1966 The 50th Anniversary – Book Review
Jul 11th, 2016 by 'holic
The smoke has cleared after the conclusion of Euro2106 and at last it feels as though the football season is officially over, even though the non-tournament players at most clubs now have reported back for training for 2016/17.
Let’s allow ourselves a little time to relax and recharge the batteries, and what better way for the English at least to do that than by recalling the events of fifty years ago. At this point I expect my Scots chums may be clicking on the close tab button, but if one of you would like to pen a piece for next summer celebrating your World Championship anniversary please do!
Being fortunate enough to have experienced 1966 I was delighted to see that the Football Association had licensed Vision Sports Publishing, in association with the National Football Museum, to produce a wonderful memento in the form of a coffee-table style book titled 1966 The 50th Anniversary.
Published today (Monday), the book brought back some wonderful memories of the first World Cup I followed from start to finish. It captures the build up, the preparations, the tournament proper and all of the venues, nations, and key players of the biggest sporting event to be held in England since the 1948 Olympics. Then, of course, the celebrations as a nation enjoyed the joy of a first tournament triumph.
Woven in among the words are the photographs which are so evocative, that capture in both black and white, and colour, not just the football but everything that surrounded that World Cup. Want to know what the programmes looked like? Have you seen the World Cup Willie souvenirs? Have you seen Pickles, the dog that found the Jules Rimet trophy after it was stolen from the Methodist Central Hall in Westminster? What do you think the official World Cup beer was? What happened on the peripheral of the tournament helps to recreate the atmosphere in which the tournament was played.
It wasn’t all about England as the section on North Korea, among others, reminds. The rank outsiders had captured English hearts, particularly when defeating fancied Italy 1-0 and holding Chile to a 1-1 draw in the group stage at Ayresome Park. In their quarter-final against Eusebio’s Portugal they stunned Goodison Park by taking a staggering 3-0 lead in the opening 25 minutes. The dream was ended by Eusebio’s four goals in 32 minutes (including two penalties), and a late clincher from Augusto.
It wasn’t all sweetness and light. Photographic evidence of the Bulgarian and Portuguese brutality that saw Pele limp out of the tournament at the group stage. The labelling of the Argentines as ‘animals’ by Alf Ramsey after a stormy quarter-final at Wembley. If you were there you’ll understand, but if you weren’t this book really will draw you in and inform you too.
Don’t believe just me. Hat-trick hero Sir Geoff Hurst, in the foreword to the book, wrote…
“Looking at all the pictures, newspaper cuttings and fantastic memorabilia on these pages transports you back in time those magical weeks when the whole country was mesmerised by football’s greatest tournament and the realisation slowly set in that we might actually win it.”
Beautifully packaged in a cloth-covered slipcase with gold foil lettering, a limited edition signed by Sir Geoff Hurst can be obtained from the publisher’s direct, by clicking here. You can also get a discount on the unsigned book in the Amazon link in the sidebar of this blog.
Are you an England supporter, or a football supporter with a liking for the history of the game? This book comes highly recommended.
60 Responses to “1966 The 50th Anniversary – Book Review”
Thanks for this Holic. I need a break from football at the moment partly because Euro 2016 was such a letdown but anything that brings back those very special days will eventually find its way onto my reading list.
I intend to pass on transfer speculation for a little while. I have a ticket for Lords on Friday and the Tunbridge Wells Festival the week after. At the moment I am not looking forward in the slightest to the season but that won’t last….I hope!
I don’t need a break from football as I’ve not really watched any of Euro 2016. Too busy researching my own book 😉
The bad thing with research is that you go into it thinking you know stuff and find out that what you thought you knew is actually bollocks.
This 1966 book looks brilliant.
Lovely book. But I’m look forward the super-duper gold-plated 100th anniversary edition of never winning the thing again. Assuming I make 124…
Interesting stuff Holic. Is there a book about Dennis Law’s golf round that day?
So Wenger has told Henry to bugger off.
Quite why working with teenagers and being a pundit on Sky is incompatible I don’t know.
No employer with an ounce of sense would be happy to have an employee being encouraged to slag off members of his ‘top team’ on internationally broadcast media on a weekly basis. You strive for cohesion and trust at all levels of the organisation to maximise its chances of success. That is impossible under these circumstances.
I still don’t think it is a problem. He’s not working with the first team and Gary Neville was punditing when he was assistant to Roy Hodgson. He was criticising players he had to work with and people were adult about it.
If a player’s confidence can be destroyed by a few words on the telly, he’s not worth having anyway.
Conflict of interest. I agree with Wenger on this one. You can’t work within a club throughout the week and slag off its players on the weekend in public. It just doesn’t seem right. It might result in unnecessary tension and awkwardness at the training ground. The entire club should be in unison.
If the players had some balls maybe Henry wont be slagging them off. Keep babysitting the players and we wonder why they are the kings of bottling shit up. He is doing it for free anyways, so what is the problem.
I agree with Impec1 and my belief is that the papers have exaggerated this ‘row’ out of all proportion. Henry is paid too much to expect him to give it up unless he has his heart set on being a manager. Being a pundit is much easier as Garry Neville has amply demonstrated . You can talk a good game but it’s much harder to do it. After his disaster with England I expect Neville, if he returns to show a lot more respect to Wenger who has outperformed his meagre efforts for twenty years yet still gets slagged off because he only finishes second in the league. As we debated endlessly on here last season, Wenger may be reaching his sell- by date but he is light years ahead of most of those who seek to criticise him. P
It’s not easy to play both sides of a situation. If he is part of the official hierarchy at Arsenal it is incompatible with that role to critique Arsenal objectively . Interestingly Thierry has been much better on BBC than Sky. Partly this is experience and partly it’s the blandness of his fellow commentators especially Shearer.
I am with Arsene on this one. Agreed henry is doing it for free and will be invaluable to the lads but how will he be able to juggle both jobs is a question. It is a full-time job, both of them. So what happens when the youngsters have a game on Tuesday/Wednesday and there is a mid week/champions league game for him to give his expert opinion for. He should decide and if he feels punditry is what it is, so be it. Good luck.
Now where is the striker/Cb?????
Hands up who has a World Cup Willie briefcase in his loft plus a petrol station collection of player tokens of the 1966 squad!
I know of someone who’d probably be very interested in your Willy, TTG. Briefcase I mean.
I also look forward to Arsene Wenger giving up all of his highly lucrative tv work.
You want to give a grown man that was a legend an ultimatum to either quit his well paying job or stop help coach the youngsters for free during the week. Really? , maybe you should give your team the same ultimatum of not fucking up when there is pressure on them when it gets to the business end of the season. What a joke
Dictator Syndrome?
“They tend to take their own judgements more seriously as opposed to everyone else, and while they may be a good judge in one area (say economics) they might fail to grasp the nuances of others (say research). That is not to say they do not take other opinions from people skilled in these fields, but they may consolidate their opinions to other like minded peers and so we get a pointed view on things and this worsens the filter bubble of information coming in to the decision makers.
If they are successful, this can lead to reckless decisions, and ultimately resentment against them especially if they promote themselves carelessly attaching their opinions to every single thing they do.”
Excellent point, TTG.
With respect to “not fucking it up”; sport is, by nature, an unpredictable thing. That is why matches are actually played and winners aren’t announced based on the team sheets. Did Henry ever miss with a shot? I seem to recall a few.
Henry was a great player, but surely that doesn’t mean he gets to do what he likes at the club with carte blanche. The club seems to have gone to great lengths to preserve its traditions in the modern era of sugar daddies and the manager-go-round ethos. But really … how dare the club or AW do something that they believe is in the club’s best interests? What a joke.
And I don’t believe that AW professionally comments on the bpl during the bpl season, unless I missed something, making that a badly inapt comparison. [you may be thinking of mourinho, cynic!]
but Wenger regularly works on French Telly during summers when he’s meant to be taking care of Arsenal’s transfers and planning title challenges and nobody says anything. You can’t look at the moves that the world’s top managers have made in recent years and not be disappointed at how Arsenal’s seasons have gone. It all starts from the moment the previous season ends and it seems like we have once again been left behind.
If it’s about being committed to the job then Henry was, according to the guy who wanted him. He wanted to be there all the time.
If it’s about criticism of players, Wenger should give up all of his media work too. If you criticise a player in the summer or during the season it makes no difference, although I guess he’s a very vanilla pundit anyway, as if he does criticise players during his frequent summer jaunts, you never hear about it.
Seems like a very weak excuse to get rid of Henry to me, especially if Tony Adams is taking that role. Adams has criticised Arsenal players too, hasn’t he?
If the issue is about conflict of interest, if I were Henry, I will ask Sky or ultimatum Sky, whichever term suits you, to do punditry only in the non-Arsenal matches and yes, probably will have salary cut but at least the conflict of interest with the club would be minimal. It would be interesting to hear the answer from Sky, the employer.
But if the issue is about commitment and the importance to have full focus to club, then Henry needs to choose between punditry or Arsenal.
As for now, at least from what I read through the media I have to agree 100% with Wenger on this matter.
Henry has the offer to slagging the Arsenal team privately, be the real role model and show them how it is should be done, walk the talk, inside the system as Arsenal coach but he chose not to. And it is not Arsene’s fault.
“Nobody is bigger than the club” they use to say to a certain french man, and I think it is applicable to another french man 🙂
Life goes on.
By the way, any striker yet?
It’s really quite simple for TH14. He had to decide if he was going to be inside the tent pissing out or outside the tent pissing in. You simply cannot do both.
He has decided to follow the money. He has probably made what is the better choice for him. I really don’t believe he has the temperament to be a top coach. Being a top player and a ‘fan’ is no guarantee of success.
One other thing about Arsene doing once in four year punditry and the relation of the focus of doing his job, in this case the player transfer, remember the man capable to do punditry, played beach volley ball and lying on the beach and still able to landed Alexis Sanchez to Emirates.
Good points Ambydex, Homer and Bath. Much as I revere TH14 the player, arguably, the finest player of our time and a bona fide legend I will lose no sleep about him not being on the coaching staff. While Tony Adams has limitations as a coach he bleeds red and white and will influence our youngsters at the perfect time with what it takes to play for our club. Like the great Geordie Armstrong and Pat Rice he is a perfect person to inspire young talent….and honest enough to share some of the pitfalls. I don’t see TH14 doing the same job. Everyone will be in awe of his talent but would he be able to make players better or only work with those who have the most obvious talent?
Bath, agree entirely. I do think the press have made more of this than is actually happening. Titi was volunteering sessions to aid his coaching badges. Arsene has said that will continue. He was offered a paid full-time post but has opted to maintain his very lucrative Sky deal, and why not? Tony Adams is in. We still have a legend working with the kids. And Freddie is working with the younger ones. Looks amazing to me.
I doubt very much that TH needs to worry about any sort of salary ever again. Whatever choices he makes are probably based entirely on what he wants to do. Which is all fine – good luck to him.
UTA.
Is it de rigeur to slag off everyone as a pundit? Doesn’t seems Titi’s style somehow.
Probably more, or less, to this than we are being told and, anyway, the problems of these people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world…
Absolutely superb posts Bath & Ttg.
Unlike lucrative pundrity, where you can earn millions talking cliches and looking good, there are no short cuts when it comes to coaching. Thats why it is so hard, and why so many have failed. More often than not, the ones that have failed, have gone into punditry. When it comes to coaching, there are no easy short cuts to learning the trade and cultivating respect from players. I read John Cross’s book recently. Its a pretty good account of Wenger’s years at the club told from a range of interviews taken from ex players and from attending press interviews with Wenger down the years. It is not a biography on Wenger himself, which would be a more complex affair and hopefully someone will write a deserving account one day. Nevertheless, there are some very good insights into Wenger from Cross if your prepared to read it. In the context of coaching, there was an extended interview done with Kronke himself. And Kronke remarked how he and his sons once noted Wenger taking a coaching session where he spent 6-7 hours standing in downpours under thunder and lightning. Kronke said something to the effect that commitment like that cannot be bought and it cannot be faked. Its a passion. You either have it, or you don’t.
Chris,
Btw – loved your recent inclusion of “Dulce et Decorum” was a wonderful reminder of a remarkable read. Thanks!
Morning,
We’ll soon be linked to Benzema, Matrinez and Surarez!
😆
Ok, maybe not Luis! 😉
Spot on Joe.
The fourth- place trophy jibe so often advanced at Wenger doesn’t seem to be advanced at any other coaches. Wenger metronomically qualifies us for the CL and this year comfortably so. His consistency is his downfall because people take it for granted.
LVG would possibly have survived at United if he’d got 4th place. Most Tottenham fans would sign for it next season now and Chelsea and Liverpool got nowhere near it.
Wenger is a one- off. Infuriating to a degree but we will never see his like again and he would be a contender for any club or international job in the world were he to leave us. I just ask that this close season he addresses the comparative weakness at CB and upfront that if rectified could see us win the league next season. Another close season of near- misses would be desperately disappointing and so unnecessary
This Wenger-Henry debacle is interesting, but let’s not forget that these comments are being posted on an England topic; and a great England topic at that!
My memory of the World Cup is sitting on my Dad’s knee when that third goal went in (it definitely did!) and finding myself flying over the coffee table as he leapt up to celebrate! Anybody else got anything similar?
Top stuff Joe @26 and TTG @30.
Arsene is a one off and it’s been a huge privilege to have him at the helm of our club for so long. I remain in awe of his commitment and confident that he both knows the signings we need and is doing his utmost to address the deficits. Here’s to a successful summer marked by two more major signings.
Joe@26: Top post.
Pundits are paid entertainers. The role they play is that of generators of controversy. Expect no more. You will get no less.
Ah, Bath, summer hope springs eternal until we fall into the winter of discontent.
Poetic stuff there, Ned. Hopefully by Samhain, we will be celebrating a rich harvest from the fruits of our summer investments.
Hi everyone. Been a couple years since I’ve been in the bar (or at least since I’ve had a drink – I still poke my head in from time to time).
I return now with an honest question. Help me understand our need for a CB. I keep hearing this but I just don’t see it myself.
Big Per is not the quickest, and that has cost us at times. But he hasn’t lost it completely and I’m content to keep him around as our third or fourth option (not forgetting Chambers either). Gabriel is young and still learning, but personally I really like the look of him and I’m convinced that he has what it takes to be a top center half very soon indeed. I don’t think his form has been so bad as to necessitate a replacement.
We were tied with Man Utd for the most clean sheets last season, and conceded just one goal more than Man Utd and Sp*rs, who were tied atop the “stingiest defences” list. That doesn’t mean we can’t improve, but it does mean our defence wasn’t a huge liability.
Gabriel has struggled to win over the fans, not least because of his social awkwardness, bad (nonexistent) English, and funny looks. I wonder if we’d be as eager to replace him in the starting 11 if he were a charming ladies man with a winning smile? Public perception is a big deal in our game, and let’s face it – Gabriel doesn’t have that going in his favor.
But I stand behind him. Every young center half makes mistakes (I remember a few from Koscielny, when everyone wanted to send him packing) – and Gabriel hasn’t even made an inordinate number of those. Instead he’s big, strong, extremely quick, puts in a marvelous tackle, has a good positional sense, and plays with bags of passion.
Personally I’d much rather focus our $$$ up front. Buuuut I’m ready to hear why I’m wrong.
You are not wrong, Goonsterham Lincoln.
I think Kos and Gab are too similar in style to be a great CB combo and each plays better with Per. Per will need to be replaced before either but this is far less of a priority this summer than to buy a top striker and a quality right winger.
Welcome back Goonsterham!
I think BFG is in a slow decline but his experience is important and if we defend deep he is still an asset. Gabriel is flaky and error- prone and slightly mad. He may mature but learning English would help. I’d love a partner for Koscielny who can play on the right side and who is quick and enables us to play a high line. Vermaelen is keen to return but is too injury prone. The young Rugani or even Ashley Williams would do for me. Two different solutions but good defenders
Bath, you old Celtic neopagan, Samhain is, of course, a liminal time (liminality in this context being the ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rituals), and thus a particularly apt analogy for this bar during transfer windows.
cba – I can’t remember if you watched Callan or not, but you were after a spy series to watch. You can get the complete series (all that survives anyway) in a sale that they’re having at networkonair.com for about £18
http://networkonair.com/shop/search?doit=search&orderby=position&orderway=desc&search_query=callan
Ignore the Wet Job special, made years after the series ended. It’s fucking hopeless.
Another factor in our CB position is that Kos turns 31 in September. My assumption has long been that Gabriel was bought to be Kos’s long-term replacement rather than partner, which may explain the similarities in their games.
Apologies all. Meant to run with something this evening, but got sidetracked. I’m at Lord’s tomorrow, so Saturday will be next. Then I am away for five days, so posting only if the weather is crap/the bar runs out of Guinness (delete as applicable).
You need a guest writer like Arseblogger for prolonged absences. Mind you, he can afford to hire one now he’s gone all mainstream 😉
Take a holiday, ‘holic, we need you fit and well-rested when the new season kicks off. Those early games need properholical analysis.
I’m at Lords too Holic. Very busy with work yesterday but the news from Nice is so awful it’s hard to focus on football especially when the only news is transfer bollocks.
Our hearts go out to those affected in Nice. We live in an increasingly sick and savage world
And now an attempted coup in Turkey. The world beggars belief.
Have a restful break, Guv’nor. As Chris says, we need you fit and well-rested for the new season.
We can play nice here while you are away…
Just booked 5 x tickets for visit of Arsenal to Sydney 2017.
seems a long way away.
they are playing two nights at the Olympic Stadium, expect 85,000 each night
They are very popular down here.
1 x Sydney FC
and 1 versus Western Sydney Wanderers
the first visit in 40 years
Freddie has just been out here on ambassador role
sydney red
alex 47
?
cynic
cheers fella
did watch a load o callans
on your recommendation
completely forgot the show
and how good they were
have reverted to type recently
watching western upon western
though
a small excursion last night
.
Preston Sturges
.
fuckin genius
‘holic
happy holidays chief
.
squeeze as much of this in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBG8rIVIUNE
cos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50xx1_CbJTI
woo hooo
half ton
.
# there’s only one me – e – e
# one me – e – e
.
.
*moonstomps to the corner flag*
?
cba, you being a musical encyclopaedia, may have heard of these guys before but I hadn’t until I saw them last night backing Lucinda Williams in Bristol. I bought their latest cd at the concert -‘Plays well with others”. Well impressed. Great musicians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKgMb5zK9Ck
howdy bath
.
notions of my tuney smarts ?
chinese whispered to near belief
not so
–
if ye have the name o early risin’
ye can lie de dinner hour
.
.
.
(should the use of “chinese” whispers be racist , chinese people reading please feel free to call me a ginger-haired, freckled-donkey riding terrorist cos by the time its passed round to me I’ll be tall dark and handsome – which in this case is as close to the truth as being bang on . So cheers fellas . As Father Ted said – “The Chinese – a great bunch o lads” )
.
iffin yer interested bath
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYJO5fJgNSQ
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my yardstick for voice tune words and cardigan
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.
.
The Mighty Ramones
.
.
*genuflects*
.
.
.
my hydrometer for people
.
.
“Take it , Dee Dee ”
.
.
1
2
3
4
anyhoo
.
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAys8ZClANk
great voice
great accent
.
not unlike a skitter
never outta london
no Jamaican relations
sayin
they’re
a lickle bit vex an ting
.
people should have hallmarks
i am 24 carat Irish
an ting
Westerns? Two words.
Randolph Scott
two more
Budd Boetticher
Everything comes to he who waits. 😉 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>