Sir Alfred Ernest Ramsey (22 January 1920 – 28 April 1999) was an English
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
player and
manager
Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business.
Management includes the activities o ...
. As a player, he represented
the England national team and captained the side, but he is best known for his time as
England manager from 1963 to 1974, which included guiding them to victory in the
1966 FIFA World Cup
The 1966 FIFA World Cup was the eighth FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was played in England from 11 July to 30 July 1966. The England national football team defeated West Germany 4-2 in the ...
. Knighted in 1967 in recognition of the World Cup win, Ramsey also managed his country to third place in the
1968 European Championship and the quarter-finals of the
1970 World Cup and the
1972 European Championship. As a player, Ramsey was a
defender and a member of England's
1950 World Cup
The 1950 FIFA World Cup was the fourth edition of the FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football championship for senior men's national teams and held in Brazil from 24 June to 16 July 1950. The planned 1942 and 1946 World Cups were ...
squad.
Ramsey was born and raised in a quiet
Essex
Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...
village. He showed sporting promise from an early age and, after serving in the British Army during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, embarked on a football career, primarily as a
right-back
In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring.
Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...
. He was considered a rather slow but accomplished player with a tremendous grasp of the tactical side of the game. Nicknamed "The General", he played for England 32 times between 1948 and 1953, captaining the side three times, scoring three times and appearing in the 1950 World Cup. He played his club football for
Southampton
Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...
and
Tottenham Hotspur
Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, commonly referred to as Tottenham () or Spurs, is a professional association football, football club based in Tottenham, London, England. It competes in the Premier League, the top flight of English footba ...
and was part of the Tottenham side that won the
English League championship in the
1950–51 season.
Ramsey retired from playing aged 35 to become the manager of
Ipswich Town
Ipswich Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in Ipswich, Suffolk, England. They play in League One, the third tier of the English football league system.
The club was founded in 1878 but did not turn profession ...
, then in the
third tier of English football. Ipswich rose through the divisions over the next six years, winning the
Third Division South
The Third Division South of The Football League was a tier in the English football league system from 1921 to 1958. It ran in parallel with the Third Division North with clubs elected to the League or relegated from Division Two allocated to on ...
in
1956–57 and the
Second Division
In sport, the Second Division, also called Division 2 or Division II is usually the second highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Following the rise of Premier League style compet ...
in
1960–61. In the
1961–62 season, Ipswich's first-ever campaign in the top division, Ramsey's team defied expectations to become champions of England. Ramsey took charge of the England team a year later. In a distinct break with common practice of the day, he used a narrow formation that led to his England side being dubbed "The Wingless Wonders". England's World Cup victory at
Wembley
Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in north-west Londo ...
in 1966 made Ramsey a national hero, though he had his critics, both at the time and since. He lost the England job acrimoniously, following the team's failure to qualify for the
1974 World Cup
The 1974 FIFA World Cup was the tenth FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams, and was played in West Germany (and West Berlin) between 13 June and 7 July. The tournament marked the first time that the ...
.
After managing England, Ramsey briefly held football-related roles at
Birmingham City
Birmingham City Football Club is a professional football club based in Birmingham, England. Formed in 1875 as Small Heath Alliance, it was renamed Small Heath in 1888, Birmingham in 1905, and Birmingham City in 1943. Since 2011, the first te ...
and
Panathinaikos
Panathinaikos Athlitikos Omilos ( el, Παναθηναϊκός Αθλητικός Όμιλος, literally in English: "Panathenaic Athletic Club" or Panathinaikos A.C.), also known simply as Panathinaikós , is a major Greek multi-sport club ba ...
, before retiring in 1979–80. He led a somewhat reclusive life in
Ipswich
Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...
over the next two decades and died in 1999, aged 79. A statue of Ramsey was dedicated at the reconstructed
Wembley Stadium
Wembley Stadium (branded as Wembley Stadium connected by EE for sponsorship reasons) is a football stadium in Wembley, London. It opened in 2007 on the site of the Wembley Stadium (1923), original Wembley Stadium, which was demolished from 200 ...
in 2009, and various honours have been afforded to him in Ipswich. He is the first person to have been inducted into the
English Football Hall of Fame
The English Football Hall of Fame is housed at the National Football Museum in Manchester, England. The Hall aims to celebrate and highlight the achievements of the all-time top English footballing talents, as well as non-English players and man ...
twice: an inaugural inductee in 2002, in recognition of his achievements as a manager, and admitted again in 2010 for his achievements as a player. He remains widely regarded as one of British football’s great managers ever. In 2022,
FourFourTwo
''FourFourTwo'' is a football magazine published by Future. Issued monthly, it published its 300th edition in May 2019. It takes its name from the football formation of the same name, 4-4-2.
In 2008, it was announced that ''FourFourTwo'' had e ...
magazine ranked him at No. 26 on its special list of the Top 100 football managers of all time.
Early life
Dagenham
![Dagenham village](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Dagenham_village.jpg)
Alfred Ernest Ramsey was born on 22 January 1920 at 6 Parrish Cottages, Halbutt Street in
Dagenham
Dagenham () is a town in East London, England, within the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. Dagenham is centred east of Charing Cross.
It was historically a rural parish in the Becontree Hundred of Essex, stretching from Hainault Forest ...
, which was then an
agrarian village in Essex, about east of central London. He was the third of five children, four boys and a girl, born to Herbert Ramsey, a manual labourer who worked a
smallholding
A smallholding or smallholder is a small farm operating under a small-scale agriculture model. Definitions vary widely for what constitutes a smallholder or small-scale farm, including factors such as size, food production technique or technology ...
, kept pigs and drove a horse-drawn
dustcart
A garbage truck is a truck specially designed to collect municipal solid waste and transport it to a solid waste treatment facility, such as a landfill, recycling center or transfer station. In Australia they are commonly called rubbish truck ...
, and his wife Florence (''née'' Bixby). Parrish Cottages lacked hot running water and electricity, and the only toilet was outside. Such conditions were typical of Dagenham during this period, although Ramsey's street gradually became something of an anachronism as he grew up. From 1921,
London County Council
London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kno ...
transformed the area into the
Becontree
Becontree or Both pronunciations are given as Received Pronunciation in the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, but the form is prioritised (). The dialectologist Peter Wright wrote in 1981 that is the traditional pronunciation in the cockney ...
estate, a vast urban community that by 1934 was home to 120,000 people and the
Ford Dagenham
Ford Dagenham is a major automotive factory located in Dagenham, London, operated by the Ford of Britain subsidiary of Ford Motor Company. The plant opened in 1931 and has produced 10,980,368 cars and more than 39,000,000 engines in its histo ...
automobile factory. Parrish Cottages remained largely untouched: electricity was not installed until the 1950s, and even then, only with the reluctant approval of Ramsey's mother, who, according to a neighbour, was frightened of it. In the recollection of a childhood contemporary, Phil Cairns, the Ramsey house was "little more than a wooden hut".
The young Alf Ramsey was described by his friend Fred Tibble as "a very quiet boy who really loved sport". In his 1952 autobiography ''Talking Football'', Ramsey described "liv
ngfor the open air from the moment I could toddle", spending hours each day in the meadow behind the family cottage, playing ball games with his brothers. He learned skills such as ball control, kicking and heading with a
tennis ball
A tennis ball is a ball designed for the sport of tennis. Tennis balls are fluorescent yellow in organised competitions, but in recreational play can be virtually any color. Tennis balls are covered in a fibrous felt which modifies their aerodyna ...
. From the age of five, Ramsey attended Becontree Heath School, which had a roll of about 200 pupils aged from four to fourteen. He and his brothers had to walk two hours from their house to get there, and passed a ball between each other on the way to break the monotony. Ramsey was not especially popular socially, nor particularly diligent as a student, but he excelled in sports. In addition to football, he played
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
to a high standard and represented the school in the
high jump
The high jump is a track and field event in which competitors must jump unaided over a horizontal bar placed at measured heights without dislodging it. In its modern, most-practiced format, a bar is placed between two standards with a crash mat f ...
, the
long jump
The long jump is a track and field event in which athletes combine speed, strength and agility in an attempt to leap as far as possible from a takeoff point. Along with the triple jump, the two events that measure jumping for distance as a gr ...
, and both the
100-yard and 200-yard dash. Despite his diminutive stature, he also enjoyed
boxing
Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined ...
until an incident when he was 10 years old, when a much larger opponent—"as wide as I was tall" in Ramsey's recollection—gave him a severe beating in a school tournament. Ramsey carried a noticeable scar above his mouth, a memento of this fight, for the rest of his life.
"He was very withdrawn, almost surly", Cairns recalled, "but he became animated on the football field". Ramsey was selected to play for Becontree Heath School when he was only seven years old, playing at
inside-left
Forwards (also known as attackers) are Glossary of association football terms#O, outfield positions in an association football team who play the furthest up the pitch and are therefore most responsible for scoring Goal (sport)#Association footbal ...
alongside boys as old as fourteen; his nine-year-old brother Len was at inside-right. Alf's selection for the school team prompted the purchase of his first pair of football boots. Two years later, aged nine, he became captain of the school team. By this point, he had switched to playing at
centre-half
In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring.
Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...
—the key position of the
"WM" formation then favoured in British football, between the full-backs and the forwards. His main strength was generally perceived to be his extremely accurate passing; his chief shortcoming was a lack of pace, for which Ramsey compensated by learning to read the game and position himself well. Ramsey played for teams representing the schools of Dagenham and Essex County, respectively, and trialled unsuccessfully for the London schools team while at Becontree. While he was at school, his brother Albert took him to see his first
Football League
The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...
match, watching their favourite team,
West Ham United
West Ham United Football Club is an English professional football club that plays its home matches in Stratford, East London. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. The club plays at the London Stadium, hav ...
, play against
Arsenal
An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostly ...
. This was the only senior match Alf would attend before playing in them himself. He later wrote that his main recollection of it was the performance of one of the Arsenal forwards, the
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
international
Alex James.
On leaving school in 1934, the 14-year-old Ramsey tried to get a job at the Ford plant, then told his family he intended to become a
greengrocer
A greengrocer is a person who owns or operates a shop selling primarily fruit and vegetables. The term may also be used to refer to a shop selling primarily produce. It is used predominantly in the United Kingdom and Australia.
In the United ...
. To that end he became an apprentice at a local branch of the
Co-op
A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...
, delivering groceries on a bicycle. The manual work helped to bulk up Ramsey's physique, but he found himself unable to play organised football because he had to work on Saturday afternoons. After a two-year hiatus, he returned to the game when he joined Five Elms, a newly formed amateur club whose matches on Thursdays fitted with his work schedule. About a year later, during the 1937–38 season, Ramsey was spotted by
Ned Liddell
Edward Liddle (27 May 1878 – 22 November 1968) (sometimes Liddell) was an English association football, football player, manager and Scout (association football), scout. He played in the English Football League, Football League for Gainsboro ...
, a
scout
Scout may refer to:
Youth movement
*Scout (Scouting), a child, usually 10–18 years of age, participating in the worldwide Scouting movement
**Scouts (The Scout Association), section for 10-14 year olds in the United Kingdom
**Scouts BSA, sectio ...
from
Portsmouth
Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council.
Portsmouth is the most dens ...
, then a well-established top-flight club.
Liddell offered a contract as an amateur. Rather than signing on the spot, Ramsey asked to take the forms home to examine first; he signed them that night and sent them to Portsmouth by post. Much to Ramsey's disappointment, Portsmouth did not contact him again. He spent the next two years working at the Co-op while playing cricket in the summer and football in the winter.
Second World War
Military service
![The British Army in the United Kingdom 1939-45 H4953A](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/The_British_Army_in_the_United_Kingdom_1939-45_H4953A.jpg)
After the outbreak of the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
in 1939, Ramsey was conscripted into the
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...
on 24 June 1940. He was assigned to the
Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry
The Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry (DCLI) was a light infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 to 1959.
The regiment was created on 1 July 1881 as part of the Childers Reforms, by the merger of the 32nd (Cornwall Light ...
and underwent his initial training in
Truro
Truro (; kw, Truru) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Cornwall, England. It is Cornwall's county town, sole city and centre for administration, leisure and retail trading. Its ...
, where he and other recruits were housed in a hotel commandeered by the army. Ramsey found the experience a thrilling adventure. "Until I travelled to
Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
, the longest journey I had undertaken was a trip to
Brighton
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...
by train", he recalled. "It was the first time I had ever been into a hotel! Even with us sleeping twelve to a room, on straw mattresses, could not end for me the awe of living in a swagger hotel." "That set the tone for Alf's war",
Leo McKinstry
Leo McKinstry (born 1962) is a British journalist, historian and author.
Life and career
Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, McKinstry was educated at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he graduated wit ...
suggests in his 2010 biography; attached to his regiment's 6th Battalion, Ramsey spent the entire war in Britain on home defence duties. The training was still physically demanding, and in Ramsey's words, made him "a fitter young fellow than when I reported for duty as a grocery apprentice from Dagenham."
Writing in 1952, Ramsey would call joining the army "one of the greatest things which ever happened to me", adding "I learnt, in a few weeks, more about life in general that I had picked up in years at home." Military life taught Ramsey about discipline and leadership, and strengthened his social skills: "I have never been very good at mixing with people but you have to in the army or else you are in trouble", the journalist Nigel Clarke recalled him saying. Ramsey rose to be a
company quartermaster sergeant
Company quartermaster sergeant is a military rank or appointment.
Canada
A company quartermaster sergeant (CQMS) in the Canadian Forces is the non-commissioned officer in a company who is in charge of supplies. The CQMS also serves as the deputy ...
in an
anti-aircraft
Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes surface based, ...
unit.
Wartime football
Military service also allowed Ramsey to play football more regularly, and at a higher standard than before. In late 1940 he was posted to
St Austell
St Austell (; kw, Sans Austel) is a town in Cornwall, England, south of Bodmin and west of the border with Devon.
St Austell is one of the largest towns in Cornwall; at the 2011 census it had a population of 19,958.
History
St Austell wa ...
, on the south coast of Cornwall, where he manned beach defences and became captain of the battalion football team, playing at centre-half or
centre-forward
Forwards (also known as attackers) are outfield positions in an association football team who play the furthest up the pitch and are therefore most responsible for scoring goals as well as assisting them. As with any attacking player, the role ...
as circumstances dictated. After three years in various seaside postings, Ramsey was, in 1943, moved to
Barton Stacey
Barton Stacey is a village and undulating civil parish, which includes the hamlets of Bransbury, Newton Stacey, Drayton and Cocum, in the Test Valley district of Hampshire, England, centred about south-east of Andover. It is bounded to the n ...
in
Hampshire
Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...
, where he came under the command of a Colonel Fletcher, himself an accomplished footballer. Ramsey's battalion team by this time featured players from a number of Football League clubs, including the
Brentford
Brentford is a suburban town in West London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It lies at the confluence of the River Brent and the Thames, west of Charing Cross.
Its economy has diverse company headquarters buildings whi ...
forward
Len Townsend and Arsenal's
Cyril Hodges
Cyril Leslie Hodges (18 September 1919 – September 1979) was an English professional footballer who played as a forward in the Football League.
Career
Hodges was born in Hackney, London, in 1919. After playing with Eton Manor, Hodges joine ...
. Ramsey played at centre-half for his battalion team as
Southampton
Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...
defeated them 10–3 at
the Dell in a pre-season
friendly
Friendly may refer to:
Places
* Friendly, West Yorkshire, a settlement in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England
* Friendly, Maryland, an unincorporated community in the United States
* Friendly, Eugene, Oregon, a neighborhood in the United States
* ...
on 21 August 1943, and a week later played again as the battalion took on Southampton's
reserve team
In sports, a reserve team is a team composed of players under contract to a club but who do not normally play in matches for the first team. Reserve teams often include back-up players from the first team, young players who need playing time to i ...
. The soldiers won the second match 4–1.
![Oak Road End at Kenilworth Road, 1980](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Oak_Road_End_at_Kenilworth_Road%2C_1980.jpg)
On 8 October 1943, Colonel Fletcher called Ramsey to his office to inform him that Southampton needed a centre-half for their
first-team match
away
Away may refer to:
Film and television
* ''Away'' (2016 film), a 2016 British film
* ''Away'' (2019 film), a 2019 animated silent film
* ''Away'' (TV series), a 2020 science fiction drama on Netflix
Literature
* ''Away'' (play), a 1986 play by M ...
to
Luton Town
Luton Town Football Club () is a professional association football club based in the town of Luton, Bedfordshire, England, that competes in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1885, it is nicknam ...
the next day, and had enquired about the sergeant's availability. The 23-year-old Ramsey was cautious, saying he lacked experience, but said he would "give it a try" when the colonel suggested that playing might set him on the way to a
professional football career. The next day, while en route to
Luton
Luton () is a town and unitary authority with borough status, in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 census, the Luton built-up area subdivision had a population of 211,228 and its built-up area, including the adjacent towns of Dunstable an ...
by train, Ramsey signed for Southampton as an amateur, making his debut for the club at Luton's
Kenilworth Road
Kenilworth Road is an association football stadium in Luton, Bedfordshire, England. It has been the home ground of Luton Town F.C., Luton Town Football Club since 1905. The stadium has also hosted women's and youth international matches, includ ...
ground. Ramsey gave away a
penalty kick
A penalty shot or penalty kick is a play used in several sports whereby a goal is attempted during untimed play. Depending on the sport, when a player commits certain types of penalties, the opposition is awarded a penalty shot or kick attempt. ...
late in the game with Southampton 2–1 ahead, allowing Luton to equalise, but Southampton managed to win 3–2. He played in three more matches for the team during the 1943–44 season before his battalion's posting to
County Durham
County Durham ( ), officially simply Durham,UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. is a ceremonial county in North East England.North East Assembly About North East E ...
forced his absence. After his unit returned to the south coast at the start of the 1944–45 season, Ramsey played in a trial match at Southampton, and performed well enough that the club offered a professional contract on wages of £2 per match. Ramsey was still uncertain about pursuing a football career; he signed the contract only after Southampton assured him that he could leave at the end of the season if he wished.
Ramsey was injured during the 1944–45 pre-season, ironically while playing against Southampton for his battalion team, so he did not make his first appearance as a professional until December. During the match, against Arsenal at
White Hart Lane
White Hart Lane was a Association football, football stadium in Tottenham, North London and the home of Tottenham Hotspur F.C., Tottenham Hotspur Football Club from 1899 to 2017. Its capacity varied over the years; when changed to all-seater i ...
, Ramsey played centre-half opposite the formidable Arsenal centre-forward
Ted Drake
Edward Joseph Drake (16 August 1912 – 30 May 1995) was an English football player and manager. As a player, he first played for Southampton but made his name playing for Arsenal in the 1930s, winning two league titles and an FA Cup, as wel ...
and according to McKinstry "had the best game of his career to date." Drake scored twice, but Ramsey still felt that he had proven his ability to play league football. On 3 March 1945, against Luton Town at the Dell, Ramsey was switched to inside-left because of injuries elsewhere in the team; he scored four goals in a 12–3 Southampton win. The ''
Southern Daily Echo
The ''Southern Daily Echo'', more commonly known as the ''Daily Echo'' or simply ''The Echo'', is a regional tabloid newspaper based in Southampton, covering the county of Hampshire in the United Kingdom. The newspaper is owned by Newsquest, o ...
'' reported, "he can certainly hammer a ball." Ramsey finished the season having made 11
League South appearances.
Ramsey remained in the army during
1945–46, the first football season after the war. Starting as a centre-forward, he scored two goals in each of Southampton's opening two games, then a
hat-trick
A hat-trick or hat trick is the achievement of a generally positive feat three times in a match, or another achievement based on the number three.
Origin
The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson taking three wic ...
in a 6–2 victory at
Newport County on 6 October 1945. He played in 13 League South matches before military commitments again intervened—in December 1945 he was deployed to
Mandatory Palestine
Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 ...
, where he accepted an invitation to captain a football team representing the British garrison. This side included
Arthur Rowley
George Arthur Rowley Jr. (21 April 1926 – 19 December 2002), nicknamed "The Gunner" because of his explosive left-foot shot, was an English football player and cricketer. He holds the record for the most goals in the history of English lea ...
, who later scored hundreds of goals for
Leicester City
Leicester ( ) is a city, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands.
The city lies on the River Soar and close to the eastern end of the National ...
and
Shrewsbury Town
Shrewsbury Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. The team competes in League One, the third tier of English football. The club plays its home games at the New Meadow, having mo ...
, and the future Scotland international forward
Jimmy Mason. Ramsey returned to England in June 1946 to find himself entertaining overtures from both the new Southampton manager
Bill Dodgin and the Dagenham Co-op, the latter of which offered Ramsey his pre-war job back. Ramsey initially turned Southampton down, but accepted after the club offered better terms: £6 per week during the summer, £7 in winter and £8 if he was selected for the league team. He was formally
discharged
Discharge may refer to
Expel or let go
* Discharge, the act of firing a gun
* Discharge, or termination of employment, the end of an employee's duration with an employer
* Military discharge, the release of a member of the armed forces from serv ...
from the army soon after.
Playing career
Southampton
The regular Football League restarted in time for the
1946–47 season. Ramsey moved into club-owned lodgings in Southampton with a close friend from the army,
Alf Freeman, an inside-forward who had also signed for the club. Ramsey started the season in the reserve team, selected at centre-forward, and scored in each of the first three games. After five matches, Dodgin and the club trainer
Sydney Cann
Sydney Thomas Cann (30 October 1911 – 1 November 1996) was an English professional football defender and football manager. He was capped twice by England at Schools level.
Playing career
Born in Babbacombe, Torquay, Sid Cann joined Torquay Un ...
made a decision that changed the course of Ramsey's professional playing career: deciding that neither centre-half nor centre-forward truly suited him, they moved him to
right-back
In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring.
Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...
. McKinstry calls this "exactly the right place for Alf", citing Ramsey's tactical knowledge and fine passing. A close master-and-pupil relationship developed between Ramsey and Cann, who had played at full-back for
Torquay United
Torquay United Football Club is a professional football club based in Torquay, Devon, England. The team currently compete in the , the fifth tier of English football. They have played their home matches at Plainmoor since 1921 and are nicknamed ...
,
Manchester City
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The tw ...
and
Charlton Athletic
Charlton Athletic Football Club is an English professional football club based in Charlton, south-east London, which compete in . Their home ground is The Valley, where the club have played since 1919. They have also played at The Mount in C ...
. During training sessions, the two had long discussions about tactics and individual techniques. wanted to learn about the game from top to bottom", Cann recalled; "I have never known anyone with the same quickness of learning as Alf Ramsey. He would never accept anything on its face value ... He was the type of player who was a manager's dream because you could talk about a decision and he would accept it and there it was, in his game."
Ramsey made his full league debut on 26 October 1946, in a
Second Division
In sport, the Second Division, also called Division 2 or Division II is usually the second highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Following the rise of Premier League style compet ...
match against
Plymouth Argyle
Plymouth Argyle Football Club is a professional football club based in the city of Plymouth, Devon, England. As of the 2021–22 season, the team are competing in League One, the third tier of English football. They have played at Home Park, ...
at the Dell, replacing the injured regular right-back
Bill Ellerington
William Ellerington (30 June 1923 – 4 April 2015) was an English footballer who was capped twice for the full England national team and once for England B, and spent his entire professional club career at Southampton F.C.
Born in Southam ...
. The nervous Ramsey was helped through the match by the calm reassurance and guidance of the experienced Southampton captain
Bill Rochford
William Rochford (27 May 1913 – 9 March 1984) was an English footballer. A member of the Portsmouth team that won the 1939 FA Cup, he played over 100 matches for Portsmouth and for their south coast rivals, Southampton.
Playing career
Rochfo ...
, the team's other full-back. Southampton won 5–1, their joint-biggest win of the 1946–47 season,
but Ramsey found the pace of the regular peacetime Football League a drastic step-up. "Their reactions to moves were so speedy they had completed a pass, for instance, when I was still thinking things over", he later wrote. After one more game, Ellerington was reinstated and Ramsey went back to the reserves. Ramsey was kept out of the first team until January 1947, when Ellerington was injured again shortly before an away match against
Newcastle United
Newcastle United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Newcastle upon Tyne, that plays in the Premier League – the top flight of English football. The club was founded in 1892 by the merger of Newcastle East End ...
. Southampton lost 3–1, but Ramsey was generally considered to have acquitted himself well. He kept his place for the rest of the season, gradually growing in confidence. Dodgin praised Ramsey in a February 1947 interview as a "player who thinks football, talks football and lives football".
A formative experience for Ramsey during his first peacetime season was playing for Southampton against Manchester City in April 1947. Playing at full-back for City was the 38-year-old
Sam Barkas
Samuel Barkas (29 December 1909 – 10 December 1989) was an English football player and manager who played at left back for Bradford City and Manchester City.
Career
Born in Wardley Colliery, England, Barkas had worked in the pits and farm be ...
, a former England international, near the end of his last season. Ramsey was greatly impressed by Barkas's positional sense and accurate passing, and adopted him as a role model. The following season,
1947–48, Ramsey firmly established himself ahead of Ellerington in the Southampton team, and was the only player at the club to appear in all 42 League matches.
The consensus on Ramsey's playing style among his fellow professionals was that he was rather slow, but possessed an excellent positional sense, read the game better than most, and distributed the ball exceptionally well for a defender. Taking after his Southampton captain Bill Rochford, he preferred to play the ball out of defence rather than simply
clearing it as quickly as possible. He became a specialist penalty taker due to his coolness and ability to anticipate the
goalkeeper
In many team sports which involve scoring goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or intercepting o ...
.
Ted Bates, one of Ramsey's Southampton teammates, described him as "lacking both height and speed", but credited him with a "razor-sharp brain ... he would never get into a situation that exposed him."
Southampton failed to win promotion during the 1947–48 season, finishing third behind Birmingham City and Newcastle United, but it was still a successful campaign for them and by its end Ramsey had become one of the club's main players, taking on the captain's role occasionally. In May 1948, he was selected as part of a 16-man England squad to tour Switzerland and Italy; the flight to
Geneva
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...
was his first time in an aeroplane. On his return from international duty, he flew to
São Paulo
São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaWC a ...
to join the rest of the Southampton team on a club tour of Brazil. Southampton had lost every game in Brazil so far, and spirits were low. Ramsey restored morale and contributed to a new plan to counter the Brazilian tactics, which were much more fluid than those favoured by English teams of the time. Ramsey suggested that Southampton could use long diagonal passes to exploit the gaps the Brazilian defenders left behind them as they ran upfield to attack. McKinstry notes the similarity of this thinking to some of the tactics Ramsey later used as manager of
Ipswich Town
Ipswich Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in Ipswich, Suffolk, England. They play in League One, the third tier of the English football league system.
The club was founded in 1878 but did not turn profession ...
. Southampton beat
Corinthians
The First Epistle to the Corinthians ( grc, Α΄ ᾽Επιστολὴ πρὸς Κορινθίους) is one of the Pauline epistles, part of the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The epistle is attributed to Paul the Apostle and a co-aut ...
2–1 in their next game before ending the tour with a draw and a defeat. Ramsey was impressed by the South Americans' footballing ability, but not by the conduct of their players, pressmen, administrators or fans; McKinstry considers the experience to have "fed Alf's nascent
xenophobia
Xenophobia () is the fear or dislike of anything which is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression of perceived conflict between an in-group and out-group and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other's activities, a ...
".
By the middle of the
1948–49 season Ramsey had made his first appearance for the England national team and made a total of 90 league and 6
FA Cup
The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...
appearances for Southampton, scoring eight goals.
He made what turned out to be his final competitive appearance for Southampton on 8 January 1949, in a 2–1 away defeat to
Sheffield Wednesday
Sheffield Wednesday Football Club is a professional association football club based in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The team competes in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. Formed in 1867 as an offshoot of ...
. In a friendly away at Plymouth Argyle a week later, he slipped as he went into a tackle and injured his knee. Dodgin brought Bill Ellerington back into the side to replace Ramsey while he recovered, and Ellerington performed strongly as Southampton won eight and drew two of the next 10 matches. Dodgin told Ramsey that, given Ellerington's good form, Ramsey was "going to find it very hard" to regain his place in the team. Ramsey, not yet in his 30s, was infuriated and considered this a direct insult by Dodgin: he subsequently asked Southampton to place him on the
transfer list The transfer market is the arena in which football players are available for transfer to clubs.
The transfer market consists of a list of players available for transfer, and also the money moving between clubs as they contest to purchase and sell ...
on 7 March 1949.
He obsessed about Dodgin's comment. "The world did indeed appear a dark and unfriendly place", he later said; "... for one fleeting moment I seriously contemplated quitting football."
Ramsey's opinion that Dodgin had treated him unfairly was not shared by the other Southampton players, who respected Ellerington as a player of comparable ability. According to the
wing-half
A midfielder is an outfield position in association football.
Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...
Joe Mallett
Joseph Mallett (8 January 1916 – 8 February 2004) was an English professional footballer who spent much of his early playing career at Queens Park Rangers and subsequently at Southampton (playing as a wing half). He later became a coach, manag ...
, Ramsey was also motivated to leave by a dressing-room row with his captain Bill Rochford at half-time during that final league match against Sheffield Wednesday: one of the Sheffield Wednesday goals was blamed on Ramsey's failure to play an opposing winger
offside. The Southampton chairman and board tried to persuade Ramsey to stay, but his mind was made up—he told them that if he played in the reserve team, it would hinder his chances of playing internationally.
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
, Luton Town and
Burnley
Burnley () is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Burnley in Lancashire, England, with a 2001 population of 73,021. It is north of Manchester and east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River Bru ...
were among the clubs who expressed interest in buying him, but by the time of the transfer deadline on 16 March, only Sheffield Wednesday had made an official bid.
Tottenham Hotspur
Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, commonly referred to as Tottenham () or Spurs, is a professional association football, football club based in Tottenham, London, England. It competes in the Premier League, the top flight of English footba ...
came in with a last-minute offer, but there was no time for the transfer to go through, and Ramsey was forced to stay at Southampton for the rest of the season. On 15 May 1949, the new Tottenham manager
Arthur Rowe
Arthur Sydney Rowe (1 September 1906 – 5 November 1993) was an English footballer, and later manager, who played as a centre half. He was the first manager to lead Tottenham Hotspur to the First Division Championship title in 1951. He also "i ...
revived the offer, and signed Ramsey in a part-exchange deal for £4,500 and
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
international winger
Ernie Jones—the transfer was widely reported as being worth £21,000, then a record for Tottenham.
Tottenham Hotspur
Push-and-run; champions of England
A good relationship quickly developed between Ramsey and his new manager, who found that they shared similar personalities and views on tactics. Like Ramsey, Rowe believed in a progressive, fast-moving style of play. These ideas evolved into "
push-and-run", a playing style unlike anything previously attempted in British football, based around quick passing. Tottenham pioneered the style to good effect—a Spurs player moving forward would lay the ball off to a teammate, then run past the opposing defender to receive an immediate return pass. "Under Rowe, Alf became far more than a defender", comments McKinstry. Rowe tasked him with instigating attacks and based much of the Tottenham game plan around Ramsey's accurate passing.
Tottenham started the
1949–50 season strongly and soon topped the Second Division: between August 1949 and January 1950 they did not lose in 22 matches. Ramsey was an essential part of the team,
having made the right-back position his own; he built effective partnerships with several players, including the wing-half
Bill Nicholson,
[ the goalkeeper ]Ted Ditchburn
Edwin George Ditchburn (24 October 1921 – 26 December 2005) was an English professional football goalkeeper who played for Northfleet United, Tottenham Hotspur, Romford, Brentwood Town and represented England on six occasions at international ...
and the inside-right Sonny Walters
William (Sonny) E. Walters (5 September 1924 – 25 November 1970) was an English professional footballer who played on the wing for Tottenham Hotspur and subsequently for Aldershot Town during the 1940s and 1950s.
Career
Sonny Walters was ass ...
. Ramsey greatly appreciated the licence Rowe gave him to move forward and attack and, in November 1949, in an away match against Grimsby Town
Grimsby Town Football Club is a professional football club based in Cleethorpes, North East Lincolnshire, England, that in the 2022–23 season will compete in , the fourth tier of the English football league system, following the victory in ...
, he scored what is generally considered the best goal of his career. Shortly after half-time, he intercepted a long pass near the half-way line and, after running 40 yards and dribbling past three Grimsby defenders, smashed the ball past the advancing goalkeeper. The reporter for ''The Enfield Gazette'' wrote that the goal would "never be forgotten by those privileged to be present". Tottenham went on to win the match 3–2.
Spurs won the 1949–50 Second Division title with seven games to spare, scoring more goals and conceding fewer than any of their rivals, and were promoted
Promotion may refer to:
Marketing
* Promotion (marketing), one of the four marketing mix elements, comprising any type of marketing communication used to inform or persuade target audiences of the relative merits of a product, service, brand or i ...
to the First Division for the following season. In August 1950, shortly before Tottenham embarked on their first top-flight season since they had been relegated
In sports leagues, promotion and relegation is a process where teams are transferred between multiple divisions based on their performance for the completed season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are often called open leagues. ...
at the end of the 1934–35 campaign, Rowe told the club's annual meeting: "As much as anything else, I would rate our good time last year to the acquisition of Alf Ramsey." After an uncertain start to the 1950–51 season, Spurs quickly recovered their form of the previous year and by Christmas were top of the table. Ramsey continued to play a key role, according to McKinstry playing "the best football of his life": "He was the master of strategy, the lynchpin of a side that built its attacks from the back, the scheming practitioner who put Rowe's plans into action." Ramsey's understanding of the game and authority on and off the field led to his teammates nicknaming him "The General". On 28 April 1951, with a 1–0 home victory over Sheffield Wednesday, Tottenham were crowned champions of England only a year after promotion. "I think fortune shone upon me very handsomely during the 1950–51 season", Ramsey remarked in ''Talking Football''—"After all, I was a member of one of the finest club teams in years".
Semi-final error; club captain
Spurs followed their title win with a second-place finish in the 1951–52 season, but then went into a sharp decline, finishing 10th in 1952–53 and 16th in 1953–54. The slump was partly because the players who had formed the spine of the championship-winning side were losing their fitness—push-and-run required players of exceptional physical condition, and Ramsey, Ron Burgess, Nicholson, and others were all past 30. Ramsey was furthermore affected by a recurring abdominal injury. His preference for ball play rather than simply clearing it became unpopular among sections of Tottenham's support. A particularly low ebb came in the 1952–53 FA Cup
The 1952–53 FA Cup was the 72nd season of the world's oldest football cup competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup. Blackpool won the competition for the first time, beating Bolton Wanderers 4–3 in the ...
semi-final, against Blackpool
Blackpool is a seaside resort in Lancashire, England. Located on the North West England, northwest coast of England, it is the main settlement within the Borough of Blackpool, borough also called Blackpool. The town is by the Irish Sea, betw ...
at Villa Park
Villa Park is a football stadium in Aston, Birmingham, England, with a seating capacity of 42,682. It has been the home of Premier League side Aston Villa since 1897. The ground is less than a mile from both Witton and Aston railway stations ...
on 21 March 1953. Ramsey had played well, keeping the Blackpool left-winger Bill Perry quiet, and with only a minute to spare the game was finely balanced at 1–1. Ramsey then made a fatal error. Having easily beaten Perry to a cross-field pass from a free-kick, he set himself to slide the ball back to the goalkeeper Ditchburn in a situation when most defenders would have cleared it. The ball bounced off Ramsey's knee and ran away from him, allowing Blackpool forward Jackie Mudie
John Knight Mudie (10 April 1930 – 2 March 1992) was a Scottish international footballer who played as a forward. He won seventeen caps for his country, helping the Scotland national team to qualify for the 1958 FIFA World Cup.
Startin ...
to score. Blackpool won 2–1, and went on to win what is commonly referred to as the "Matthews Final
The 1953 FA Cup Final, also known as the Matthews Final, was the eighth to be held at Wembley Stadium after the Second World War. The football match was contested between Blackpool and Bolton Wanderers, with Blackpool winning 4–3, equalling the ...
".
Ramsey was vilified by the fans and press after the semi-final, with one Spurs director saying: "Ramsey stupidly gave the goal away. He could have easily kicked the ball out of play." Ramsey was publicly contrite—"I can only say I am terribly sorry", he told the ''Daily Express
The ''Daily Express'' is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadsheet i ...
''—but in the Tottenham dressing room he analysed the move that had led to Mudie's goal and attempted to identify others as being at fault. This notwithstanding, "for all his reluctance to accept the blame in front of his colleagues, Alf knew he had made a terrible error", McKinstry writes. The error haunted him profoundly. It began to be speculated during the 1953–54 season that he might return to Southampton, who had been relegated to the Third Division South
The Third Division South of The Football League was a tier in the English football league system from 1921 to 1958. It ran in parallel with the Third Division North with clubs elected to the League or relegated from Division Two allocated to on ...
, in a role combining playing duties with coaching. He was not yet finished as a Spurs player, though; indeed, in 1954, after Burgess left to join Swansea Town, he was appointed club captain.
Despite their successful collaboration on the pitch, a strong personal rivalry developed between Ramsey and Nicholson, partly because both liked the idea of staying on at Tottenham in a coaching role after retiring. Rowe made clear to Ramsey that he wanted him to do so, but unfortunately for him, Rowe stepped down in February 1955, citing health issues. Another challenge to Ramsey's position at Tottenham came in the form of Danny Blanchflower
Robert Dennis Blanchflower (10 February 1926 – 9 December 1993) was a former Northern Ireland footballer, football manager and journalist who played for and captained Tottenham Hotspur, including during their double-winning season of 1960 ...
, a Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
international wing-half signed from Aston Villa
Aston Villa Football Club is a professional football club based in Aston, Birmingham, England. The club competes in the , the top tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1874, they have played at their home ground, Villa Park ...
to replace Nicholson. Blanchflower was a more attacking player than Nicholson and thus did not provide the necessary cover for Ramsey to advance upfield; Ramsey also resented the idea that Blanchflower might supplant him as Tottenham's main strategist.
Rowe's illness and Blanchflower's arrival together signalled the end of Ramsey's playing career. Ramsey missed matches during the 1954–55 season through injury, and in April 1955 suffered what he called "a terrible roasting" at the hands of the Leicester City winger Derek Hogg. After Tottenham ended the season in 16th place, Rowe retired permanently; his deputy Jimmy Anderson took over and appointed Nicholson to his coaching staff. When Ramsey was omitted from a post-season tour of Hungary, despite still being club captain, he realised that his time at Tottenham had come to an end. He had played a total of 250 competitive games for Tottenham in all competitions, across six seasons. "I was 35 years old and obviously concerned about my future", he later wrote. "I really didn't know what was going to happen to me. I knew my days as a player were numbered, and there was only one way things could go for me in this respect—downhill."
England international
Ramsey's first taste of playing as an international had come while he was at Southampton, when he played for England B against Switzerland B in May 1948. He made his full England debut in December that year, in a 6–0 win over Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
at Highbury
Highbury is a district in North London and part of the London Borough of Islington
in Greater London that was owned by Ranulf brother of Ilger and included all the areas north and east of Canonbury and Holloway Roads.
The manor house was situ ...
.[ He briefly lost his England place to his Southampton teammate Bill Ellerington, but following strong performances for Tottenham, he returned in England's 2–0 home win over ]Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
on 30 November 1949. Ramsey's introduction to the England set-up coincided with the team's first ever World Cup
A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...
campaign, the British Home Nations
Home Nations is a collective term with one of two meanings depending on context. Politically it means the nations of the constituent countries of the United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales). In sport, if a sport is g ...
having rejoined football's world governing body FIFA
FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...
in 1946 after two decades' absence, therefore being excluded from the first three World Cup tournaments in the 1930s. The Football Association
The Football Association (also known as The FA) is the Sports governing body, governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Bailiwick of Guernsey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the ...
(FA) in London had moved on little since the modern game's genesis in the late 19th century, yet remained convinced that English football and the England team were the finest in the world—so superior, indeed, that entering the World Cup was hardly necessary. The evidence presented for this was that England had never lost at home to any team from outside the British Isles. The team was picked by a panel of eight FA selectors, with the role of England manager, held by Walter Winterbottom
Sir Walter Winterbottom (31 March 1913 – 16 February 2002) was an English football player and coach. He was the first manager of the England national team (1946–1962) and Director of Coaching for The Football Association (the FA). He ...
, combined with that of FA director of coaching.
England's selection of Ramsey and three of his Tottenham teammates—Ditchburn, Nicholson and forward Eddie Baily
Edward Francis Baily (6 August 1925 – 13 October 2010) was an England international footballer. He was a member of the 1950 FIFA World Cup squad, and scored five goals in nine international games. He was described as one of the best inside for ...
—for the 1950 World Cup
The 1950 FIFA World Cup was the fourth edition of the FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football championship for senior men's national teams and held in Brazil from 24 June to 16 July 1950. The planned 1942 and 1946 World Cups were ...
in Brazil made them the first Tottenham players ever at a World Cup. England were among the favourites to win the tournament, largely because of their reputation. The team had little preparation, arriving in Brazil only a week before their first game. Ramsey found the South American conditions difficult, noting that "at the conclusion of even an easy kick-around, I felt infinitely more tired than after a hectic league match at home." Despite this, an England team including Ramsey won their opening match in Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...
, against Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
, 2–0.
England's next match pitted them against the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
—an opponent they were expected to easily overcome—at the Estádio Independência in Belo Horizonte
Belo Horizonte (, ; ) is the sixth-largest city in Brazil, with a population around 2.7 million and with a metropolitan area of 6 million people. It is the 13th-largest city in South America and the 18th-largest in the Americas. The metropol ...
, inland. The selectors again picked Ramsey, but left star winger Stanley Matthews
Sir Stanley Matthews, CBE (1 February 1915 – 23 February 2000) was an English footballer who played as an outside right. Often regarded as one of the greatest players of the British game, he is the only player to have been knighted while stil ...
out on the grounds that England could beat the Americans without him, ignoring Winterbottom's protests. England dominated the first half. "I'm not making excuses when I say that in the first 45 minutes we had a year's bad luck", Ramsey wrote in 1952. "Shots which appeared certain to score missed by the width of a coat of paint. The American goalkeeper, much to his astonishment, found himself stopping the ball with his body, and on occasions his face, without really knowing what it was all about." The US grabbed a shock lead on 37 minutes when a long shot towards England's penalty area flew into the net off the head of American forward Joe Gaetjens
Joseph Edouard Gaetjens ( ; , 1924 – , 1964 resumed was a soccer player who played as a center forward. Born in Haiti, he also played one match for Haiti in a World Cup qualifier against Mexico before switching to represent the United ...
.
The score remained 1–0 at half-time, and it was the same story in the second half: England missed a multitude of easy chances, hit the woodwork
Woodworking is the skill of making items from wood, and includes cabinet making (cabinetry and furniture), wood carving, joinery, carpentry, and woodturning.
History
Along with stone, clay and animal parts, wood was one of the first materials ...
numerous times and had one effort that appeared to cross the line not given. The England captain Billy Wright recalled that "even Alf Ramsey, who used to be expressionless throughout a game, threw up his arms and looked to the sky when a perfect free-kick was somehow saved by their unorthodox keeper". No England goal came—the United States won 1–0 in what entered English football history as the national team's most embarrassing upset. Ramsey, who was fiercely patriotic, took the result as an acute personal humiliation. One journalist recalled that on hearing the match mentioned years later, "his face creased and he looked like a man who had been jabbed in an unhealed wound". England could remain in the competition if they beat Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
in their last group game, but a 1–0 defeat saw them crash out.
Despite this indifferent performance, the English football establishment made no changes in policy, maintaining that England remained the best in the world and had simply fallen victim to bad luck in Brazil. Ramsey remained a central figure in the team, and captained his country against Wales on 15 November 1950 after Wright was left out due to poor form. Ramsey also captained England in a 2–2 draw against Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
a week later—the first time a team from outside the British Isles had played away against England and not lost. A year later, on 28 November 1951, England's unbeaten home record against overseas sides was challenged by Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
, then one of the most formidable attacking teams in Europe. The Austrians led 1–0 with 25 minutes to play, but were pegged back to 1–1 when Ramsey scored a penalty. The match finished 2–2—England's unbeaten home record survived. The ''Daily Mail
The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper and news websitePeter Wilb"Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail: The man who hates liberal Britain", ''New Statesman'', 19 December 2013 (online version: 2 January 2014) publish ...
'' dubbed Ramsey England's "ice-cool hero"; he himself identified the Austria match in ''Talking Football'' as "my greatest international".
Ramsey remained in the England team throughout 1952, including in England's 3–2 win over Austria in Vienna on 25 May.[ After 29 consecutive international appearances, he was left out of the squad for a match against Wales in October 1953 because of injury. He was reinstated for the following match later that month against a Rest of the World XI, and scored his second international goal to secure a 4–4 draw. His last appearance for England came on 25 November 1953, in what the British press dubbed the " Match of the Century"—England against the 1952 Olympic champions ]Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
, the so-called "Golden Team
The Golden Team ( hu, Aranycsapat; also known as the Mighty Magyars, the Magical Magyars, the Magnificent Magyars, the Marvellous Magyars, or the Light Cavalry) refers to the Hungary national football team of the 1950s. It is associated with seve ...
" or "Magical Magyars", at Wembley Stadium.
What British observers had forecast as a clash between two of world football's greatest powers turned into a walkover, as England were beaten easily. The unbeaten home record was obliterated, along with any pretence that England had nothing to learn from overseas rivals—they were totally outplayed by the fluid, fast-paced game of the Hungarians, which McKinstry comments was not dissimilar to Tottenham's push-and-run. Ramsey scored a penalty, his third and final international goal, but Hungary, who had scored after less than a minute, won 6–3. He refused to accept that England had been outclassed, saying: "Four of those goals came from outside the penalty area. We should never have lost." Ramsey never played for England again, having won a total of 32 caps
Caps are flat headgear.
Caps or CAPS may also refer to:
Science and technology Computing
* CESG Assisted Products Service, provided by the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters
* Composite Application Platform Suite, by Java Caps, a Java ...
, scored three goals (all penalties),[ and captained his country three times.][
]
Managerial career
Ipswich Town
Ramsey had made up his mind that he wanted to remain in football as a coach, but he had no relevant qualifications or managerial experience, bar a part-time coaching spell at London League club Eton Manor
Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre is a sports and leisure venue located in Leyton, London Borough of Waltham Forest, to the north of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. It is regularly used for international field hockey fixtures by both the Great ...
. While he spent the 1955 off-season coaching in Southern Rhodesia
Southern Rhodesia was a landlocked self-governing British Crown colony in southern Africa, established in 1923 and consisting of British South Africa Company (BSAC) territories lying south of the Zambezi River. The region was informally kn ...
, Ipswich Town of the Third Division South received permission from Anderson to speak to Ramsey about signing him as player-manager
A player-coach (also playing coach, captain-coach, or player-manager) is a member of a sports team who simultaneously holds both playing and coaching duties. A player-coach may be a head coach or an assistant coach. They may make changes to the sq ...
. When Ramsey met the Ipswich hierarchy on his return from Africa, he refused to combine management with playing. "I told them I would only concentrate on one job", Ramsey later said; "it would be impossible to play with the players I would be coaching." This settled, Ipswich announced Ramsey's appointment as manager on 9 August 1955. Some of those who knew Ramsey had strong opinions about how he would manage. Wilf Grant
Wilfred Grant (3 August 1920 – 17 July 1990) was an English professional footballer who played as a forward for Southampton, Cardiff City and Ipswich Town.
Playing career
Early career
Grant was born in Bedlington and as a youth played for Mo ...
, a former Southampton teammate of Ramsey's who was now on the training staff at Ipswich, commented: "He'll be good, but he will be the boss." Billy Wright, Ramsey's England teammate commented, "In appointing Alf to become their manager Ipswich Town paid a tremendous tribute to intelligent football—and footballers who think!"
Ramsey joined Ipswich just after the club's relegation from the Second Division at the end of the 1954–55 season, the team's only year above the third tier up to that point. To quote McKinstry, Ipswich had neither "glittering pedigree or status" nor "strong footballing tradition"—the club had joined the Football League only in 1938, and its home ground at Portman Road
Portman Road is a football stadium in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, which has been the home ground of Ipswich Town F.C. since 1884. The stadium has also hosted many England youth international matches, and one senior England friendly internatio ...
was small and basic. One of the team's advantages was the patronage of the aristocratic Cobbold brewing family, to which the chairman and much of the club hierarchy belonged. "I had no plan for Ipswich when I went there", Ramsey later said. "In fact the first thing I had to do was to forget my set ideas on how football ought to be played. My experience had been in the First Division. I soon found that what I faced at Ipswich was very different." Ramsey kept most of the training staff hired by his predecessor Scott Duncan, who had stepped down after 18 years as Ipswich manager. Duncan stayed on as club secretary, meaning that Ramsey could concentrate on playing matters, leaving administration to Duncan.
A relegated side with a number of players of "mature age", Ipswich were a tricky proposition for a new manager, especially as there was "no money" to improve the squad, so Ramsey worked to make the most of whatever talent he had inherited.[Bowler, pp. 117–118.] He made tactical innovations, noticed by the local newspaper: as early as his first game in charge, he had his team taking three distinct styles of corner kick
A corner kick is the method of restarting play in a game of association football when the ball goes out of play over the goal line, without a goal being scored and having last been touched by a member of the defending team. The kick is taken ...
, in a game where the side put on "as poor a performance as one can recollect at Portman Road". In Ramsey's first season as manager, he guided the club to third place in the Third Division South, with Ipswich scoring 106 goals in the 46 league games. During Ramsey's second season in charge, he led the club to the division title, Ipswich again scoring in excess of 100 goals. It was Ipswich's second title at that level, and it meant promotion to the Second Division, and for the following three seasons, Ipswich managed to achieve mid-table finishes.
In the 1960–61 season, Ramsey guided Ipswich to the Second Division title and into the top flight
Top Flight (April 15, 1929 – 1949) was an American U.S. Hall of Fame Thoroughbred racehorse. She was the leading American filly of her generation at two and three years of age.
Background
Bred in Kentucky by the very prominent horseman Harry ...
for the first time in the club's history. The success was built upon the prowess of Ray Crawford
Ray Crawford (October 26, 1915 – February 1, 1996) was an American fighter ace, test pilot, race-car driver and businessman.
Biography
Born in Roswell, New Mexico, Crawford served as a U.S. Army Air Corps fighter pilot and flew the P-3 ...
, the division's top goalscorer with 39. The following season, Ramsey led his side to become champions of England in their debut season at the top level. The side had been tipped by many contemporary football pundit
A pundit is a person who offers mass media opinion or commentary on a particular subject area (most typically politics, the social sciences, technology or sport).
Origins
The term originates from the Sanskrit term ('' '' ), meaning "knowledg ...
s and journalists for relegation at the start of the season, making the achievement all the more remarkable. Ramsey created a strong side based on a resolute defence and two strikers, Ray Crawford
Ray Crawford (October 26, 1915 – February 1, 1996) was an American fighter ace, test pilot, race-car driver and businessman.
Biography
Born in Roswell, New Mexico, Crawford served as a U.S. Army Air Corps fighter pilot and flew the P-3 ...
and Ted Phillips
Ted Phillips is an American businessman and the President and CEO of the National Football League's Chicago Bears and has been a part of the organization since 1984. He is only the fourth president of the 100-year-old organization, the others bei ...
who between them scored more than 60 goals. The key to the side was considered to be left-winger, Jimmy Leadbetter
James Hunter Leadbetter (15 July 1928 – 18 July 2006) was a Scottish footballer, most notable for his achievements as a left-winger with Ipswich Town during the 1950s and 1960s. He remains the only Scottish footballer to win English Third, Se ...
whom Ramsey moved into a deep-lying, left of centre midfielder
A midfielder is an outfield position in association football.
Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...
.
The following season started poorly for the league champions: Ramsey's former teammate Bill Nicholson changed the formation of his Spurs team to counter Ipswich in the 1962 FA Charity Shield
The 1962 FA Charity Shield was the 40th FA Charity Shield, an annual football match played between the winners of the previous season's Football League and FA Cup competitions. The match took place on 11 August 1962 at Portman Road in Ipswich, a ...
curtain-raiser to the 1962–63 season, a game which Tottenham won 5–1. The same season, Ramsey oversaw Ipswich's short-lived inaugural European campaign in the 1962–63 European Cup
The 1962–63 European Cup was the eighth season of the European Cup, a football competition for European clubs. The competition was won by Milan, who beat two-time defending champions Benfica in the final at Wembley Stadium in London. Milan's v ...
. Despite despatching Maltese club, Floriana
Floriana ( mt, Il-Furjana or ''Il-Floriana''), also known by its title Borgo Vilhena, is a fortified town in the South Eastern Region area of Malta, just outside the capital city Valletta. It has a population of 2,205 as of March 2014. Floriana i ...
, 14–1 on aggregate, Ipswich lost 4–2 on aggregate in the second round to the eventual winners A.C. Milan
Associazione Calcio Milan (), commonly referred to as AC Milan or simply Milan, is a professional football club in Milan, Italy, founded in 1899. The club has spent its entire history, with the exception of the 1980–81 and 1982–83 seasons ...
, although Ipswich had won the home leg 2–1. In the league, Ipswich finished 17th, just four points above the relegation zone, placing them among the worst-performing defending champions in the English top-flight. Not long into the season, on 25 October 1962, Ramsey agreed to take charge of the England national team, commencing 1 May 1963. He left Ipswich after eight seasons, having guided them from the Third Division South to the top of English football. After Ramsey's departure, Ipswich's performances declined and, two years after winning the league title, they dropped back into the Second Division.
England
England lost to Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
in the quarter-final of the 1962 World Cup
The 1962 FIFA World Cup was the seventh edition of the FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football championship for senior men's national teams. It was held from 30 May to 17 June 1962 in Chile. The qualification rounds took place be ...
in Chile and, being under attack from the British press, manager Walter Winterbottom
Sir Walter Winterbottom (31 March 1913 – 16 February 2002) was an English football player and coach. He was the first manager of the England national team (1946–1962) and Director of Coaching for The Football Association (the FA). He ...
resigned five months later. Although Ramsey's position as England manager was confirmed in October 1962, he formally took charge in May 1963,[ because Ramsey felt it would be wrong to walk out on Ipswich, who were struggling at the time. '']The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' reported that Ramsey had taken on "a vulnerable position" out of duty, but that he had delayed taking up his role due to Ipswich being "engaged in the European Cup but also facing a struggle—through injuries and other factors—at the wrong end of the League table", with hope expressed that he would take up the reins "from the new year". When Ramsey took over as manager, he demanded complete control over squad selections: previously Winterbottom had been manager, but selections and other decisions were often carried out by board committees. Ramsey's appointment and his appropriation of all such responsibilities led to him being referred to as "England's first proper manager".
On appointment, Ramsey immediately caused a stir when he predicted "we will win the World Cup", which was to be hosted in England in 1966.[ One of Ramsey's first actions as England manager was to name the West Ham United captain ]Bobby Moore
Robert Frederick Chelsea Moore (12 April 1941 – 24 February 1993) was an English professional footballer. He most notably played for West Ham United, captaining the club for more than ten years, and was the captain of the England natio ...
as captain of the national team. Moore came from working-class roots in the East End of London
The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have uni ...
, similar to Ramsey. England had never had a captain so young—Moore was only 22 years and 47 days old when he captained the side for the first time, away against Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
in a friendly
Friendly may refer to:
Places
* Friendly, West Yorkshire, a settlement in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England
* Friendly, Maryland, an unincorporated community in the United States
* Friendly, Eugene, Oregon, a neighborhood in the United States
* ...
on 29 May 1963. England won 4–2.
1964 European Championship
Ramsey's first competitive match as England coach was a preliminary qualification round for the 1964 European Nations' Cup
The 1964 European Nations' Cup was the second edition of the UEFA European Championship. The final tournament was held in Spain. It was won by the hosts 2–1 over the defending champions, the Soviet Union.
The tournament was a knockout compet ...
. England, along with many other national teams, had declined to participate in the inaugural 1960 competition. They had been drawn against France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
for a two-legged knockout fixture to progress to the last sixteen qualifiers. The home leg, played under Winterbottom, had been drawn 1–1 at Hillsborough
Hillsborough may refer to:
Australia
*Hillsborough, New South Wales, a suburb of Lake Macquarie
Canada
*Hillsborough, New Brunswick
*Hillsborough Parish, New Brunswick
* Hillsborough, Nova Scotia, in Inverness County
*Hillsborough (electoral d ...
. Ramsey insisted that he pick the team himself and included seven players who would feature in the 1966 World Cup squad. He took charge for the away leg in Paris at the Parc des Princes
Parc des Princes () is an all-seater stadium, all-seater Association football, football stadium in Paris, France, in the south-west of the French capital, inside the 16th arrondissement of Paris, 16th arrondissement, near the Stade Jean-Bouin ...
, which they lost 5–2, eliminating England from the competition in Ramsey's first game in charge.[
]
1966 World Cup
As hosts, England automatically qualified for the 1966 World Cup
The 1966 FIFA World Cup was the eighth FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was played in England from 11 July to 30 July 1966. The England national football team defeated West Germany 4-2 in the ...
. The first group game, on 11 July 1966, was against Uruguay
Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...
and despite attacking talent, including Jimmy Greaves
James Peter Greaves (20 February 1940 – 19 September 2021) was an English professional footballer who played as a forward. Greaves is regarded as one of England’s best ever players. He is England's fifth-highest international goalscorer ...
and Roger Hunt
Roger Hunt (20 July 1938 – 27 September 2021) was an English professional footballer who played as a forward.
Eleven years with Liverpool, he was the club's record goalscorer with 286 goals until being overtaken by Ian Rush. Nonetheless, Hu ...
, playing against a disciplined Uruguayan defence, England were held to a 0–0 draw. This was the first time England had failed to score at Wembley since 1945. Ramsey's statement made three years earlier looked doubtful, but he remained calm and continued experimenting when his side faced Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
in the next game. Ramsey was using the 4–3–3
In association football, the formation of a team refers to the position players take in relation to each other on a pitch. As association football is a fluid and fast-moving game, a player's position (with the exception of the goalkeeper) in a ...
system and for each of the group games used a winger; John Connelly against Uruguay, Terry Paine
Terence Lionel Paine (born 23 March 1939) is an English retired footballer. Originally from Winchester, Paine is best known for his career with Southampton, for whom he made over 800 appearances (a club record) in 18 seasons with the club. H ...
against Mexico and Ian Callaghan
Ian Robert Callaghan MBE (born 10 April 1942) is an English retired professional footballer who played as a midfielder. He holds the record for most appearances for Liverpool. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) ...
against France.
Ramsey dropped Alan Ball and John Connelly and brought in Terry Paine and Martin Peters
Martin Stanford Peters (8 November 1943 – 21 December 2019) was an English footballer and manager. As a member of the England team which won the 1966 FIFA World Cup, he scored the second of England's four goals in the final against West Germa ...
, whose advanced style of play as a midfielder matched the qualities Ramsey looked for in his system. England beat Mexico 2–0. Ramsey replaced Terry Paine with Ian Callaghan for their final group match, against France. England won 2–0, securing qualification to the knockout rounds. Two difficult situations arose from the final group match. After making a vicious tackle and being cautioned, midfielder Nobby Stiles
Norbert Peter Stiles (18 May 194230 October 2020) was an English footballer and manager. He played for England for five years, winning 28 caps and scoring one goal. He played every minute of England's victorious 1966 FIFA World Cup campaign. In ...
came under fire from senior FIFA officials, who called for Ramsey to drop him from the side. Ramsey strongly disagreed, and told the FA to inform FIFA that either Stiles would remain in his team or Ramsey himself would resign. Another bad tackle was committed during that match, resulting in Tottenham striker (and one of England's most prolific goalscorers) Greaves being injured and sidelined for the next few matches. Despite having more experienced strikers in his squad, Ramsey selected young Geoff Hurst
Sir Geoffrey Charles Hurst (born 8 December 1941) is an English former professional footballer. A striker, he became the first man to score a hat-trick in a World Cup final when England recorded a 4–2 victory over West Germany at Wembley St ...
as Greaves's replacement, seeing potential in the young West Ham forward. The France match also marked Ramsey's final game with a winger. After it, he dropped Ian Callaghan from his side and brought back Alan Ball to strengthen the midfield.
For the knockout stages, England's first opponents were Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
. Ramsey decided to switch from 4–3–3
In association football, the formation of a team refers to the position players take in relation to each other on a pitch. As association football is a fluid and fast-moving game, a player's position (with the exception of the goalkeeper) in a ...
to 4–3–1–2. With Ball and Peters operating on the flanks, the midfield now boasted Nobby Stiles and Bobby Charlton in the centre, indeed Ramsey refused a demand from the FA that he drop Stiles, making it a resignation issue. After a violent quarter-final (where the Argentinian captain Antonio Rattín
Antonio Ubaldo Rattín (born May 16, 1937) is a former Argentine football player, best known as a Boca Juniors midfielder, and because of an incident in a match at the 1966 FIFA World Cup.
Rattín remains as one of the greatest idols of Boca Jun ...
refused to leave the field after being sent off), England won 1–0 thanks to Hurst latching onto a cross from Martin Peters and heading home a goal. Ramsey came under fire when he stopped his players from the traditional swapping of shirts with the Argentinians in protest at their play, and was then reported to have described Argentinian players as "animals"; "It seemed a pity so much Argentinian talent is wasted. Our best football will come against the right type of opposition—a team who come to play football, and not act as animals."[ Jimmy Greaves in his 2009 autobiography, ''Greavsie'', claims that Ramsey had said "I've been a little disappointed that the behaviour of some players in this competition reminded me of animals". The belief that he had referred directly to the Argentinians as animals damaged Ramsey's reputation and made successive England teams unpopular abroad, particularly in South America.] In the semi-final, England faced a fluent and skilful Portuguese side containing the tournament's top goalscorer Eusébio
Eusébio da Silva Ferreira (; 25 January 1942 – 5 January 2014), nicknamed the "Black Panther", the "Black Pearl" or "O Rei" ("The King"), was a Portuguese footballer who played as a striker. He is considered one of the greatest players of ...
. However, England won a 2–1 victory in a memorable match which saw them concede their first goal of the competition from the penalty spot.
On 30 July 1966, Ramsey's promise was fulfilled as England became the World Champions by beating West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
in the final
Final, Finals or The Final may refer to:
*Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event
** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...
. A lot of Ramsey's tactics and decisions proved their worth in this final. Ramsey came under pressure to restore the fit-again Jimmy Greaves to the side, but his philosophy was "never change a winning team".[ He stuck to his guns and kept faith with Greaves's replacement, Geoff Hurst, who vindicated Ramsey's judgement by scoring a hat-trick in a 4–2 win (after extra time, the game ending 2–2 in normal time) at Wembley. Filling his side with a good balance of experience and youth proved vital when the gruelling final went to extra time. The youth in the team powered England through extra time, in particular Alan Ball, who, at 21, was the youngest player in the England side. Even in extra time, he showed no signs of tiring and never stopped running—famously setting up Hurst's controversial second goal, as well as having a few chances himself. Even as the match ended with Hurst scoring England's fourth goal, Ball was still running down the pitch in case Hurst needed assistance. Rather than a cross from Hurst, Ball was greeted by a number of England fans running onto the pitch who, thinking that the game was already over, had already started celebrating England's victory.
Hurst recalled that at the end of 90 minutes, Ramsey forbade his players to lie down on the pitch to rest before extra time, as their opponents were doing. "Look at them", Ramsey told the England team, pointing towards the Germans; "They're finished. They're flat out on their backs." Ramsey said to his players: "You've won it once. Now you'll have to go out there and win it again."][
Ramsey remained his usual self during the celebrations: not joining in, but rather opting to let his players soak up their achievement. He is the only England manager ever to have won the World Cup. ]Bobby Charlton
Sir Robert Charlton (born 11 October 1937) is an English former footballer who played either as a midfielder or a forward. Considered one of the greatest players of all time, he was a member of the England team that won the 1966 FIFA World Cu ...
praised Ramsey and his approach to managing the England team to World Cup victory: "He was professional to his fingertips and as popular with the players as any manager I've ever seen. He was a winner and without Alf Ramsey England would not have won the World Cup in 1966. He gave us our proudest moment." Nobby Stiles agreed: "You did it, Alf, we'd have been nothing without you."
1968 European Championship
In 1967, a year after England won the World Cup under his management, Ramsey received a knighthood—the first given to a football manager. England reached the last eight of the 1968 European Championships by amassing the best aggregate record of the four Home Nations over the 1966–67 and 1967–68 seasons (despite a loss to Scotland 3–2 at home in 1967). They subsequently defeated Spain home and away to become one of four teams to progress to the finals in Italy. There England suffered a 1–0 defeat by Yugoslavia in a bad-tempered semi-final: Alan Mullery
Alan Patrick Mullery (born 23 November 1941) is an English former footballer and manager. After enjoying a successful career with Fulham, Tottenham Hotspur, and the England national team in the 1960s and 1970s, he became a manager working with ...
was dismissed for kicking an opponent in the groin. Mullery subsequently reported that Ramsey had said to him "I'm glad somebody retaliated against those bastards" and paid Mullery's £50 fine levied by the Football Association. England had to settle for third place after beating the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
.[
]
1970 World Cup
England qualified automatically as defending champions for the 1970 World Cup, held in Mexico. They entered the tournament as one of the favourites and many experts suspected that England and Brazil, due to meet in the opening round of matches, would meet again in the final. Ramsey's preparations for the tournament had been disrupted by the arrest of Bobby Moore in the Bogotá Bracelet
The Bogotá Bracelet incident took place in May 1970 when Bobby Moore, the captain of the England national football team, was detained in Colombia for four days after being accused of stealing a bracelet from a jewellery shop located in the Bog ...
incident with the England squad being labelled "thieves and drunks" by the Mexican press.
In the first round, two 1–0 victories over Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
and Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
enabled England to progress, despite a loss by the same scoreline to ultimate champions Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
(a match which also featured a famous save by Gordon Banks
Gordon Banks (30 December 1937 – 12 February 2019) was an English professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. Widely regarded as one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time, he made 679 appearances during a 20-year professional caree ...
from Pelé
Edson Arantes do Nascimento (; born 23 October 1940), known as Pelé (), is a Brazilian former professional footballer who played as a forward. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time and labelled "the greatest" by FIFA, ...
's header).[ In the quarter-final they lost to West Germany 3–2, after having been in the lead 2–0 with twenty minutes remaining.][ At 2–1 Ramsey had substituted Bobby Charlton and ]Martin Peters
Martin Stanford Peters (8 November 1943 – 21 December 2019) was an English footballer and manager. As a member of the England team which won the 1966 FIFA World Cup, he scored the second of England's four goals in the final against West Germa ...
, supposedly to rest them for the semi-final, in what was considered a tactical blunder. The blame for the defeat was partly placed on Ramsey's cautious tactics and substitutions in searing Mexican heat and partly on the stand-in goalkeeper, Chelsea
Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to:
Places Australia
* Chelsea, Victoria
Canada
* Chelsea, Nova Scotia
* Chelsea, Quebec
United Kingdom
* Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames
** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...
's Peter Bonetti
Peter Philip Bonetti (27 September 1941 – 12 April 2020) was an English professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper for Chelsea, the St. Louis Stars, Dundee United and England. He was known for his safe handling, lightning reflexes an ...
. At 2–0 up Bonetti, who was playing because regular keeper Gordon Banks had been taken ill, had let a seemingly innocuous shot by Franz Beckenbauer
Franz Anton Beckenbauer (, ; born 11 September 1945) is a German former professional footballer and manager. In his playing career he was nicknamed ''Der Kaiser'' ("The Emperor") because of his elegant style, dominance and leadership on the fi ...
slip under his body and was then caught out of position by a looping header by Uwe Seeler
Uwe Seeler (; 5 November 1936 – 21 July 2022) was a German footballer and football official. As a striker, he was a prolific scorer for Hamburger SV and also made 72 appearances for the West Germany national team. Widely regarded as one of t ...
. Gerd Müller
Gerhard "Gerd" Müller (; 3 November 1945 – 15 August 2021) was a German professional footballer. A striker renowned for his clinical finishing, especially in and around the six-yard box, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest goalsco ...
scored a third in the 108th minute to knock England out. Ramsey blamed Bonetti and his mistakes, but his own tactics were not beyond reproach.[
]
1972 European Championship
England reached the last eight of the 1972 European championship by topping their qualification group, which also contained Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
, Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
and Malta
Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...
. They dropped only one point in the qualification, in a 1–1 home draw with Switzerland. England then faced West Germany again in a match to be played over two legs, to determine who would progress to the finals (which would feature only four teams). A 3–1 home defeat at Wembley, followed by a scoreless draw in Berlin, meant that England were eliminated. The football played by England against West Germany was described by the journalist Hugh McIlvanney
Hugh McIlvanney (2 February 1934 – 24 January 2019) was a Scottish sports journalist who had long stints with the British Sunday newspapers ''The Observer'' (30 years until 1993) and then 23 years with ''The Sunday Times'' (1993–2016). Aft ...
as "cautious joyless football" and as an indicator that the England era under Ramsey had run its course. West Germany went on to win the competition by beating the Soviet Union 3–0 in the final.
1974 World Cup
England's qualification group for the 1974 World Cup
The 1974 FIFA World Cup was the tenth FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams, and was played in West Germany (and West Berlin) between 13 June and 7 July. The tournament marked the first time that the ...
, included just two other teams: Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
and Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
. However the Poles, who had not qualified for a World Cup finals since 1938, were an improved team who would go on to finish third in the tournament. A home draw with Wales, followed by a defeat in Chorzów
Chorzów ( ; ; german: link=no, Königshütte ; szl, Chorzōw) is a city in the Silesia region of southern Poland, near Katowice. Chorzów is one of the central cities of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union – a metropolis with a population ...
, meant that England had to win their final match against Poland at Wembley in October 1973. Ramsey had asked for the Football League games to be postponed on the weekend before the game to assist England's preparations. This request was refused by Football League secretary, Alan Hardaker
Alan Hardaker OBE (29 July 1912[Biographical details](_blank)
such as date of birth, wife's ...
who said: "It is a football match, not a war".
Before the qualifier with Poland at Wembley Stadium
Wembley Stadium (branded as Wembley Stadium connected by EE for sponsorship reasons) is a football stadium in Wembley, London. It opened in 2007 on the site of the Wembley Stadium (1923), original Wembley Stadium, which was demolished from 200 ...
, the Derby County
Derby County Football Club () is a professional association football club based in Derby, Derbyshire, England. In 2022, it was announced that DCFC was acquired by Clowes Developments (UK) Ltd, a Derbyshire-based property group.
Founded in 1884 ...
manager Brian Clough
Brian Howard Clough ( ; 21 March 1935 – 20 September 2004) was an English football player and manager, primarily known for his successes as a manager with Derby County and Nottingham Forest. He is one of four managers to have won the Englis ...
described Polish goalkeeper Jan Tomaszewski
Jan Tomaszewski (Polish pronunciation: ; born 9 January 1948) is a Polish former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper in the 1970s. He kept goal for the Poland national teams that came third at the 1974 World Cup, where he was na ...
as a "circus clown in gloves". Errors by Norman Hunter and goalkeeper Peter Shilton
Peter Leslie Shilton (born 18 September 1949) is an English former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper.
His 30-year career included spells at 11 clubs and he has the distinction of playing over 1,000 league games, including in ...
and an inspired goalkeeping performance by Tomaszewski, who made many crucial, and sometimes unorthodox saves, meant that the match finished 1–1. Ramsey, always uncomfortable with the substitute rule, was blamed for waiting until the 85th minute before bringing on forward
Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward.
Forward may also refer to:
People
* Forward (surname)
Sports
* Forward (association football)
* Forward (basketball), including:
** Point forward
** Power forward (basketball)
** Sm ...
Kevin Hector
Kevin James Hector (born 2 November 1944 in Leeds) is an English former footballer who scored 268 goals from 662 appearances in the Football League playing for Bradford Park Avenue and Derby County. His 486 League appearances for Derby County i ...
.[ The draw meant that England had tried and failed to qualify for a World Cup for the first time in the national team's history.
]
Sacking
England, having won the World Cup in 1966, were now perceived to have failed in three successive tournaments. The disappointments of quarter-final exits from major tournaments in 1970 and 1972, had been followed by failing even to qualify for the 1974 World Cup. A few months after the draw with Poland, which had meant failure to progress, Ramsey was sacked by the FA on 1 May 1974.[
It is alleged that some of the FA's officials had long held grudges against Ramsey. The British journalist and author ]Leo McKinstry
Leo McKinstry (born 1962) is a British journalist, historian and author.
Life and career
Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, McKinstry was educated at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he graduated wit ...
said, "England's most successful manager would have had a legacy fit for a hero had it not been for the malevolence of the FA chief Harold Thompson".[ Alan Ball described the treatment of Ramsey as "the most incredible thing that ever happened in English football".]
After England
Feeling he needed "a period of rest", Ramsey returned to Ipswich
Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...
to spend time with his wife. He became a director of sportswear manufacturer Gola Sports and of a local building firm, but kept out of the public eye for 18 months or so. He then began watching Ipswich Town, and often acted as a television pundit. Speaking on ITV
ITV or iTV may refer to:
ITV
*Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of:
** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...
's '' On the Ball'' in February 1977, he was sharply critical of England's performance against the Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
, describing the players as "poor individually" and the team as "completely disorganised". Asked if he had any sympathy for his successor, Don Revie
Donald George Revie OBE (10 July 1927 – 26 May 1989) was an England international footballer and manager, best known for his successful spell with Leeds United from 1961 until 1974, which immediately preceded his appointment as England manage ...
, he said that Revie did not want sympathy: "Having accepted the post of England team manager he has to accept the responsibility of his position in exactly the same way as I did."[ His attitude to the media mellowed. Interviewed in June ahead of a ]five-a-side
''Five-A-Side'' is the debut album by the pop rock band Ace, released by Anchor Records in 1974.
The album landed on the ''Billboard'' 200 chart, reaching #11 in 1974.
The single " How Long" reached #3 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 in the sp ...
tournament between eight of the 1966 World Cup teams for a trophy named in his honour, Ramsey admitted that, having "met so many more people, I know so much more about the world, and I'm so much more relaxed than I was three or four years ago", and said he would consider a return to management.[
He had joined the board of First Division club Birmingham City in January 1976. When ]Willie Bell
William John Bell (3 September 1937 – 21 March 2023) was a Scottish football player and manager. He played as a left back for Queen's Park, Leeds United, Leicester City, Brighton & Hove Albion and represented Scotland.
Playing career
Bell w ...
was sacked as manager in September 1977, Ramsey refused the offer to take his place on a permanent basis, but did agree to act as caretaker
Caretaker may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''The Caretaker'' (film), a 1963 adaptation of the play ''The Caretaker''
* ''The Caretakers'', a 1963 American film set in a mental hospital
* Caretaker, a character in the 1974 film '' T ...
until a successor could be found. By early November, he had changed his mind. He resigned his directorship to take on the role of consultant, with a remit that covered not only day-to-day team management but also a wide-ranging responsibility for club affairs, to include the selection of Birmingham's next manager. His tenure lasted just four months. In February 1978, star player Trevor Francis
Trevor John Francis (born 19 April 1954) is an English former footballer who played as a forward for a number of clubs in England, the United States, Italy, Scotland and Australia. In 1979 he became Britain's first £1 million player follo ...
was fined for giving newspaper interviews about his desire to leave a club he saw as lacking ambition, and the board accepted Ramsey's recommendation to place him on the transfer list. Three days later, when the decision was reversed for fear of a backlash from supporters, Ramsey gave two weeks' notice to quit.
The club announced his resignation before the notice period ended, and reports attributed his departure to the recent 4–0 defeat by Coventry City
Coventry City Football Club is a professional association football club based in Coventry, West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. The team currently compete in the EFL Championship, Championship, the second tier of the English footbal ...
. Ramsey was quick to deny any such link, insisting that he had "never walked out on anyone".[ Francis was sold less than a year later to ]Nottingham Forest
Nottingham Forest Football Club is an association football club based in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, England. Nottingham Forest was founded in 1865 and have been playing their home games at the City Ground, on the banks of the River Tren ...
, in what became English football's first £1 million transfer.
The team won ten of the matches for which Ramsey was in charge, drew four and lost twelve. Among the ten was a 3–2 away victory at Anfield
Anfield is a football stadium in Anfield, Liverpool, Merseyside, England, which has a seating capacity of 53,394, making it the seventh largest football stadium in England. It has been the home of Liverpool F.C. since their formation in 1892. ...
against the reigning league and European champions, Liverpool, on 21 January 1978, which featured in a ''Birmingham Mail
The ''Birmingham Mail'' (branded the ''Black Country Mail'' in the Black Country) is a tabloid newspaper based in Birmingham, England but distributed around Birmingham, the Black Country, and Solihull and parts of Warwickshire, Worcestershire ...
'' series on Birmingham City's "30 great games". Aged 58 when he left Birmingham, this was Ramsey's last full managerial job, although he did also work as a technical adviser at Greek side Panathinaikos
Panathinaikos Athlitikos Omilos ( el, Παναθηναϊκός Αθλητικός Όμιλος, literally in English: "Panathenaic Athletic Club" or Panathinaikos A.C.), also known simply as Panathinaikós , is a major Greek multi-sport club ba ...
, during 1979–80, which was the first season of professional football in Greece.
Managerial style
During his time at Ipswich, Ramsey began experimenting with a new style of play that would eventually lead to success in the World Cup and led to his England team being styled, "The Wingless Wonders". As natural wingers were not always known for their defensive qualities, Ramsey started dropping them in favour of attacking midfielders who could also drop back into defensive roles. This system proved revolutionary as it often baffled opposing full-backs, who would naturally expect to see a winger coming down the flank at them once the ball was kicked off: instead, the attacking midfielders and strikers were taking the ball through the middle of the defence and scoring. This style of play proved successful at Ipswich, but really showed its worth when England travelled to Spain to play a friendly
Friendly may refer to:
Places
* Friendly, West Yorkshire, a settlement in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England
* Friendly, Maryland, an unincorporated community in the United States
* Friendly, Eugene, Oregon, a neighborhood in the United States
* ...
with them before the World Cup. As Bobby Charlton
Sir Robert Charlton (born 11 October 1937) is an English former footballer who played either as a midfielder or a forward. Considered one of the greatest players of all time, he was a member of the England team that won the 1966 FIFA World Cu ...
remarked, "The Spanish full-backs were just looking at each other while we were going in droves through the middle". To win in Spain, who were the reigning European Champions, was rare for an English team and was evidence that Ramsey's techniques were working.
Ramsey earned the respect of his players. He strongly supported Nobby Stiles
Norbert Peter Stiles (18 May 194230 October 2020) was an English footballer and manager. He played for England for five years, winning 28 caps and scoring one goal. He played every minute of England's victorious 1966 FIFA World Cup campaign. In ...
when the FA leaned on Ramsey to drop Stiles from the 1966 World Cup quarter-final following a tackle on Frenchman Jacques Simon in the previous game. After the final, at the banquet, with the players in one room and their wives forced to sit in an adjoining room, he excused his players early from the banquet to allow the players to join their wives after nearly four weeks apart. In his manner with the players, he was "usually equable", but when his 1978 Birmingham City team produced a poor defensive display, "he blew his top"; the next game was a "historic victory".
Personal life
Ramsey was very sensitive about his personal background. He strove to mask his working-class
The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...
Essex origins and to present himself as erudite and worldly, going so far as to adopt an accent that the journalist Brian Glanville
Brian Lester Glanville (born 24 September 1931) is an English football writer and novelist. He was described by ''The Times'' as "the doyen of football writers—arguably the finest football writer of his—or any other—generation," and by Amer ...
called "sergeant-major posh". A widely held perception that Ramsey's accent had become more upper-class during his time as England manager fuelled speculation that he had received elocution
Elocution is the study of formal speaking in pronunciation, grammar, style, and tone as well as the idea and practice of effective speech and its forms. It stems from the idea that while communication is symbolic, sounds are final and compelli ...
lessons, and prompted constant joking from members of the England team who came from similar Essex or East London backgrounds, such as Bobby Moore and Jimmy Greaves. Rodney Marsh
Rodney William Marsh (born 11 October 1944) is an English former footballer and football coach; he later worked as a broadcaster. A forward, he won nine caps for England between 1971 and 1973, scoring one international goal.
Brought up in the ...
, a forward from the East End who played in Ramsey's England team from 1971 to 1973, later said:
Alf tended to speak in a very poncey plum-in-the-mouth way. It was all "Oh hello Rodney and how are you?". To me it was all complete bollocks.
It was rumoured that Ramsey had Romany (or "gypsy") ancestors.[ Ramsey was sensitive about the suggestion and, according to one anecdote, seethed with fury when Moore saw some Romany caravans and joked that the manager should "drop in to see his relatives". The football journalist Ken Jones related that on one occasion, when Ramsey perceived Moore and Greaves to be mocking his accent on the team bus, he said he would "win the World Cup without those two bastards".
Throughout his career as a professional footballer and for years afterwards, Ramsey claimed to be two years younger than he really was—including in his ghosted autobiography, ''Talking Football'', published in 1952.] This began when Ramsey first turned professional with Southampton during the Second World War. He told Southampton he was born in 1922 rather than 1920, reasoning that this might improve his career prospects and compensate for the years he had lost to the hostilities. He propagated this false age for over two decades, in press articles, his autobiography and ''Who's Who
''Who's Who'' (or ''Who is Who'') is the title of a number of reference publications, generally containing concise biography, biographical information on the prominent people of a country. The title has been adopted as an expression meaning a gr ...
''—but not on official documents such as his marriage papers, in which he listed his true date of birth. Only after his knighthood in 1967 did Ramsey reveal his true age, deciding that he could not lie to Debrett's
Debrett's () is a British professional coaching company, publisher and authority on etiquette and behaviour, founded in 1769 with the publication of the first edition of ''The New Peerage''. The company takes its name from its founder, John Deb ...
, publisher of ''Debrett's Peerage & Baronetage''.
Ramsey married Rita Norris (''née'' Welch) at Southampton Register Office on 10 December 1951. The union had been delayed for some years because of Rita's marriage to another man, Arthur Norris—the law of the period dictated that she could not obtain a legal divorce from Arthur until three years after their separation in 1947, and could not remarry for another year after that. Ramsey kept the relationship secret, to the extent that Tottenham knew nothing of it until days before the wedding. Rita changed her name to Victoria and was generally called "Vic" by Ramsey, who McKinstry records was a good stepfather to her daughter from her first marriage, Tanaya (usually called Tanya). He was a Freemason
Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...
of Waltham Abbey Lodge from 1953 until 1981 when he resigned.
Retirement and death
After Ramsey's retirement from football management, he continued to live in Ipswich
Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...
. He was somewhat reclusive but wrote occasional columns for newspapers.[ According to his obituary in '']The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was fo ...
'', "he concentrated on his golf game and watching his Westerns."[ He made regular trips to Wembley, including a visit in 1991 where he and some members of the World Cup-winning team were reunited prior to that season's ]FA Cup Final
The FA Cup Final, commonly referred to in England as just the Cup Final, is the last match in the FA Cup, Football Association Challenge Cup. It has regularly been one of the List of sports attendance figures, most attended domestic football ev ...
.
Ramsey suffered a stroke on 9 June 1998, on the eve of the 1998 World Cup
The 1998 FIFA World Cup was the 16th FIFA World Cup, the football world championship for men's national teams. The finals tournament was held in France from 10 June to 12 July 1998. The country was chosen as the host nation by FIFA for the ...
. Suffering from Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...
and prostate cancer
Prostate cancer is cancer of the prostate. Prostate cancer is the second most common cancerous tumor worldwide and is the fifth leading cause of cancer-related mortality among men. The prostate is a gland in the male reproductive system that sur ...
, Ramsey spent three months in a general ward in Ipswich Hospital
Ipswich Hospital is a large district general hospital in Heath Road, Ipswich, Suffolk, England. It is now managed by East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust which was formed on 1 July 2018 by the merging of Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust w ...
. He died less than a year later, in a nursing home, on 28 April 1999, at the age of 79 from a heart attack. Ramsey's funeral was held in St. Mary-le-Tower Church in Ipswich, he was then cremated, and his ashes were interred in a private ceremony at Old Ipswich Cemetery
Old Ipswich Cemetery is a cemetery in Ipswich, Suffolk, which was opened in 1855. It is one of a group of cemeteries run by Ipswich Borough Council.
History
Following the passage of the Burial Act 1854 (17 & 18 Vict c 87), Municipal Borough of ...
on 7 May 1999. The location of the funeral in Ipswich rather than in London was regarded as a snub to the Football Association, whose members Ramsey had never forgiven for his sacking from the England manager post in 1974.
Lady Ramsey died in March 2018 and was interred alongside her husband.
Legacy
Ramsey was made an inaugural inductee of the English Football Hall of Fame
The English Football Hall of Fame is housed at the National Football Museum in Manchester, England. The Hall aims to celebrate and highlight the achievements of the all-time top English footballing talents, as well as non-English players and man ...
in 2002 in recognition of his impact on the English game as a manager. He became the first person to be inducted twice when, in 2010, he was included in the Hall of Fame as a player as well as a manager.
Sir Alf Ramsey Way, formerly Portman's Walk, is a street running along the north side of Ipswich's Portman Road
Portman Road is a football stadium in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, which has been the home ground of Ipswich Town F.C. since 1884. The stadium has also hosted many England youth international matches, and one senior England friendly internatio ...
stadium, that was named after Ramsey shortly after his death in honour of his achievements as Ipswich Town manager. In 2000, a statue of Ramsey was erected on the corner of the street named after him and Portman Road, at the North Stand/Cobbold Stand corner of the stadium. The statue was commissioned by the Ipswich Town Supporters' Club after an initial idea by local fan Seán Salter. On 31 March 2012, the South Stand at Portman Road was renamed to the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand. In 2009, Fabio Capello
Fabio Capello (; born 18 June 1946) is an Italian former professional football manager and player.
As a player, Capello represented SPAL 1907, Roma, Milan and Juventus. He played as a midfielder and won several trophies during his career which ...
inaugurated a statue, sculpted by Philip Jackson, of Ramsey at Wembley. It is situated in the player's tunnel and, according to George Cohen
George Reginald Cohen (22 October 1939 – 23 December 2022) was an English professional footballer who played as a right-back. He spent his entire professional career with Fulham, and won the 1966 World Cup with England. He was inducted int ...
, "it will remind every player to give their best out on the pitch."
Ramsey was listed in the ten best British managers ever in ''The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'', and he is widely regarded as one of British football's all-time great managers. Another website ranks him at no. 26. Ramsay's managerial style was not universally admired, however. According to historian Frank McLynn
Francis James McLynn FRHistS FRGS (born 29 August 1941), known as Frank McLynn, is a British author, biographer, historian and journalist. He is noted for critically acclaimed biographies of Napoleon Bonaparte, Robert Louis Stevenson, Carl Jung, ...
, "he was a humourless bore and stifling tactician whose reputation rests on a single undeserved triumph."
Honours
As a player
Tottenham Hotspur
* First Division: 1950–51[
* ]Second Division
In sport, the Second Division, also called Division 2 or Division II is usually the second highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Following the rise of Premier League style compet ...
: 1949–50
As a manager
Ipswich Town
* First Division: 1961–62
* Second Division: 1960–61
* Third Division South
The Third Division South of The Football League was a tier in the English football league system from 1921 to 1958. It ran in parallel with the Third Division North with clubs elected to the League or relegated from Division Two allocated to on ...
: 1956–57
* FA Charity Shield
The Football Association Community Shield (formerly the Charity Shield) is English football's annual match contested at Wembley Stadium between the champions of the previous Premier League season and the holders of the FA Cup. If the Premier Le ...
runners-up: 1962
Events January
* January 1 – Western Samoa becomes independent from New Zealand.
* January 3 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro for preaching communism.
* January 8 – Harmelen train disaster: 93 die in the wors ...
England
* FIFA World Cup
The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...
: 1966
Events January
* January 1 – In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa takes over as military ruler of the Central African Republic, ousting President David Dacko.
* January 3 – 1966 Upper Voltan coup d'état: President Maurice Yaméogo i ...
* UEFA European Championship
The UEFA European Football Championship, less formally the European Championship and informally the Euro, is the primary association football tournament organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). The competition is contes ...
third place: 1968
The year was highlighted by protests and other unrests that occurred worldwide.
Events January–February
* January 5 – "Prague Spring": Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.
* Januar ...
* British Home Championship
The British Home Championship
* sco, Hame Internaitional Kemp
* gd, Farpais lìg eadar-nàiseanta
* cy, Pencampwriaeth y Pedair Gwlad, name=lang (historically known as the British International Championship or simply the International Champio ...
: 1964–65, 1965–66, 1966–67, 1967–68, 1970–71, 1972–73
Individual
* English Football Hall of Fame
The English Football Hall of Fame is housed at the National Football Museum in Manchester, England. The Hall aims to celebrate and highlight the achievements of the all-time top English footballing talents, as well as non-English players and man ...
Inductee: 2002[
* Ipswich Town Hall of Fame: Inductee: 2011
* ]Berlin-Britz
Britz () is a German locality (''Ortsteil'') within the Berlin borough (''Bezirk'') of Neukölln.
History
The village of ''Britzig'' was first mentioned in 1273. It was incorporated by the 1920 Greater Berlin Act. It is known for being the site ...
Manager of the Decade (1960s)
Career statistics
Club
International
:''Scores and results list England's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Ramsey goal.''
Managerial statistics
See also
* List of English football championship-winning managers
This is a list of managers of championship winning teams in English football.
Managers
Key
* Managers with this background and symbol in the "Name" column are italicised to denote secretary managers.
By individual
Bold: Manager is still a ...
Notes and references
Footnotes
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
*
*
Alf Ramsey
at England Football Online
at England Football Online
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ramsey, Alf
1920 births
1999 deaths
Footballers from Dagenham
English men's footballers
Men's association football fullbacks
British Army personnel of World War II
Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry soldiers
Southampton F.C. players
Tottenham Hotspur F.C. players
English Football League players
English Football League representative players
England men's B international footballers
England men's international footballers
1950 FIFA World Cup players
English football managers
Ipswich Town F.C. managers
England national football team managers
Birmingham City F.C. managers
Panathinaikos F.C. non-playing staff
English Football League managers
1966 FIFA World Cup managers
UEFA Euro 1968 managers
1970 FIFA World Cup managers
FIFA World Cup-winning managers
English Football Hall of Fame inductees
English expatriate sportspeople in Greece
Association football people awarded knighthoods
Knights Bachelor
Freemasons of the United Grand Lodge of England
English autobiographers
Association football coaches
Military personnel from Essex
Deaths from Alzheimer's disease
English knights