Getting Their Kicks On Route ’66
‘ENGLAND’S footballers will be looking forward to the round of pre-season friendlies that will allow them to put the disappointments of the summer behind them and look ahead to the busy schedule of the next 10 months.
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| They thought it was all over… |
But while Beckham, Owen and co will be competing in Champions League fixtures and Euro 2004 qualifiers around Europe, another bunch of England internationals will be working their way through a fixture list of corporate hospitality and after-dinner speeches the length and breadth of the land.
They are ‘The Boys of 66’, and every time the Three Lions whimper out of another tournament, their stock rises. And although they want England to win as much as anyone, there is no doubt that when Sven’s men lose, Sir Alf’s inevitably gain.
The Boys of ’66 say that not a day goes by without someone mentioning their World Cup victory – and they aren’t talking about the professional nostalgia business of which they are a part. Their triumph on 30 July 1966 has shaped their entire lives, just as it has, to a lesser extent, shaped the lives of millions of English football fans.
It is relived mentally on a daily basis, and it is doubtful whether a week, or even a day, goes by without one of the key ‘iconic’ images being shown on national TV.
But this backward-looking habit is not just a symptom of the national team’s subsequent failure; it is also the cause of it. Sir Alf’s triumph was arguably the worst thing that ever happened to English football.
That is not to denigrate him, or even to blame him. On the contrary, his achievement was magnificent. He took a bunch of no-hopers, who had been booed off the Wembley pitch at the beginning of the year and organised them to win the World Cup. And he did so using the talents that had enabled him to achieve the even more extraordinary feat of leading tiny Ipswich Town from the Third Division to the league title.
The problem was that the victory tended to exacerbate problems that already beset the English game. In winning the trophy, Ramsey had enjoyed a fair amount of good fortune, including home advantage, some dubious refereeing throughout the tournament, and various other lucky breaks.
He knew that his players could not play like Brazil, and he cut his coat according to his cloth, creating a team that was efficient, hard-working, and well-drilled in Ramsey’s innovative but cautious tactics. He proved that if you win, you don’t need to play ‘crowd-pleasing’ football to please the crowds.
The problem is that the victory set in stone the very disadvantages that Ramsey had overcome. Ramsey had made vices of necessities. He had utilised English strengths such as work-rate, and minimised the risk of his players’ technical deficiencies being exposed.
His success allowed these problems to go unaddressed. Players like Colin Bell would always be favoured over Alan Hudson and the other talents who were wasted in the following decades.
Today, we find ourselves in a situation where the men who coach our top schoolboys say there are no natural footballers among them. The Brazil side that won the World Cup this summer was lambasted beforehand for its negative, flamboyant-free ‘European’ style. What England would give for a bit of that negativity!
The fact is that if England had played like that, Sven would be regarded as a god. As it was, his team was as workmanlike as those of any previous manager – that is, until the final half-hour of the quarter-final, when his workmen didn’t even work hard.
So we look back once more to The Boys of ’66, and the whole thing starts again. ‘
Posted: 25th, July 2002 | In: Back pages Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
