THE GOLDEN CUP

In a little over a year's time many newspaper, magazine and TV reminiscence departments will be busy polishing their superlatives and dusting memories ready to mark the anniversary of an event which has happened but once. In more detail, at about 5pm on July 30, 2016, it will be 50 years since England beat West Germany to win the World Football Cup, otherwise the Jules Rimet Trophy.
In some quarters this achievement is still, for some reason, seen as relatively small beer because the football was different back then. Most film of the match is black and white, the digital media was not a gleam in anyone's eye, and the global audience, though huge in a 1960s sense, was not as large as today's audience would be. Nor was there quite the same amount of media hoo-ha. Even so, Kenneth Wolstenholme still pointed out during his BBC commentary that the TV audience was massive. And the country, of course, was in thrall to Wembley. There was no other topic of conversation in the chip shops and on the buses.
I was lucky to be at Wembley to witness this seminal soccer moment, but my visit was foreshadowed by trials and tribulations. The system then was that regional (as opposed to national) newspapers had to prove they had attended, and reported, any number of important games at Wembley, and that a request for a ticket for the World Cup Final was not simply a one-off cherry-pick. For a number of years I had attended as many internationals and Cup Finals as time and work allowed (I was a shift-working sub-editor as well as a football writer), and in consequence applied for a Press ticket on behalf of my newspaper.
A week before the big day, and just to prolong the agony, the authorities wrote to say that the allocation of a Press ticket was not guaranteed and that I would have to call into the London Press office on the morning of the match, just in case one happened to be available.
So I travelled to London on the big day and, with crossed fingers, presented myself at the Press office to be told that, yes, there was a ticket but not in the Press Box. The level of applications was so high that, with the Box already allocated, they had commandeered a couple of rows in the grandstand right in front of the other journalists. It was a wonderful vantage point.
I can still remember the tension and excitment in the packed Tube trains heading to Wembley; the goose-pimples and the joy of triumphant England fans on the way back to the city; the spectacle and the electric atmosphere at a stadium seething with emotion; and how the 'golden' trophy glinted in the sunshine as Bobby Moore held it high.
I watched the game again recently, on DVD. It was an open, fresh-faced, entertaining and tension-packed encounter, almost leisurely by today's speedy standards, with space all over the pitch and the emphasis on attack rather than defence or retaining possession. Brief shakes of the hand and congratulations when a goal was scored. No rolling around on the pitch feigning injury. Everyone (well, nearly everyone) obeying the referee without demur. Bobby Charlton spraying passes around. And, quite simply, good behaviour from all concerned.
The match did have one unforeseen consequence, because afterwards, and in the afterglow of England's success, every manager worth his salt decided his team had to play 4-3-3. The problem was that many teams still had wingers and inside-forwards and no real knowledge of these new tactics. And for a couple of seasons afterwards the old Second Division saw some of the most tedious football ever presented to the public. The tactical lessons of 1966 took a long time to absorb.