From World Cup Winners to Failing To Qualify, England Football During The 1960's and 1970's.

1966 was the year that introduced Barclay-card from Barclay the first British credit card, Botswana and Barbados achieved independence, The Beatles released the hugely successful album Revolver and the birth of our current Prime Minister David Cameron. However the most famous achievement for the England this year was their first and currently only victory in the Fifa World Cup.

England's victory in this competition was hard fought and it was not just the controversy over whether the ball had crossed the line for the third goal, eleven minutes into extra time of the final, in 1996 a University of Oxford study found that the ball was 6cm from actually crossing the line. England sneaked through each round of the competition that year, as they were the host nation they could avoid any uncertainties of booking a place in the tournament. Yet with a draw against Uruguay and a win over Mexico, England had to avoid defeat against a French team who had beaten England 5-2 in their last meeting, of course England won through two goals to nil to reach the quarter-final stage where they would face Argentina. Again England's previous match against their opponents was a 1-0 loss in Brazil two years earlier, but thanks to a late Geoff Hurst goal twelve minutes from time England reached the Semi-finals. Portugal were there opponents here and England took a 2-0 lead and held off a late Portugal fightback to progress 2-1 and reach their first and (to-date) only major championship final.

England reached the final and met Germany, a team whom they had played seven times previously all of which were friendly matches between the two, and England's record against them was impressive of the seven matches they had won six of them, the other result was a six goal draw in the very first meeting between the two sides in Berlin during 1930. The goal difference read even more impressive, England scored twenty and conceded just eight scoring an average of 2.86 and conceding an average of 1.14 each game. The game however proved not to go by the book with Helmut Haller scoring on twelve minutes to put Germany in front, but England struck back six minutes later, Geoff Hurst deflecting in a free kick. The game was relatively quiet until Martin Peters gave England the lead for the first time twelve minutes from the end, just as England thought they had won the trophy Wolfgang Weber struck home one minute before the whistle. With the score 2-2 after the ninety minutes extra-time commenced and brought us one of the most controversial moments in World Cup history, Hurst was credited a goal eleven minutes into extra-time and so England lead again. This time the Germans had no reply and Hurst completed his hat-trick, the only time one player has scored three goals in a World Cup final, moments before the whistle and England had won the Fifa World Cup.

England would follow up their World Cup triumph with two British Home tournaments, in 1966-67 and 1967-68, the results from these two tournaments would be totted up and the team with the most points (two for a win, one for a draw) over the two tournaments, entered the next stage of qualification for the 1968 European Championships. The British Home Tournament ran from 1883 every year until it was ended in 1984, due to Scotland and England's desires to pit their wits against stronger teams, however the tournament did not take place between 1914-19 and 1939-46 due to the wars, civil unrest in Northern Ireland prevented the 1980-81 tournament from taking place. During the life of this tournament England had won the trophy 54 times, more than any other home nation. In the 1966-67 competition England started off strongly with victories over Ireland and Wales, 2-0 and 5-1 respectively, whilst Scotland seemed to struggle drawing 1-1 with Wales in their opener and sneaking past Ireland 2-1. This meant that England would just need to avoid defeat to win the trophy and take a huge step towards the next stage of qualification for the European Championships, yet England suffered their first defeat since being crowned World Champions, with Scotland taking the victory 3-2 and giving England more work to do next year to qualify.

The 1967-68 tournament started in similar fashion with England cruising past Wales and Ireland, 3-0 and 2-0 respectively, the Scots again had an even poorer start to the competition than the previous year losing 1-0 to Ireland and edging past Wales 3-2. And so England had four points to Scotland's two and had to avoid defeat to progress in qualification for the European Championships, a 1-1 draw in the final meant that England would regain the British Home Tournaments trophy and reach the final stage of European qualification beating Scotland by a single point.

The next stage comprised of eight group winners, from which England drew Spain who were the reigning European Champions after victory four years ago on home soil. A tournament that England could not even progress past the first stage of qualification losing to France 6-3 over a two-legged tie. Spain however had declined in form since the previous tournament, not making it past the group stage of the '66 World Cup and so were the underdogs in this final qualification tie. The tie was played over two legs the first of which was a 1-0 victory for England at Wembley Stadium setting them up nicely for the return leg at the Bernabéu in which Spain took the lead three minutes into the second-half to level the tie, however England went on to score two goals and win the tie 3-1 on aggregate and reach the European Championships for the first time in their history.

The third of the newly created UEFA European Championships was England's first appearance in the competition as they failed to qualify for the first two UEFA competitions in 1960 and 1964. For the first five tournaments only four teams took to the pitch in the competition proper and the host nation was not announced until after the qualifying stage, so that the host nation would earn their place in the tournament along with the other three competitors.

England's three competitors were, their semi-final opponents Yugoslavia, and completing the other semi-final the host nation Italy and the Soviet Union. The first semi-final between Italy and the Soviet Union was a stalemate and went to extra-time yet still no goals were scored, after extra-time to decide the winner of the tie for the first and only time in a major championship a coin toss was used. It must have been the most tense toss of a coin there has ever been and the luck went to the host nation with Italy calling correctly and proceeding to the final. The second semi-final was settled on the pitch and this time a late goal went against England with only three minutes to go in the ninety the tie looked sure to go to extra-time but Dzajicscored the only goal of the game, leaving England to play off with a disheartened Soviet Union for third place.

England's stars battled on past the Soviets, winning 2-0, with goals from Hurst and Charlton, to earn third place and their best ever finish in a European Championship. The final was a 1-1 draw after extra-time between Italy and Yugoslavia, instead of a coin toss deciding where the trophy would end up a replay was played two days later with both teams making changes to their squads. The replay was a 2-0 victory for the hosts as Riva and Anastasi, two of the players brought in after missing the first game, both got on the scoresheet, and yet again the trophy went to the home nation.

For the second World Cup in succession England were able to avoid qualification due to them being World Champions and so earning a direct route through to the competition proper in Mexico. England's group stage draw pitted them against Brazil a team who boasted one of the greatest players to grace the game, Pele who for this it would be his last World Cup, also in the group were Romania and Czechoslovakia. Each team would play each other once England's first opponent was Romania and a 65th minute Geoff Hurst goal saw them to victory, elsewhere Brazil cruised 4-1 past Czechoslovakia. Romania then played and beat Czechoslovakia 2-1 to gain their first points, England next played Brazil and in a close encounter Jairzinho scored the only goal of the game to hand Brazil the win. Brazil's final group game was a 3-2 victory over Romania meaning that England needed to avoid defeat to progress to the next stage along with Brazil, and a 50th minute Clarke penalty allowed England through.

The quarter-final draw gave England a replay against West Germany, the team they had beaten four years ago at Wembley to win the World Cup. Both teams were still managed by Alf Ramsey and Helmut Schoen the men who took both teams to the final in '66, the captains Uwe Seeler and Bobby Moore were also leading their teams again. The England team still had ten players of the triumphant team including Bobby Charlton, Gordon Banks and goalscorer Geoff Hurst. The German team on the other hand kept fourteen players from the team that was beaten on that day with keeper Tilkowski and forward Emmerich the only players from the '66 starting line-up with no place in the squad. England scored both sides of half time to take a two goal lead but the Germans fought back scoring in the 68th and 82nd minutes to take the game to extra time, reminiscent of four years ago, however this time it was the German's year and a 108th minute Gerd Muller goal paved West Germany's way through to eventually finish third in the competition. England had to taste defeat and bow out of the competition losing their World Champion status, would their win four years ago just prove to be home advantage and not because they had the greatest team in the competition.

England's next task, after their disappointment in Mexico, was to qualify for the '72 European Championships, they were drawn in a relatively easy group with the opponents, Malta, Greece and Switzerland. The England team was now without most of it's World Cup winners, yet they still comprised of goalkeeper Gordon Banks, defender Alan Ball, captain Bobby Moore and also the successful strike pairing of Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters. England breezed through the group stage with wins home and away to Malta and Greece and away at Switzerland, only dropping one point through drawing at home to the Swiss.

The second round of qualifying once again pitted England against their rivals West Germany in a two legged tie for a place in the European Championships. The first leg was played at Wembley, Germany took the lead on the 26th minute when Hoeneβ fired them ahead, the score stayed this way until Francis Lee found the back of the net thirteen minutes from time and England had found their way back in. England looked like they had hung on for a draw until five minutes from time they conceded a penalty which was converted by Netzer to give West Germany the lead. Three minutes later Muller the man who knocked England out of the world cup two years earlier scored to give the Germans a 3-1 victory meaning England would need a two goal victory on German soil two weeks from then. An England team lacking the recently retired Hurst took on West Germany that day and played out a stalemate, meaning England had failed to qualify for a major championship for the second time, (the first time was the 1964 European Championships).

Times didn't get any easier for England as they failed to qualify for the next two World Cups and the European Championships which was sandwiched between these competitions, until they finally gained qualification in 1980 for the European Championships in Italy. So what was the reason why England fell on this downwards spiral, was it, the team had changed and they just were not as good as the cup winning team? After all the team that won the World Cup was hailed to have some of the greatest English footballers of all time in such as Bobby Moore and Bobby Charlton. The reason could have also been that they only won the world cup because they were playing at home? As it has been proved that countries fair well when hosting the World Cup, six of the nineteen champions have been the host nation, 8 have reached the final and 12 host countries have reached the semi-finals. Or maybe the reasons for England's demise was they thought they were better then they actually were and 'got a little cocky'?