Alf Ramsey

Sir Alfred Ernest Ramsey (born January 22, 1920 in Dagenham, Essex; died April 28, 1999) was a footballer and manager of the English national football team from 1963 to 1974. His greatest achievement was winning the 1966 World Cup with England on July 30, 1966. They also came third in the 1968 European Championship and reached the quarter-final stage of the 1970 World Cup under his management. He was knighted in 1967.

Having been a gifted amateur as a pupil and as a player for his army regiment, he played for Southampton from 1943 to 1949 (since 1944 as a professional), and Tottenham Hotspur after that. He was very successful with Spurs, playing as a right-back in more than 250 cup and league games, and in 1948 made his England debut against Switzerland; he went on to captain his country three times. His last game for England was the 6-3 defeat by Hungary in 1953, in which he scored a penalty. As a player Ramsey was considered slow, but had excellent positional sense, awareness, strength, and excellent distribution for a defender. He was also a specialist penalty kick taker. His coolness and capability for analysis earned him the nickname The General.

He retired from playing in 1955 to become manager of Ipswich Town, which he managed very successfully, taking the team from the Third Division South to First Division champions in 1962,a truly momentous achievement for a club whose status was very minor to this point,and ambitions were equally modest.

He was made England manager in 1963. After predicting that England would win the 1966 World Cup, he successfully fulfilled the prophecy. After an uninspiring 0-0 draw against Uruguay, wins against Mexico and France ensured safe qualification from the group stages. Ramsey's "wingless wonders" dispatched Argentina 1-0 in a notoriously dirty quarter-final match, after which he made his often mis-quoted remark that "the behaviour of some players in this competition reminds me of animals."

Ramsey's team then defeated Portugal in the semi-finals, thanks to two goals from Bobby Charlton. In the build-up to the final against West Germany, Ramsey came under pressure to restore the fit-again Jimmy Greaves (who had been injured during the group stages) to the side. But he stuck to his guns and kept faith with Greaves' replacement, Geoff Hurst, who was to thoroughly vindicate Ramsey's judgement by scoring a hat-trick in a 4-2 win (after extra time) at Wembley.Even after this triumph,Ramsey continued an uneasy relationship with the media,who did not respond positively to his somewhat reticent,humourless attitudes towards them.He was always much more at home with his players,and found public relations an intrusive side-effect of management.

Despite famously losing to Scotland 3-2 at home in qualifying, England still qualified for the 1968 European Championship, but lost narrowly 1-0 to Yugoslavia in the semi-finals, and had to settle for third place after beating the Soviet Union.

However, England gradually declined in the 1970s; they lost to the Germans 3-2 in the quarter-finals of the 1970 World Cup, after having led 2-0 with twenty minutes remaining. Part of the blame was put on Sir Alf's cautious tactics, but also on the stand-in England goalkeeper, Peter Bonetti. Ramsey was sacked in 1974, after England failed to qualify for the World Cup tournament of that year; again while Ramsey's tactics were partly to blame(his misappropriate,mistimed substitions,for example), England had also been spectacularly denied a win over Poland that would have secured qualification, by the Polish goalkeeper Jan Tomaszewski.

The later stages of his career were as caretaker manager of Birmingham City and then technical advisor to Panathinaikos between 1979 and 1980.

He died in April 1999 after a long illness.

Quotes

• "Never change a winning team."
• "Our best football will come against the right type of opposition - a team who come to play football, and not act as animals." - Ramsey's indignant opinion of Argentina after England beat them 1-0 in a bruising quarter final in the 1966 World Cup.
• "You've won it once. Now you'll have to go out there and win it again." - Ramsey's brief team talk prior to the extra-time period in the 1966 final.