ANSWERED PRAYERS: England and the 1966 World Cup

Like Alf Ramsey's 1966 team, this book has depth and is a winner, a fine piece of sports writing by one of the country's most garlanded sports writers. Duncan Hamilton watched England beat West Germany as an eight year old boy and remembers the waving flags and delirious moments of joy at the final whistle and the trophy sparkling in the late afternoon light. But '66 was not a beginning or a guaranteed path towards more success, but a slow decline and fall and a disproportionate number of disappointments. Hamilton decided to revisit '66 tracing the very roots of a story as well as the hidden figures within it that really began during the era of post-War austerity. We see the institutional inability to appreciate Ramsey and his players who were taken for granted, the political machinations of the "blazered fools who ran the Football Association", the short-sighted blunderers of the Football League. For the first time Hamilton with his matchless insight and descriptive power demonstrates the scale of what was won and what was lost in 'a marriage of prose and detail so fine and fastidious that it takes the breath away'. - Independent. In a way it is almost an Alf Ramsey biography and a 30 year history of English football from his position of England Manager in 1962 coming from unfashionable Ipswich Town and his four years trying out players and slowly assembling the great selection of star individuals that would bring glory. We see the emergence of the two Charlton brothers, the goalkeeper Gordon Banks, strikers Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters, midfielders Bobby Moore and Alan Ball, and the defenders Nobby Stiles, George Cohen and Ray Wilson. Ramsey declared this team would win in 1966 - nobody believed him. 444pp, paperback.