The End of Sir Alf: The Fall of England's Greatest Manager, Part 1
It Was What It Was : The Football History Podcast
The Overlap
4.9 • 667 Ratings
🗓️ 2 July 2024
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome to the latest episode of The Overlap’s football history podcast, It Was What It Was.
In this week’s episode, we take an in-depth look into the decline of England's most successful manager Sir Alf Ramsey, exploring how his 1966 World Cup winners were beaten by a much-improved West Germany side over two quarter-final qualification legs for Euro 1972.
Journalists Jonathan Wilson and Rob Draper delve into the tactical revolution of England under Alf Ramsey, from their World Cup win in 1966 to their descent in Euro 1972, as West Germany’s positional intelligence show that England were no longer the best in the world.
Jonathan and Rob provide a detailed analysis of Ramsey’s style of play, the build-up to the first leg quarter-final defeat at Wembley, the changing relationship between England and West Germany from 1966 to 1972 and the key players in those tournaments.
Our second part is out on Thursday 4th July.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In the past, when we've achieved good results, we've been criticised for the kind of football we played. |
| 0:12.2 | We proved at Wembley that only results matter. |
| 0:16.6 | Well, welcome to It Was What It Was. I'm Rob Draper. I'm here with Jonathan Wilson. |
| 0:40.3 | And that was the greatest ever England manager, So Ralph Ramsey, iconic is an overused word, but I think you can use it for him. The World Cup win in 1966. But it's actually talking after a really important defeat to West Germany in 1972 at Wembley when England lose 3-1. It's a comprehensive defeat. |
| 0:40.7 | Epoch changes, some would say, in terms of tactics. This is a great West Germany side. |
| 0:46.2 | The core of it is a great bar, Munich side, and England are seen to be falling behind tactically. |
| 0:52.8 | And Alfie's kind of saying in this instance, well, you can talk about tactics and we've been criticised, but it's really, it's results all that matters. And even though we've played well, we've lost three one, and you're all having a go at me. And we're discussing this today because this is our Euro special, isn't it, Jonathan? And we are recorded this before the year. It's just before the |
| 1:11.1 | year's kicks off. So either England are marching on to the final and the curse of 66 and |
| 1:18.3 | almost 60 years of a hurt is about to be broken or they've limped out in the group stages. |
| 1:23.4 | And this is a pertinent time to examine where it all goes wrong for English football. |
| 1:26.9 | Because I think there is a sense that England were the best team in the world in 1966 |
| 1:30.8 | and that there is a slow decline after that. |
| 1:35.1 | The England not winning a trophy thing is one of the great curses in sporting history. |
| 1:39.2 | I don't think we'll be an anglo-centric to say that. |
| 1:41.6 | There aren't many trophy-less curses have gone on this long. |
| 1:45.8 | So Jonathan, you're going to explain to us, I think, why this particularly, this is a European |
| 1:50.9 | championship game, which is why we've chosen it in 1972. It's played at Wembley because the |
| 1:56.5 | tournaments aren't played in host nations at that stage. And you're going to explain to us why this |
| 2:01.8 | was so important. And I think why it precipitates the decline of England. Is that right? |
| 2:06.5 | Yes. I mean, it's a, it's a very, very confusing game to talk about. Because it's one of those |
| 2:12.5 | odd occasions where I think journalists who were there at the time got it right, they nailed it. This was an |
| 2:19.3 | apoccal defeat. I don't think it was quite |
... |
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