A trophy has agonisingly eluded England in recent years, but they go into Euro 2024 this summer among the favourites again. Can Gareth Southgate lead the Three Lions to glory, and what will this tournament mean for his future as manager?
Words Chris Flanagan Additional reporting Matthew Ketchell, Ed McCambridge, Ryan Dabbs, Ian Murtagh, Matt Nash Portraits The FA / Unmarked Photography
Sir Alf Ramsey never forgot the moment when his dream job came to an end. Deep inside what was the FA’s Lancaster Gate headquarters, the England manager was summoned from his office to the plush council chamber to learn his fate.
“It was the most devastating half hour of my life,” the World Cup winner later said. “I stood in a room almost full of staring committee men. It was like I was on trial. I thought I was going to be hanged.”
The 54-year-old’s executioners advised him to go on holiday, to avoid ‘ordeals with the press’. The FA kept the decision secret for 10 days, until Joe Mercer’s appointment as caretaker manager. Then, on May 1, 1974, fully 50 years ago this month, the FA announced that Ramsey’s tenure was over.
The knives had been out for some time, both inside and outside the FA, but the fatal incision was a drab 0-0 draw in Portugal the previous month. He’d made England world champions in 1966, setting expectations sky-high, before guiding them to third place at Euro 68, then the quarter-finals of the 1970 World Cup. Illness to goalkeeper Gordon Banks didn’t help, but Ramsey’s decision to substitute Martin Peters and Bobby Charlton when 2-1 up against West Germany in the fierce Mexico heat – supposedly to save them for the semi-final – backfired spectacularly.
Things unravelled. Six years after Geoff Hurst’s Wembley hat-trick against West Germany, just when you thought it was all over, Ramsey’s England lost convincingly to the same opponents at the same stadium, and failed to qualify for the finals of Euro 72.
His team were derided as ‘Ramsey’s Robots’, because of the coach’s tendency to prioritise functionality over flair. “Cautious, joyless football was scarcely bearable even while it was bringing victories – when it brings defeat, there can be only one reaction,” wrote the esteemed Hugh McIlvanney in The Observer. “His method was justifiable in 1966, but since then it has become an embarrassment.”
Ramsey would be given one last chance to reach a fourth major tournament, but an infamous Wembley draw against Poland and an inspired Jan Tomaszewski – a “circus
