Authors: Gordon Banks
West Germany could have put up the shutters then and defended their lead. To their credit, they instead continued to play with purpose and poise and it was clear to me that they were hunting a second goal.
Five minutes later we caught them napping. Wolfgang Over-ath committed a foul on Bobby Moore on our left-hand side. Bobby quickly got to his feet, looked up to see where Geoff Hurst was, then floated the free kick into the West Germany penalty area. Before the Germans had sensed the danger, Geoff ghosted into their penalty box and, free from a white shirt, headed the equalizer. It was almost a carbon copy of Geoff’s goal against Argentina. Wembley filled with noise and I skipped up
and down in my penalty box punching the air with my fist at the joy of it all.
Level once again, both teams settled down to play competitive but entertaining football, much to the appreciation of the packed terraces. Nobody pulled out of a tackle, yet no one opted for brute force and ignorance, each team matching the other in technique and intelligence.
As the game proceeded neither team was able to get on top. Prompted by Bobby Moore, we took the game to the Germans only for them to come straight back at us. Alan Ball seemed to be the epitome of perpetual motion. Unflaggingly buzzing up and down our right channel he was having the game of his life and causing the German left back Schnellinger all manner of problems.
Deep into the second half it was Alan who won the corner that led to our second goal. Schnellinger looked glad of the rest but there was no respite for Alan, who raced over to take the corner himself. He swung the ball over for Geoff Hurst to hammer it towards Tilkowski’s goal. Schulz lunged at the ball but didn’t strike it cleanly. The ball ballooned into the air. As it dropped, Martin Peters stepped forward to rifle it into the net. There was a pleasing symmetry about the timing of the goal – having fallen behind after thirteen minutes, we were now in the lead with thirteen minutes left.
Those minutes ticked away, each one seeming like an hour. But we were going to win – I could sense it. Then, with the game in its dying embers, the Swiss referee Herr Dienst penalized Jack Charlton for a foul on Siggy Held.
It looked like a harsh decision to me and big Jack wasn’t happy about it either. In his view the foul should have been given the other way for backing in. Lothar Emmerich drove the free kick into my penalty box, which was a sea of red and white shirts. I thought I saw Schnellinger help the ball on with his hand. (Although I was too busy to notice it at the time, the linesman must have thought so too because he raised his flag briefly, then
inexplicably lowered it again.) The ball bounded across the face of goal towards my left-hand post with me in hot pursuit. Wolfgang Weber came sliding in. I saw that Ray Wilson had extended a leg in an attempt to block the ball should it come low, so I threw myself towards the post, with my outstretched arms above Ray’s leg. One of us was bound to block Weber’s effort.
Wolfgang Weber was a highly intelligent footballer. He was quick off the mark, but his mind was even quicker. As Weber slid in to meet the ball he glanced up, assessed the situation immediately and lifted the ball with the toe of his boot. Ray tackled fresh air, I grasped at nothing and the ball shot over both of us and into the net. The disappointment I felt was matched only by my disbelief.
For all Weber’s skill, however, the goal should never have been allowed to stand. Although the referee failed to spot it in the goalmouth mêlée, I am quite certain that the ball was handled. As soon as Schnellinger’s hand touched the ball both Bobby Moore and Martin Peters appealed, but Herr Dienst would have none of it. The goal stood. Seconds later, Herr Dienst did blow his whistle – to send us into extra time.
I felt as if the bottom had dropped out of my world. Glory had been snatched away when I practically had it in my hand. All manner of emotions swept through me. In a matter of moments I felt deep disappointment, only for that to be displaced by anger, then self-pity and, last of all, gritty determination. I reminded myself that we hadn’t lost. That game and the World Cup were still ours for the taking. I told myself that I must apply myself totally, both mentally and physically, for another thirty minutes. That was all. I knew I could do that. I convinced myself that on this day, of all days, I could do anything. I would do whatever it takes and hang the consequences. If the boots were flying, I’d dive in. This was the World Cup final and I wasn’t about to start calculating the risk of injury. Wounds heal, but do you ever get over disappointment and failure?
During the interval Alf took to the pitch and issued to us all, the challenge of our lives: ‘You have won the World Cup once,’ he said, ‘now you must go out and win it again.’
I looked across to Bobby Charlton, Nobby Stiles and Alan Ball. Their heads were nodding, their faces a mixture of strain and determination. Bobby Moore clapped his hands together.
‘We’re gonna do it, come on. We’re gonna do it,’ he urged us.
After a gruelling ninety minutes on a stamina-sapping pitch such as Wembley’s, the pace of a game usually drops in extra time. Not in this game. I looked on in amazement, wondering how anyone could maintain such a tempo. Alan Ball was everywhere, his appetite for the ball as greedy as the jaws of a lion. Bobby Charlton glided as if the match were only ten minutes old. Nobby Stiles made his previous performances in midfield look like a warm-up run. Roger Hunt criss-crossed Wembley like a pinball. Big Jack was imperious in defence and Bobby Moore… Well, Bobby was Bobby. In the frenetic pace of the game he remained as cool as a bank of snow, elegantly and seemingly effortlessly controlling our back line, though his sweat had stained his shirt as red as a Kansas school house.
Luckily I managed to hold on to everything the Germans threw at me – and Held, Seeler and Haller threw a lot. With ten minutes of extra time on the clock, Nobby Stiles played a long ball down our right wing. Who chased it? Alan Ball, of course. Alan hit a low ball into Geoff Hurst, who was some ten yards from Tilkowski’s left-hand post but facing the touchline. Geoff swivelled and hit a rising drive. The ball cracked on to the underside of the crossbar and bounced almost vertically downwards before being headed away by Wolfgang Weber.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was watching football history in the making. Roger Hunt, following up Geoff’s effort, was in no doubt that the ball had crossed the line. The West German players were equally convinced that it had not. Encouraged by the Germans to take a second opinion, Herr Dienst
walked over to the Russian linesman, Tofik Bakhramov. For what seemed like an age, the two conferred as an anxious silence descended on Wembley. German players stood hands on hips, Geoff Hurst was on tenterhooks and the crowd was treated to the rare sight of Alan Ball standing still. Eventually Herr Dienst turned away from his linesman and pointed to the centre spot. Wembley erupted once more. It was a goal.
And it
was
a goal. I am convinced. True, I was standing at the other end of the pitch, but Roger Hunt’s reaction and subsequent testimony have left me in no doubt as to the legitimacy of Geoff’s effort. Roger was a prolific goalscorer, he alone was right there when the ball crashed down from the crossbar into the goalmouth. Believe me, if Roger Hunt had thought for one moment that the ball had not crossed the line, he would have knocked it in himself. He didn’t, because he knew it was a goal.
Not only that, but the linesman, Bakhramov, was up with play and looking along the goal line. So the two people best positioned to judge whether the ball had crossed the line said that it had. That there were some whose position did not afford them such a privileged view, who swore that the ball had not crossed the line, is of little consequence. And that was the view taken at the time by the referee.
None the less, the debate concerning the legitimacy of England’s third goal continues to this day. I can understand the Germans wanting to continue their efforts to prove the ball did not cross the line (though no concrete proof has ever emerged), but I cannot for the life of me fathom what motivates the many English people who assist them in their campaign. Professors and boffins from the Institute of Rear-End Speech have wasted countless hours of computer time trying to show that the ball never crossed the line. It galls me that some of my countrymen should spend so much effort trying to prove that the goal, which to all intents and purposes won the World Cup for England, should have been disallowed. What is the point? And where’s their patriotism? To the best of my knowledge, no Argentine has
protested with such vehemence against Maradona’s ‘hand-of-God’ goal against England in the 1984 World Cup, or tried to prove that Sol Campbell’s disallowed effort for England against them in France ’98 should have stood.
The devastating blow we had received seconds from the end of normal time was almost repeated in the final minutes of the extra period. Not once, but twice. With little over a minute of the game remaining, Siggy Held latched on to a pass from Emmerich and dispatched a fiery shot towards the left-hand corner of my net. Fortunately I’d taken up a good position and my angle was spot on. I hit the ground as though felled by a sniper’s bullet and gratefully clutched the ball to my chest. Moments later West Germany were back. Held nodded the ball across the face of goal and caught me wrong-footed. As I quickly attempted to readjust my balance I watched helpless as Uwe Seeler’s lunge was only the width of a bootlace from making contact with the ball. That, however, was only a prelude to the climax of what had been a cliffhanger of a game.
Once again the ball was delivered into my penalty area only for the imperious frame of Bobby Moore to chest it down and move upfield with seemingly effortless authority. Bobby momentarily looked up, spotted Geoff Hurst some ten yards inside the German half of the field and chipped the most exquisite pass in his direction. Bobby’s limbs must have been experiencing crippling weariness, but you’d never have known it from the way he played that ball downfield. To this day I find it hard to believe that, so late in the game, Bobby could emerge from defence with such élan and have the vision to execute such a deft pass over such a distance – in the last minute of extra time in the World Cup final. Who else could have done that?
Geoff took the ball on his chest. At first I thought he was going to saunter towards the corner flag to kill time, but suddenly his legs began to pump and, unimpeded by flagging German defenders, he took off towards Tilkowski’s goal.
Famously, three supporters came on to the pitch thinking that the referee had blown for time. Where are they now? Who were those lads who took to the pitch thinking it was all over? Their anonymous presence has seeped into the fabric of history.
Hans Tilkowski did what he had to do. He came out to narrow the angle, but Geoff summoned what dregs of strength remained in his body and blasted the ball goalwards. The roof of the net bulged and what followed was unforgettable.
I ran to the edge of my penalty area and punched the air in a display of complete and utter joy. Bobby Charlton dropped to his knees. Nobby Stiles and George Cohen unashamedly hugged one another. Alan Ball ran five paces before doing a cartwheel across the pitted emerald turf. Jack Charlton looked up to the heavens and appeared to say ‘Thank you’. Roger Hunt leapt in the air, both hands outstretched above his head.
Seconds later, it was indeed, all over. When the whistle blew, Bobby Charlton cried like an innocent man suddenly released from jail. Nobby danced his famous toothless jig. Alan Ball ran and whooped around the pitch like a Comanche. Martin Peters saluted the crowd. Me? I felt as Christopher Columbus must have felt when realizing he hadn’t sailed over the edge of the world. Jimmy Greaves came on to the pitch and hugged Nobby Stiles. Ron Flowers grasped me to his chest. Meanwhile, Alf Ramsey remained a model of dignity and grace, refusing to be drawn into what he obviously regarded as the greatest moment in the lives of his players, although the success was as much his as ours.
Bobby Moore eventually led us up the thirty-nine steps to the royal box and the World Cup. Before shaking the hand of Her Majesty the Queen and receiving the trophy, Bobby had the good grace to wipe the palms of his hands on his shorts. A captain in every sense of the word.
England’s dream of winning the World Cup had been realized and so too had mine. As I descended the steps from the royal box clutching the medal every player in the world yearns for, I
couldn’t believe the journey I had made. The road from Tinsley Rec to a World Cup final had been long and winding, but the difficulties I had encountered along the way suddenly evaporated as my whole being was engulfed with euphoria.
The England post-match banquet was held at the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington Gardens. The Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, called in to see us, then joined in the singing with the crowds outside. The speeches were made, wine and champagne flowed. Cars flying Union Jacks honked around London until the small hours of the morning. Alf Ramsey, the architect of our success, took the arm of his wife Vickie and travelled back to their home in Ipswich to ‘make ourselves a decent cup of tea’. It was all over, like the man said, but the memories will reside with me for ever.
Alf, later and deservedly Sir Alf Ramsey, was sheer class. He was in a class of his own. Some managers are tactically aware. Some excel in coaching. Others are good at motivation and man management. Alf’s strength was that he was strong in all departments. That’s what made him so special. That’s what made him the manager who won the World Cup for England.
Always fair in his dealings with players, always scrupulously honest, he was a man of unyielding integrity and absolute loyalty. Alf put his job on the line for Nobby Stiles when some people had called for Nobby to be dropped. Alf remained steadfast in supporting Nobby, and he was to all his players, and his loyalty was reciprocated. He was devoted to the team ethic, yet at pains to point out that no one was indispensable. He bore no grudges and he had no favourites. Alf’s unrivalled knowledge of the game and the opposition were complemented by superb tactical acumen, yet his instructions to us as a team were always clear and simple.