Salute to Sumner — an English teen who
chris.rattue@ nzherald.co. nz Steve Sumner left his homeland in a three-piece suit for a mysterious land, a rugby stronghold of loose attire where the young English footballer became sporting royalty.
The passing of Sumner has brought back a flood of memories from the campaign which took the All Whites he captained so magnificently to the 1982 World Cup finals in Spain.
Nothing can match the unscripted, drawn out joy that band of men gave us, a 15-game qualification programme, spread over nine countries, which grew to captivate the nation and turn the coaches and squad into household names.
You can’t script stuff like that. It happens, of its own accord. Out of a surprise and comprehensive “friendly” victory over Mexico in Auckland emerged a team that was to make history that dreams are made of.
For me, there were six key figures, all of them Brits: captain/midfielder Sumner, central defender Bobby Almond, striker Steve Wooddin, coaches John Adshead and Kevin Fallon, and the somewhat Machiavellian figure of the country’s soccer boss Charlie Dempsey.
Sumner may well have been the most important of them all, in retrospect. He was a hard man on the field, and to be blunt about it I have met those who played against him who used the word dirty.
But it took that kind of ruthless attitude to drive a team formed out of the excellent national soccer league of the 1970s into one which went on to compete valiantly against the might of a famous Brazilian lineup, a fine Soviet Union team and probably the best side Scotland has ever assembled.
It was, however, the qualification campaign which remains strongest in the memory, from the dramas at Mt Smart Stadium — notably the Kuwait game — to magnificent goals from Wynton Rufer and Grant Turner abroad.
This was a ride which the teenage Sumner could never have envisaged when he donned the suit and long black coat, newspaper under arm, and £40 of his crane driver father’s