sport news JEFF POWELL: Negative mood around England's World Cup campaign feels like ... trends now
Ten minutes before kick-of on the sultry Saturday afternoon of July 11, 1966 England supporters were still paying at the turnstiles for admission to see the lads play Uruguay in the opening match of the World Cup Finals.
Others had purchased tickets at their local newsagent as they picked up the morning paper. Maximum allowance ten per person!
The late walk-up along Wembley Way buoyed attendance to a respectable 87,148 but that was still more than ten thousand below the old Empire Stadium’s capacity at the time of 98,600.
Like in 1966 when England won the World Cup, there's only a lukewarm sense of anticipation ahead of the tournament
There is also a feeling that Gareth Southgate's side are no longer as good as they were
The shortfall reflected somewhat lukewarm anticipation in this nation where football was born but where the FA’s pompous, stuffed-shirt refusal to enter the first three World Cups had been followed by as many hapless failures once they finally deigned to take part.
To be honest the enthusiasm does not feel that much more animated as England approach their first match in Qatar. At the time of writing I have yet to see a black London taxi flying the red and white cross of St George in the streets of London.
No doubt the pubs will be busy come kick off but the venue – who really wants to travel to a desert as culturally repressive as it climatically oppressive? - and the obscure first opponents – would you recognise one Iranian footballer in the street? - seem to have taken the edge off it all.
Perhaps, too, a sense that this new England are no longer cutting the mustard. The same negative mood was just as pervasive all those 56 years ago. But that is where the similarities end.
When the manager back then, Alf Ramsey, was asked for his prediction on the eve of the Finals, he said: ‘England will win the World Cup.’
No shilly-shallying. No prevaricating. None of today’s yawning waffle about how ‘we really hope we can go deep in this tournament.’ Or how ‘it would be a greater achievement to reach this semi-final than when we got to the final of the Euros.’ Or how about ‘let’s not tempt fate.’
Certainly no bowing to public opinion. No concession to the kind of media pressure which urged Gareth Southgate into his choice for filling the last seat on the plane to Qatar. If Ramsey had not fancied the James Maddison of his day, that young man would have stayed at home in Leicester.
Sir Alf Ramsey said before the 1966 tournament that England were going to win the World Cup
Our 60s generation were clamouring for Jimmy Greaves, the greatest of all English goal-scorers, to play in the World Cup Final even if not quite fully recovered from injury sustained earlier in the tournament. To which Ramsey responded thus: ‘Mister Greaves is not fit.’ Step forward Geoff Hurst to score the World Cup’s one and only Final hat-trick. And with it the winning of England’s solitary World Cup.
As for the political correctness which Gareth Southgate wears even more ostentatiously than his waistcoat, Ramsey was about as woke as Donald Trump. Were he still alive, Sir Alf as he became would have been asking the present England squad what the hell they think they are up to in Doha.
Ramsey would have had no truck with captains in rainbow armbands, his squad counselling underpaid stadium construction workers traumatised by the industrial-scale deaths of their colleagues, his players spending hours protesting against human rights abuses or
