1966: the bloodiest World Cup?

From Pele’s pounding to Alf Ramsey’s shirt-swap squabble, there’s a case for the 1966 World Cup being the most violent in history. FFT takes a look...

“Alf – Animal yourself!” That was the message inked on a banner and displayed on the steps outside Wembley on July 26, 1966, ahead of England’s World Cup semi-final against Portugal. The placard’s owner was Guy Roux, the 27-year-old coach of Auxerre.

In 1966, the Burgundy amateurs were too poor to send their ambitious young boss to watch the World Cup, so Roux – showing notable artistic flair in drawing a cartoon rabbit – paid his own way by reporting for a local newspaper. He had already managed the club for five years. Over the next four decades, Roux would help to develop talented players such as Eric Cantona and Laurent Blanc, and win Auxerre’s only Ligue 1 title.

The banner reflected Roux’s outrage at Alf Ramsey’s behaviour when, following the notoriously turbulent last-eight clash against Argentina, the England manager shouted at his right-back George Cohen, “George, you’re not swapping shirts with that animal.”

Alf’s reaction had been undiplomatic, but understandable. Argentina’s captain Antonio Rattin was sent off, according to BBC summariser Jimmy Hill, for “violence of the tongue”, while midfielder Roberto Ferrero attacked the referee and another player spat at FIFA vice-president Harry Cavan. Yet to those who hadn’t seen the quarter-final, the photograph of Ramsey trying to stop Cohen from giving his shirt to striker Alberto Gonzalez (right) made the England boss look like the unsporting villain of the piece.

He wouldn’t let sleeping dogs lie either. “The behaviour of some players reminds me of animals,” Ramsey raged during his post-match conference with the media. The admonishment undoubtedly applied to the Argentines but could just as easily have referred to Bulgaria and Portugal’s players, who had effectively kicked Pele (below) out of the World Cup.

It could also, in Roux’s view, describe Nobby Stiles. Stiles’ challenge on French midfielder Jacques Simon was decisive in England’s 2-0 group-stage win to seal top spot. The diminutive midfield terrier was so late when he tackled Simon from behind, he might have been arriving from a different time zone.

Stiles later admitted the challenge was “shocking”, yet Peruvian referee Arturo Yamasaki didn’t even give a free-kick. As Simon lay prostrate, play continued and Roger Hunt scored his second goal. In an age before substitutions – with defender Robert Herbin hobbling and Simon’s left knee strapped – France were effectively playing with nine men and heading out of the World Cup.

A FIFA official subsequently cautioned Stiles for “rough play”. “Did you mean it?” Ramsey asked of his offender. “Of course not,” said Stiles, and manager stood by his enforcer. When indignant FA officials insisted that Stiles be left out of the side, Alf threatened to resign. France’s verdict on the outcome is reflected in a L’equipe cartoon, picturing talismanic midfielder Bobby Charlton driving a Rolls-royce as British policemen cleared the opposition out of his way.

In retrospect, the 1966 finals are often depicted as a clash between two codes of football ethics. In Latin America, the theory goes, histrionics, shirt pulling and arguing with the referee were acceptable but violent fouls were not. In Europe, the general assumption that football was a man’s game justified all of the ferocious tackling, but made play-acting unforgivable.

In truth, the contrast between the codes was not that simple: Bobby Charlton was criticised for play-acting as he savoured England’s crucial third goal in the final.

“I told him, ‘Stop it, what’s the point?’” West German defender Wolfgang Weber recalled. “Somebody must have taught all the English players to raise their arms as early as possible to influence the referee.”

Latin America’s alleged hatred of violent play was not always evident in West Germany’s games against Argentina and Uruguay. Argentine defender Rafael Albrecht, having escaped punishment for rugby-tackling Helmut Haller during the goalless group-stage clash, was sent off for kneeing Weber in the groin. Argentina coach Juan Lorenzo defended Albrecht’s rugby tackle, insisting that a “really dirty player would have done it with his foot”. The quarter-final clash between West Germany and Uruguay typified George Orwell’s 1941 dismissal of sport as “war minus the shooting”. Referee Jim Finney failing to notice Karl-heinz Schnellinger’s handball on the line is often cited as the flashpoint but the game at Hillsborough was combative from the very start, with Uruguay midfielder Hector Silva kicking goalkeeper Hans Tilkowski in the head while trying to knock the ball out of the shot-stopper’s hands. In the 49th minute, Uruguay skipper Horacio Troche stuck his boot into the stomach of Lothar Emmerich and was duly dismissed. As Troche trudged off, he smacked Uwe Seeler in the face. Five minutes later, Silva was finally sent off for a fifth kick on the battered Haller, whose testicles were squeezed so hard by one Uruguayan player that blood later oozed out of them. Silva was only able to leave the pitch with the help of a police escort.

After the final whistle blew, Uruguay’s No.7 Julio Cortes kicked referee Finney, earning him a six-game ban.

The final score – 4-0 to West Germany – didn’t do the South Americans justice. They had been the better side for much of the game and, without the dismissals, could have won it.

When signing autographs outside their dressing room, some Uruguayan players also wrote notes in Spanish which, when translated, stated: “The English referee’s a thief” and “German criminals stole the game from Uruguay”.

The fact that an Englishman – Finney – refereed West Germany’s last eight tie against Uruguay while a German, Rudolf Kreitlein, officiated England vs Argentina has inspired the conspiracy theory that FIFA orchestrated the entire competition to ensure there would be an all-european final at Wembley.

History has not been kind to Kreitlein – Brian Glanville observing that he booked so many players it was like a “schoolboy collecting railway engine numbers”. The Italian newspaper Il Messaggero labelled his sending-off of Rattin, after a second booking, a “monstrous injustice”, yet it’s hard not to sympathise with the official who explained: “I sent Rattin off because he was following me and shouting at me. He was trying to be the referee.”

Argentina’s skipper justified his antics by saying: “All of his decisions favoured England: corners, fouls, he even invented handballs. In view of that, I showed him my captain’s armband and – for several minutes – asked for an interpreter to ask for explanations.”

Manager Juan Lorenzo had, mistakenly, told Rattin he had the right to ask for an interpreter, so there is a grain of truth in this. But iconic Argentine football writer Dante Panzeri later said that suggestions of Rattin’s team being “victims” of some biased officiating were at odds with what he’d witnessed at Wembley. Rattin had, in his opinion, hounded the referee right from the kick-off; his early exit, far from being mysterious, was inevitable.

The red card sparked 11 mad minutes during which Rattin sat on the red carpet leading to the Royal Box in protest (Her Majesty was not in attendance that day, luckily). Defender Albrecht appeared to invite his team-mates to leave the pitch and boss Lorenzo treated the officials to every insult in his repertoire.

Even with 10 men, Argentina were able to frustrate Ramsey’s side until the 78th minute, when Geoff Hurst nodded home a Martin Peters cross. The official tally of fouls at full-time made intriguing reading. England committed 33 to Argentina’s 19.

The conspiracy theory also absolves all of the losing teams of any responsibility for their fate. Argentina had played the better football – their midfielder Ermindo Onega was hugely inventive – and could have progressed if Rattin had played the ball, not the referee.

Panzeri dismissed the claim, promoted by his country’s press, that La Albiceleste were moral victors of that quarter-final as a “shameless, organised lie”.

What 1966 did reveal was the absence of any worldwide consensus about what play was fair and what was foul. Even the European sides had different definitions. In his notebook, Guy Roux described the semi-final, in which West Germany beat the Soviet Union, as “a political contest, so violent that players wore shin guards at the front and back”.

That semi-final at Goodison Park also swung on a controversial challenge. The move for West Germany’s opening goal started with a Schnellinger tackle which left Soviet striker Igor Chislenko hobbling and so furious that he retaliated and got red-carded. USSR coach Nikolai Morozov insisted: “There was no deliberate kicking. They were so good technically that our players had difficulty with their tackles.”

While England celebrated its triumph, Latin America fumed and schemed. Even before the defeated nations left English shores, they discussed creating their own tournament. That never materialised but the lingering resentment about the way FIFA – led by Englishman Sir Stanley Rous – organised the 1966 World Cup would, only eight years later, help to secure the election of Brazilian Joao Havelange as FIFA president.

The tackle wouldn’t be the same again.

“ALF RAMSEY SHOUTED AT RIGHT-BACK GEORGE COHEN, ‘GEORGE, YOU’RE NOT SWAPPING SHIRTS WITH THAT ANIMAL’”