick remains the only one ever in a world cup final, although there may have been an element of luck with his third – he has since admitted that his powerful shot was simply an attempt to kick the ball as far as possible into the stands in order to run down the clock.
See if you can watch this clip of the goals from the final without going all misty-eyed.
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March 25 – It’s All Over for Kenneth | On This Football Day on March 25th, 2009
[...] ENGLAND’S World Cup win in ‘66 brought with it many iconic moments, whether it was the Russian Linesman, Nobby dancing or Bobby Moore being carried on his team-mate’s shoulders. [...]