We will do our best to make our efforts bear fruit

“We will do our best to make our efforts bear fruit.”Yesterday’s announcement was also a massive blow to the prestige of Fifa’s autocratic 80-year-old president, Joao Havelange, who was firmly opposed to the idea of co-hosting. “I hope this decision can be a milestone for overcoming our past problems and build a strong understanding for the future.”Chung would not say whether North Korea would be invited to stage matches at the finals, but he added: “I hope it can be a catalyst for global peace and for the reunification of both parts of Korea. But those who see omens in such details will have noted that they could well be kitted out in Spitting Image Major grey.. In an unprecedented move yesterday, Fifa, football’s world governing body, named Japan and South Korea as joint hosts of the 2002 World Cup, the first time the event has been held in Asia. It is not yet clear whether, as co-hosts, both nations would automatically qualify for the finals in six years’ time, and the South Korean Fifa vice- president, Chung Mong-joon, suggested the two might meet in a play-off to decide which would be automatic finalists with the loser going into the Asian qualifying tournament.
Chung said the two countries shared an unhappy history “We have been close but distant neighbours.” he said. Then, with four days to go to polling, Gordon Banks’ food was nobbled by the forces of reaction, England blew a 2-0 lead to the Germans and the World Cup was lost.The feel-bad factor was considerable. The blue meanies, led by Ted Heath, routed Wilson and I failed two out of three A-levels.

My Peter Bonetti- like ineptitude may have been not unconnected with a habit of sitting up until 3am the night before an exam for the unmissable pleasures of Italy v Israel by satellite from Mexico.Now Europe is returning to England for another orgy of football. When it comes to big occasions at Wembley, John Major is as omnipresent as Roger Hunt, a love of sport being one of his few saving graces. In his straw-clutching moments he may believe that a repeat of ‘66 could help turn the political tide, so no one should be surprised if a glorious swan-song for Terry Venables becomes the prelude to an autumn election.England’s strip may not, it’s true, be in Conservative colours. The nation basked in a euphoric, disbelieving unity, but England’s victory, like Wilson’s in the class war, turned out to be an illusion.In 1970, he called an election for 18 June Everything pointed to a third successive Labour win. After it was all over we drove to Eastbourne for a break to recover from the stress of three weeks’ indulgence in wall-to-wall football.On the morning after the night before, the names of the England players were inscribed on a sea front pavement.

The World Cup was like the war: there was a sense that we were all in it together, intensified by the fact that West Germany, of all teams, faced us in the final. The middle-class now embraced the game, as they are doing again in the Fever Pitch era, making it fashionable beyond its traditional male, working-class constituency.I never made it to the final, watching it instead on the BBC with Garry and his old man, a Scot who for years insisted (not entirely frivolously) that Hungary would have won the Jules Rimet Trophy but for abysmal goalkeeping. Anything was possible in the “modern” world, a feeling Wilson tapped in to by invoking the image of “white heat” of the technological revolution.Red shirts, white heat; it was a paint-by-numbers brave new world Wilson seized upon youth as a metaphor for progress. Hence the MBEs awarded to John, Paul, George and Ringo, the OBE for Mary Quant and the Downing Street dinner parties to which actors and sportsmen, rather than captains of industry and the grouse-shooting set, were invited.Wilson created the illusion of class barriers coming down. In fact, the poll pre-dated the final by two months, although Harold Wilson would later say, removing pipe from cheek to accommodate his tongue: “You’ll notice we only win the World Cup when we wear red shirts.”The link was not as fanciful as hindsight makes it appear It was a time of great optimism and idealism Post-war austerity was finally over.

(Revolver hit the shops and the senses six days after the final. I had lavished my meagre funds on a soul compilation to impress the youth club goddess, Judy Waller.)One of the myths about ‘66 is that Labour owed their victory in the general election to a feel-good factor generated by Ramsey’s wingless wonders. And that, to paraphrase the poet Philip Larkin, was between the start of the pirate-radio ban and the Beatles’ best LP. Pele was hacked out of the game, yet the main flashbacks I have are those of men urinating on the packed terraces (a severe case of the World Cup willies) and the explosive red blur that was Eusebio (TV’s Alan Weekes insisted on pronouncing it Esoobio).The sights and smells apart, it is impossible to view the World Cup in England outside the context of the extraordinary era of which it was part. But it wasn’t the ugly, intolerant nationalism that became associated with England in the 70s, more a good humoured partisanship.There had also been a trip to Goodison Park with a school friend and his brother (who actually had a car), to see Brazil relinquish their title by losing to Portugal.

The League president, Joe Richards, had felt obliged to appeal for support before the finals, complaining that Wembley was “as cold as any away ground for our national team”.The fervour reached boiling point that night. The repertoire of chants was limited by today’s standards, but everyone joined in, which was something novel at England games. More than likely I expounded my theory, which I realise now was equivalent to the flat earth argument, that southern bias kept Bobby Moore in the team ahead of Norman Hunter (the respective merits of Greaves and Hurst was a secondary issue to me).We eventually squeezed in at the back of one of the ends. Biggest game in the history of English football and Garry, with a nonchalance that probably stemmed from following Fulham, had left the tickets in Putney.While he dashed home, I talked to Paddy’s American colleague, Jim, who knew little about “soccer” but was caught up in the enthusiasm.