Former West Ham United and England manager Ron Greenwood once remarked: ‘Football is a simple game – it’s the players who complicate it.’
Renowned as a studious thinker on football (his philosophies were embraced by Upton Park devotees such as Allison, Bond, Cantwell, Brown, Byrne, Musgrove and Redknapp), the comment would also have found favour with Sir Alf Ramsey, both before and after his Knighthood.
If Ramsey had a mantra (from what I gather of the man he would have hated such a foreign-sounding word), it would have been along the lines of ‘strength is in the collective‘.
In other words every player serves the team – and in winning the 1966 World Cup Alf Ramsey picked his best team opposed to his best players.
Going into the 1966 tournament Ramsey had four world class players at his disposal (Gordon Banks, Bobby Moore, Bobby Charlton and Jimmy Greaves) and at least two others as good in their respective position as any in the competition – a healthy place from which to launch a challenge and luxury no England manager since has been able to enjoy.
For the record I have never accepted the argument England took a stronger team to Mexico in 1970, squad perhaps, but not first choice XI. Admittedly Banks and Moore were then at their peak, but Charlton was approaching thirty three and Greaves by his own admission now drinking rather than playing for England.
There is no doubting those such as Alan Ball, Martin Peters and Colin Bell were considerable talents, yet their inclusion in a ‘World Team’ for 1970 is not a given, the way it was for Banks, Moore, Charlton and Greaves four years earlier.
Given his pragmatism I also have no doubt Alf reincarnate would have soon resolved the latter day Lampard/Gerrard conundrum – not for him the faffing and muddled thinking of his predecessors. For most of his reign Ramsey was a square peg/square hole merchant, the balance of the team (shape in modern parlance) tending to take care of itself when players are playing in their rightful positions.
Returning back to 1966 England made laboured progress to the last eight, meeting Argentina at the quarter-final stage. Despite Greaves nearing a return to full fitness after suffering an injury earlier in the tournament, Ramsey selected a team emphasizing his conservatism but also reinforcing the collective strength.
After overcoming Argentina he chose to leave well alone for the semi-final against Portugal. Greaves, at that time the finest finisher in European football, consigned to watch from the Wembley side-lines as England win through – Ramsey then vindicated for eternity when Geoff Hurst scores a match winning hat-trick against West Germany in the final. Two of his goals have their design on the training ground at West Ham, where Hurst, Moore and Martin Peters had received the wisdom of Greenwood.
The well-honed understanding between the Upton Park trio is sure to have been in his thinking when Ramsey came to select the team which played in the latter stages of the competition.
But after winning the Jules Rimet trophy there was to be far less jubilation for Ramsey and England.
By the 1968 European Championships cracks had begun to appear in the World Cup winning team and although a touch unlucky to leave the 1970 World Cup at the quarter-final stage, England were given a lesson in the developing game with a 3-1 Wembley defeat against West Germany in the 1972 European Championships – a second exit from a major tournament at the hands of the Germans in less than two years.
Indeed, the new facet of substitutions in international fixtures, introduced roughly halfway between the 1966 and 1970 World Cups, were a development Ramsey never quite fathomed – his withdrawal of Peters and Charlton in the last eight 3-2 reversal in Mexico an ill-judged move that gave West Germany a lifeline they exposed to the full.
In hindsight Ramsey should have called time on his tenure in 1972, just as a new generation of maverick players (Rodney Marsh, Stan Bowles, Alan Hudson, Tony Currie) were pressing international claims – their virtuoso talents at odds with the team ethic Ramsey had always espoused.
Reluctant to incorporate them into his plans, Ramsey also drew criticism from an emerging breed of manager whose suits and hairstyles aligned them to Roger Moore as James Bond, while Alf remained a throwback to Trevor Howard in ‘Brief Encounter.’
Showing over-extended loyalty to the Class of 66, following the botched attempt to qualify for the 1974 World Cup Ramsey was sacked by The Football Association who handled the matter with customary ham-fistedness – the shameful treatment of their World Cup winning manager equaled only by the appalling way Bobby Moore was cold-shouldered by The FA a few years later.
Never comfortable speaking to the media, Ramsey appeared to deal with questions as if each was designed to catch him out. There were those who made fun of his manufactured upper class accent, but however affected those tones might have been it was still a voice that made the most profound comment on where English football was heading.
During an England training camp in the summer of 1965 he was asked to rate their chances of winning the next World Cup. Never one to make bold pronouncements or off the cuff quips, Ramsey answers with his usual simmering impatience:
‘England will win the World Cup next year,’ he states as if the answer is blindingly obvious. To qualify his reply Ramsey nods in the direction of Bobby Moore. ‘And there is the reason they will.’
In the mid-60s this was one Alf who knew what it was all about.
This article was first published on 14/6/2018.
NEIL SAMBROOK is the author of MONTY’S DOUBLE – an acclaimed thriller now available as an Amazon Kindle Book.