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<\/p>\nFifty eight years ago today – July 30th 1966 – England\u2019s men\u2019s football team won the World Cup. Despite the best efforts of Gareth Southgate and those before him, it remains the only trophy they\u2019ve ever lifted.<\/p>\n
And it was on home territory. Goodison Park, Villa Park, Ayresome Park (Middlesborough) – and possibly your local park – had a share in the spoils. It was a time when favourites, Brazil, could be based in the Peak District and wander its hills or enjoy a bit of pony trekking to wind down without being surrounded by gun-toting security staff or CCTV cameras and the like.<\/p>\n
Players in the England squad still caught the same bus to club games as their fans. They lived in the same areas and drank in the same pubs. They played under a maximum wage, had few rights and shared few of the spoils of their success. Yet they are part of our shared national history.<\/p>\n
Their story – and that of the nation at the time – is given a brilliantly engaging treatment in Duncan Hamilton\u2019s latest book, \u2018Answered Prayers\u2019. Hamilton is a writer with form. He\u2019s a three times winner of the William Hill Sports Book Of The Year. He also has a strong Nottingham connection which should further entice folks to buy a copy of this most recent product from his prolific pen.<\/p>\n
One of the best titled sports books ever written, \u2018Provided You Don\u2019t Kiss Me\u2019, is from his back catalogue, a moving account of his time as a sports reporter when Brian Clough ruled the world. (You know what I mean.) He captures Clough\u2019s mercurial character and seeming magical powers, as well as his flaws, with admirable honesty, based on his professional and personal relationship with the great man.<\/p>\n
This time round, he explores a nation and its quest for success in the game it is said to have invented. Alf Ramsey wasn\u2019t everyone\u2019s first choice (on the street or at the FA) when he landed the job of England manager in 1963. On the back of a dismal national record in world football, he declared that – on home soil – he could guide England to become World Cup winners. Plenty scoffed at his prediction, some took him seriously and journalists used it to bait him over the next couple of years as his team failed to produce the kind of form needed to win competitions.<\/p>\n
One elite manager backed him from the start: Matt Busby of Manchester United. He could see the way Ramsey worked methodically through the players at his disposal. He experimented with styles and formations. He came up with successful combinations, like Jack Charlton and Nobby Stiles to complement the natural skills and explosive shooting prowess of Bobby Charlton and silky skills of captain and defender, Bobby Moore. If the latter two were the stars, Ramsey never said it out loud. Everything was team: spirit, attitude, everything.<\/p>\n
Ramsey\u2019s – later Sir Alf – experience in management prior to his England position was simple: eight years at Ipswich Town! However, during that time, he took the club from Third Division South to First Division champions. Some achievement for a very modest club on very modest budgets, despite being bankrolled by brewing family Tolly Cobbold. The foundation he built for their success was on teamwork. Duncan Hamilton does the detective work to show us readers how Ramsey set about doing this.<\/p>\n
Never particularly popular with the populace (including my dad) or the press, he was meticulous in his planning. If he could be taciturn with reporters – \u2018Do you really think England can win?\u2019 \u2018Yes.\u2019 – he was expansive when talking with his team, as a team and as individuals. He knew what he wanted from each of them. There are times when I was reading the book that I began to see Ramsey as a man before his time. But, for many, he was fusty and old-fashioned and too reserved. He didn\u2019t care. He was single-minded and the book shows, in fascinating detail, how successful management can be achieved.<\/p>\n
That kind of skill, working with people to get them to realise their full potential, does not age. Despite the no-nonsense haircut, clipped speech and reserved manner, there\u2019s much to be learned from the man who didn\u2019t even want to hold the Jules Rimet trophy (the World Cup) after winning it. The moment, he said, was for the players to enjoy.<\/p>\n
The story Hamilton goes on to tell has no fairy-tale ending but it\u2019s a fantastic contribution to the best of literature about football. I watched that final on television with my mum and dad and remember the emotional wave in our house at the end of extra time as England ran out 4-2 winners against West Germany. It\u2019s part of my history but I learned an awful lot more from reading \u2018Answered Prayers\u2019 and I recommend it to any football fan. And it\u2019s now out in paperback!<\/p>\n
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