The Daily Telegraph

Boys of ’66 raise a glass to successors – and lost friends

The surviving members of England’s only World Cup-winning squad are thrilled at the progress of the Class of 2018, but tragically few are now well enough to appreciate it, writes Jeremy Wilson

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As the player who most riotously celebrated England’s 1966 triumph, waking up after the greatest day of his career in the garden of a random house in Walthamsto­w, we should not really be surprised that Jack Charlton has already made appropriat­e plans for a potential World Cup final on Sunday.

His son John owns a pub in a remote coastal village in Northumber­land, and that is where Big Jack, at 83 the oldest living member of England’s most famous team, hopes to be watching over a game of pool and a pint of Caffrey’s.

“He was at mine for a barbecue after the quarter-final,” says John. “He likes how Gareth Southgate has relaxed things and made it fun. It’s all about the team spirit and bond, like in 1966.

“He would love them to win, but thinks it’s a scandal that they have waited this long since the last semi-final or final. I said, ‘You never know, if they get to the final, the FA might take you to Moscow.’ He said, ‘I’m not going to Russia!’ It’s a quiet place, my pub, but busy for the games. I should think it will be chock-a-block on Sunday.”

That might just become a glorious understate­ment. The idea of watching this generation of England players trying to emulate 1966 with one of only eight surviving predecesso­rs should appeal beyond the usual regulars.

“Aye, it’s certainly all starting up again,” says John. “You’re the third press lad I’ve had on wanting to know what Dad thinks. It’s strange. To me, he’s just Dad. I was chatting about it this morning to one of the locals. He looked at me and said, ‘But John, your dad is a legend.’”

The boys of ’66. Back in the limelight and, whether funny, moving or tragic, this inspiring and deeply patriotic collection of friends, husbands, brothers and dads each have an extraordin­ary story to tell. And for the rest of us, including the Football Associatio­n, there are also some rather jarring lessons to be learned.

‘Bring it home, boys – we are right behind you’

Sir Geoff Hurst has been enjoying the past few days. The still sprightly scorer of the only World Cup final hat-trick is summing up the unassuming goodwill that his team-mates have always felt towards those seeking to emulate them.

“Bring it home, boys – we are right behind you,” he says. It has, though, been an emotional few months. On the week before England flew to Russia, those who were still able had gathered at Huddersfie­ld Crematoriu­m to say their final goodbye to Ray Wilson, the gregarious and great left-back, who became the third of their team after Bobby Moore and Alan Ball to pass away. Hurst can still vividly recall Wilson telling him that he had dementia.

“We were signing autographs with other sporting celebritie­s,” he says. “Next to us were two very famous boxers. Ray and I were listening. Who they fought against, which fights they won, which round it was … they had absolutely no idea. They couldn’t remember. Ray looked across to me and – bear in my mind he’d just been diagnosed – said, ‘Welcome to the club.’”

That club is sadly also now inhabited by Martin Peters, the other goalscorer in the final, and Nobby Stiles, the man of the match in the semi-final against Portugal. Sir Geoff ’s wife, Judith, speaks almost daily with Peters’ wife, Cathy. “She tells her how difficult it is living with and caring for someone who has dementia,” says Sir Geoff. “Some deteriorat­e more quickly than others. Ray had 16 or 17 years living with it. Martin, I’m guessing, is now five or six years. He appears to have deteriorat­ed quite sharply. It’s an awful disease.”

For some years now, Stiles has also been extremely ill at a Manchester care home and the brutal sadness of the journey that he is now on was detailed by Sir Bobby Charlton when he recalled visiting his friend. Sir Bobby was in tears as he left. Theirs was an era when the approach to player welfare can be summed up by Terry Paine’s experience in England’s 1966 group game against Mexico. After a first-half clash of heads, all he can remember was coming around on a table in the dressing room after the match having somehow still played the full 90 minutes.

In the final, The Telegraph’s match report even says “poor Wilson hardly knew where he was after a blow on the head”. Legends: Jack Charlton at his son John’s pub, which could be hosting a World Cup final party (main picture); Gordon Banks (top right) is one of only a few England players from 1966 not to sell their winner’s medal; Bobby Moore triumphant at Wembley (above)

And yet what is always still so striking is the absence of any blame. “There’s no anger,” says Sir Geoff. Wilson’s widow, Pat, has always echoed that sentiment. “Ray was grateful to do what he loved,” she says.

This current outbreak of World

‘Southgate puts the players first – there is a real humility and a togetherne­ss. They deserve all they get’

‘Ray Wilson had 16 or 17 years with dementia, Martin Peters is five or six. It’s an awful disease’

Cup fever naturally still stirs mixed emotions. It is 11 years now since Ball, the youngest player and man of the match in the final, died of a heart attack. “This all puts him to the forefront of your mind, which is a good and bad thing,” says his son, Jimmy, now a coach at Stoke City’s academy. “You want to move on with your life, but he is always there. It’s brilliant to watch England playing with freedom, belief and no fear. Dad would have absolutely loved that.

“Some of the traits that Gareth Southgate is showing, Alf Ramsey was the same. He puts the players first – there is humility and a togetherne­ss. If these players go on and win, they deserve everything they get – but I hope the country then wakes up and gives the same accolades to the surviving ’66 boys.”

In an era when gongs are often dished out like confetti, the treatment of the 1966 squad remains baffling. There are three knights – Hurst, Ramsey and Bobby Charlton – and belated OBES and MBES for those who started the final. Yet look deeper and the anomalies feel startling. Jimmy Greaves played in the 1966 World Cup and is among British football’s greatest players, but has nothing. Meanwhile, football has Sir Dave Richards, Sir Bert Millichip and Gordon Taylor OBE. “No disrespect to Geoff Hurst, who is a lovely fellow, but he couldn’t have done what he did without the others – same as Harry Kane,” says John Charlton. “The powersthat-be obviously decided they weren’t worth it, and they are getting older and older now. They are getting less and less.”

‘A hero – still the diamond shining in the leaves’

Two of the most shocking stories relate to perhaps the two most revered figures of 1966. Sir Bobby describes Sir Alf as “the greatest hero in the story … still the diamond shining in the leaves”. Sir Alf regarded his captain, Bobby Moore, as “the best footballer I ever worked with”. And yet both were to die long before the statues that now exist at Wembley were commission­ed and seemingly without quite knowing what they meant to the country.

Pat Godbold was Sir Alf ’s secretary at Ipswich Town and among the mourners at the funeral this year of his wife, Lady Victoria, who died aged 97 in the same semi-detached Ipswich house that they bought in 1966. Items from her estate, including a letter offering Sir Alf the England job at a capped annual £5,000 salary, have recently been up for auction.

“Lady Ramsey followed England until the end,” says Godbold. “One of her favourite current Premier League players was Aaron Ramsey. She rather liked the surname.”

Sir Alf was 54 when he was sacked in 1974 and would never take another permanent job in management. “Broken” is how Lady Victoria described him, believing that his “shabby” treatment contribute­d to his failing health.

“A superb man – very thoughtful and very private,” says Godbold. Ramsey would largely get by on his £75 weekly state pension and, when he later needed to move from a general ward at Ipswich Hospital to a care home while suffering with cancer and dementia, the costs were funded by Lady Victoria’s savings. In his last interview in 1995, Sir Alf said: “I love three things in life – my wife, my country and football.”

Harry Redknapp can still barely contain his anger when he thinks about Moore’s treatment. After a series of rejections and non-replies to applicatio­ns for jobs in coaching, Moore worked for Capital Radio in the years before his death from cancer aged 51. Redknapp had been his assistant at the amateur non-league club Oxford City.

“We would be in the pouring rain or freezing cold and I would think, ‘What am I doing here?’ Then I would look over at Bob and think, ‘What is he doing here?’ He had everything to be a top manager – except for the opportunit­ies.”

When Redknapp was at West Ham years later, he was sickened to see Moore asked to leave Upton Park after arriving ticketless at a largely empty stadium to catch the end of a match. Moore never returned as a fan.

‘Dad said that he would never swap his era’

When Gordon Banks, England’s greatest goalkeeper, arrived at the Holiday Inn in Stoke on Monday, the receptioni­st did not quite appreciate the irony in telling him that the Gordon Banks Suite was unavailabl­e for his interview. Banks eventually settled down in the dining room to outline his fervent hope for England to succeed. He has been looking at his World Cup winners’ medal before every game, but shares a familiar sense of marginalis­ation.

“I hope if these guys succeed they feel more appreciate­d by the FA than we were,” he said. It is only Banks, Roger Hunt and the Charlton brothers who have not sold their medal. The West Germany team who lost the 1966 final were each paid £7,000 and given a house and a Mercedes for their achievemen­t. The 22 England players simply received a £1,000 bonus.

“Mine went on a racehorse called Tornado – unfortunat­ely it didn’t run like one,” says Paine. The squad later worked in profession­s that ranged from funeral directing and constructi­on to the pub trade and road haulage.

There is vast disparity in who has been in a position to profit commercial­ly from their triumph. Failing health, loss of mobility, serious disease or impaired memory are increasing­ly common. And yet an unbreakabl­e bond endures. They refused numerous requests to turn their annual get-together into a commercial event and, according to John Charlton, will keep trying to reunite “until there is nobody left”.

There is also no hint of regrets. The regrets should perhaps belong to others, even if it is not too late to right certain wrongs and ensure comparable future generation­s are treated differentl­y. “People talk about the money in football, but Dad always said that he would never swap his era,” says Jimmy Ball. The fun they had is then confirmed during a conversati­on with James Mossop, who was working for The

Sunday Express at the 1966 final. “I was waiting in the foyer of the Royal Garden Hotel when Jack appeared. He said, ‘You and I are going out on the town.’ Jack’s wife, Pat, was heavily pregnant, and so he was alone.”

The Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, had just visited to congratula­te the players. Charlton and Mossop dodged the crowds by crouching behind the PM’S official car and following as it departed. They hijacked the first passing taxi, did not need to buy a drink all night and, having ended up at a house party in Walthamsto­w, were spotted the following morning in the garden by a rather surprised neighbour peering over the fence.

“Jack had a bit of paper in his pocket, saying, ‘Please return to Room 546, Royal Garden Hotel, Kensington’.”

‘That’s our plan. Let’s hope England make it’

In Northumber­land, John Charlton laughs when I tell him that I have spoken to Mossop. But he has second thoughts about whether Sunday’s potential pub gathering might be a bit much. “I’ll have to think about it,” he says. So should we mention it in the paper?

“Oh aye,” he says. “You can put it in there. It would be great. That’s our plan, anyway – let’s hope England make it.”

They think it’s all over? In just five short days, it could in one sense prove true. The most exclusive club in British sport could be opening its doors to new inductees for the first time since 1966. And no one would be happier than those founder members themselves.

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