This is a FOOTBALL book about the World Cup of 1966 set in the altered timeline of 10/27/62.
When the representatives of sixty-nine national governing bodies of Association Football gathered in Rome a few days ahead of the start of the Football Tournament of the 1960 Summer Olympic Games – the normal governance and regulatory minutiae apart – there was only one real matter which excited more than passing interest within, or without the 32nd Congress of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA); namely, the selection of the host nation for the 1966 World Cup.
In the event the tournament was awarded to England by a margin of 34 votes to 27 against its only rival, West Germany, the only other applicant, Spain, having stood aside prior to the final vote.
The World Cup of 1966 was forever to be remembered in legend as the time when ‘football in the ruins’ triumphed, albeit briefly, over the madness and mendacity of the princes who had wrecked the northern hemisphere that day in October 1962.
Even as late as the spring of 1965 the footballing world had assumed that, as in 1942 and 1946 that there would be no World Cup in 1966. The South Americans had discussed, among themselves the possibility of inviting Italy, Spain and Portugal to send teams to a ‘Continental Cup’ of some kind in the winter of 1966-67 to be held in either or both of Brazil and Argentina but nothing had come of this by the time the Football Association determined to exercise its ‘right’ to host the 1966 competition in England.
Sport is subtext, emotions, highs and lows of delight and despair and football has been so successful because within its cut and thrust, blood and thunder lie tantalising subtlety, courage and possibilities that constantly astonish even the oldest of journalistic hacks, this author included.
So, live again the heady days of July 1966 when a nation finally began to throw off the nightmare of the October War; when after three years and over eight months of grief, hunger and unwanted foreign wars it rediscovered anew its true heart and voice.
This then is the TIMELINE 10/27/62 story of Football in the Ruins – the World Cup of 1966!