I was musing on Big Sam's appointment, earlier, and went back to have a look at Sir Alf Ramsey's early days in the job, seeing as he is the touchstone by which all England managers must be judged.
I hadn't realised how long it took him to knock his England team into any kind of shape.
Ramsey's first competitive matches in charge were England's first foray into the European Championship qualifiers in 1962, where they were comprehensively beaten 5-2 away (followed by a 1-1 draw in the presumably meaningless second leg) by France. Excusable, certainly, France still had players like Raymond Kopa, although the England side Ramsey inherited had been quarter-finalists at the World Cup that preceded that match, while France hadn't even qualified.
Being hosts for 1966 meant England had no competitive games until those finals, other than the Home Internationals. And ... well, we didn't exactly distinguish ourselves. England lost to Scotland in both 1963 and 1964, drew with them at Wembley in 1965, and finally beat them (4-3) at Hampden in 1966, a month before the finals we were to host. Scotland only missed out on qualifying for the 1966 finals (to Italy) because English clubs refused to release their Scottish players for the crucial final qualifier; one does wonder, looking at that record, what Scotland might have done in the 1966 finals.
All in all, would the modern day tabloid press, faced with a record like that, have stuck by Ramsey? Did, indeed, the press of the day?
I hadn't realised how long it took him to knock his England team into any kind of shape.
Ramsey's first competitive matches in charge were England's first foray into the European Championship qualifiers in 1962, where they were comprehensively beaten 5-2 away (followed by a 1-1 draw in the presumably meaningless second leg) by France. Excusable, certainly, France still had players like Raymond Kopa, although the England side Ramsey inherited had been quarter-finalists at the World Cup that preceded that match, while France hadn't even qualified.
Being hosts for 1966 meant England had no competitive games until those finals, other than the Home Internationals. And ... well, we didn't exactly distinguish ourselves. England lost to Scotland in both 1963 and 1964, drew with them at Wembley in 1965, and finally beat them (4-3) at Hampden in 1966, a month before the finals we were to host. Scotland only missed out on qualifying for the 1966 finals (to Italy) because English clubs refused to release their Scottish players for the crucial final qualifier; one does wonder, looking at that record, what Scotland might have done in the 1966 finals.
All in all, would the modern day tabloid press, faced with a record like that, have stuck by Ramsey? Did, indeed, the press of the day?
Comment