THE JACK OF DIAMONDS..
THEY were, Big Jack himself said on many occasions, a band of brothers.
They stuck together not just for the triumphant World Cup campaign but for the decades after.
They stuck together until the inevitability of age and infirmity began to prise them apart. They were bonded by the uniqueness of their achievement, by their place in the history of this sporting country.
The boys of ’66.
In the modern day, they would probably have formed a Whatsapp group and kept in touch on social media. Instead, with Jack one of the organisers, they met up every year for a weekend in a country hotel in Staffordshire.
No cameras, no freebies, no special treatment, behaving as normal punters.
They would arrive, have dinner and the next morning, the wives and partners would go shopping and the lads would have a round of golf. Old school.
Then it would be dinner, drinks, a catch-up and a reminisce and a farewell the following day.
Until next year, boys.
Only as time wore on, the next year one of them could not make it. The next year, another.
Sadness and illness brought an end to the tradition, the get-together 50 years after their victory at Wembley the last for those still with us.
Those annual meetings were not just for those who played in the final, they were for anyone from Sir Alf Ramsey’s squad who wanted to go along.
Sir Geoff Hurst scored the hat-trick against the Germans but they were all equals. Only the rotten honours system in this land decided they were not.
In the first instance, three of the team were awarded OBES, others got MBES.
Jack was one of the
OBES.
“Other B ***** ’s Efforts, it should stand for,” he would say.
“Our kid later got a knighthood and Geoff Hurst, who scored three.
“But someone had to put him in those positions and he was part of a team.”
The boys of ’66 have never made a big deal about the lack of highest recognition for so many of their number.
Limelight, fame and fortune were never compelling needs for Big Jack, never compelling needs for his team-mates.
Selfless
It might be a sweeping generalisation but you could not say that about England players since.
We all know the honours system is flawed.
We all know there are people out there – in the health service, in selfless charity work – who go without any sort of recognition whatsoever.
But with every honour given to sportsmen and women whose achievements pale into relative insignificance alongside England’s solitary World Cup win, it rankles that the boys of ’66 were not all knighted.
It is about time they were properly recognised.
Not just for themselves but as a tribute, as a fitting honour, to those who have passed away without ever being truly feted as the heroes they were.
As a tribute, as a fitting honour, to Big Jack and his band of brothers.