Wembley Stadium - 30th July 1966 - I was there!
In
the early 1960s I was living in Harlow, Essex and was following the great Spurs
team of the time. In 1965 there was a note in a match programme about applying
for tickets for the the upcoming World Cup - there had been very little
publicity or hype about it. I wrote off to the FA for a ticket order form and,
one year before the tournament started, sent it back requesting 10 match London
season tickets (standing) for my father and I. I have a feeling that they were
each less than £4 for the ten matches! They duly turned up, so we could go to
six group games, a quarter-final, a semi-final, the 3rd place final and the
final itself. Nine of the games were at Wembley, the other was at White City
(good quiz question that)!
So I took three weeks off work so I could get to them all.
The
first on Monday evening 11th July was England v Uruguay and was preceded by an
'opening ceremony' that consisted solely of groups of children bringing in the
flags of the 16 competing countries. England started the campaign slowly but
were enlivened by Bobby Charlton's terrific goal v Mexico. All England's games
were played at Wembley - something that was criticised by other teams.
The Argentina quarter-final was a turning point when we started to believe
England could win. As a Spurs supporter I was sad Jimmy Greaves was out of that
game through injury, though he had had little impact in the group games. In
came someone called Geoff Hurst, and the rest is history! The semi-final against
Portugal, with Eusebio, was probably to best in terms of football quality. A
2-1 win and we were in the final.
We knew as we travelled to Wembley that day that we could be going to witness history, so it proved. Our 'bay' for all 10 games was high above the players' tunnel so right in front of us the last minute German equaliser went in. My father said that he'd never seen such a distraught look on my face as at that moment, but he was confident that it would still be 'England's Day'. Also at our end was the controversial 3rd England goal - we thought it had gone in, but now I'm not sure - thank you to the Russian linesman. We then had a great view of Hurst running away from us and thumping home the 4th. Great relief and celebrations within the ground, but as we drifted outside it was very quiet - we were all as exhausted as the players.
That night, back in Harlow, I went to the pub and said to the barman 'This is a day I'll tell my grandchildren about'. They are almost old enough now for me to start to bore them! Laurence Upton
Memory added on August 25, 2016
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