What a grand year 1966 was. Not just for the nation, but for little old me. I witnessed three remarkable events that year, which in so many ways have coloured and directed and dominated my life ever since.
First was the birth of my only son, Jake, in May 1966. We already had a daughter, Caitlin, born in 1964.
On July 30 it was the World Cup Final at Wembley – and I was there.
In August 1966, The Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby came out. I thought the words and not just the music were brilliant – so original, so poetic
A young England supporter runs on to the pitch carrying a Union Jack flag after the FIFA World Cup Final between England and West Germany at Wembley Stadium in London
The game – graced by England’s majestic captain Bobby Moore – passed in a blur, it was all so exciting and dramatic, with four goals to England, one controversial, though at the time we were not aware the Germans had protested, saying it had not crossed the line.
Nor, of course, did we hear Kenneth Wolstenholme on television say his famous words: ‘They think it’s all over – it is now!’
The reason it mattered so much to Ingerland fans that day was that since the war we had slowly begun to realise that Johnny foreigners could play the game better than us.
It seemed we were being left behind, with new tactics, new skills. Soft, flimsy boots, even, which looked like slippers or ballet shoes, were being worn abroad while our stout lads were still wearing stout boots with hard leather up to the ankles and toe caps like steel.
World Cup Final at Wembley Stadium. England 4, West Germany 2 after extra time. Geoff Hurst fires in England's fourth goal in the dying seconds of extra time
Bobby Charlton raises the Jules Rimet trophy in the air. Among his team mates celebrating with him are goalkeeper Gordon Banks, Alan Ball on his right and team captain Bobby Moore at his left
England captain Bobby Moore is presented with the World Cup trophy by Her Majesty The Queen as Geoff Hurst looks on in awe
And I never knew when I was at Wembley that day that the match would be so memorable for so long – for the wrong reasons. For it not happening again.
Looking back, despite those ‘55 years of hurt’, life has improved so much.
Just think about the NHS and all the wonderful medical treatments now available. Supermarkets are like Aladdin’s cave. In my childhood, I never saw a banana.
The lives of women have been hugely improved: more equality, better education. When I went to university in 1954, only four per cent of school-leavers went – almost all men. Today, almost 50 per cent go to university, and the majority are women.
I think of my poor mother in our council house in Carlisle, with an invalid husband in bed with multiple sclerosis. No treatment, no respite care, no help, having to go out into the back yard to heat the boiler to do the washing by hand.
Dear God, how did she cope? How did they all cope, in those post-war years? Most ordinary people during the 1960s did not have a washing machine, a fridge, TV, central heating and certainly not a car.
Yet football itself has had a brilliant 55 years.
For the Premiership is the most-watched league in the world, we have many of the best players and we pay the best money.
We have come good. Thanks to all the trillions now flooding into football from TV rights and commercial sponsorship.
