John Eric Bartholomew was born on May 14, 1926. A big football fan, he would have enjoyed this summer’s World Cup if he had lived long enough to blow out the candles on his 100th birthday cake.
As Eric Morecambe, he found fame alongside Ernest Wiseman (Ernie Wise) in one of the greatest comic double-acts. Morecambe and Wise honed their skills in the music halls long before nearly every household had a black-and-white television set.
Examine an Eric and Ernie (pictured at the top) script now and you could be excused for wondering why they were so popular. Self-deprecation was part of their schtick, as in Eric’s rhetorical question to camera: “What do you think of it so far?”
The inevitable reply was “Rubbish!”, apparently uttered enthusiastically by an inanimate prop; in reality by Eric pretending to be a brilliant ventriloquist.
Their shows, especially at Christmas, dominated the TV ratings in the Seventies, just as England’s performances this month have drawn massive armchair audiences.
Eric Morecambe was also a long-time director of Luton Town FC and the “what do you think of it so far?” question would come back to bite him at away games. Opposition fans would repeatedly shout “rubbish!” if Luton were losing and he was seen in the directors’ box.
Nowadays, in this more cynical age, everybody seems to be a critic, even the head coach of the England football team, who was less than complimentary after victory against Norway in the heat and humidity of Miami.
While I would hesitate to describe the quarter-final win as rubbish, little Tommy Tuchel made some valid points in his post-match interview. There is clearly room for improvement.
Whatever you think of it so far, the confrontation with Argentina is undoubtedly the biggest challenge the German coach has faced. If the reigning world champions are defeated, England will be only one game away from wearing the crown they haven’t touched since 1966.
Ah, yes, 1966 and all that. England v Argentina, World Cup quarter-final, Wembley stadium, July 23. The teams had met in the 1962 tournament in Chile but this later match was the one that would prompt a rivalry as fierce as any in the beautiful game.
Not that beauty figured much that day. Stan Lover, a Football League linesman watching with fellow officials in the posh seats, recalls the South Americans set out their stall even before kick-off. The teams were warming up as normal, with four balls each. Suddenly, two Argentines broke ranks, ran into the opposing half, seized two of England’s balls and sprinted back to make the pre-match score 6-2.
A mere 60 years later, Chelsea decided to “respect the centre circle” before kick-off. Obviously, the presence of two Argentines in the Stamford Bridge squad is utterly coincidental . . .
The purloining of the spherical pigs’ bladders in 1966 was just the aperitif, of course. Three Argentines, including Antonio Rattin, the skipper, and two England players, Bobby and Jack Charlton, were verbally cautioned in an ill-tempered first half by Rudy Kreitlein, a bald referee from Bavaria.
Note the word “verbally”. Yellow and red cards were not yet on the horizon. Because of the language barrier, the Charlton brothers didn’t realise they had been cautioned until they read the newspapers and found they had been guilty of ungentlemanly conduct.
After 35 minutes Rattin argued with Kreitlein, alleging the man in black was favouring England. Rattin was sent off. He refused to go. He claimed he was simply requesting a translator. His teammates surrounded the ref and threatened to quit en masse.
The brouhaha continued for seven or eight minutes. Ken Aston, head of the Fifa referees’ committee, entered the field of play, using his height, weight and powers of persuasion to quell the argument, as described by Stan Lover.
Rattin eventually took the walk of shame (dismissals were extremely rare in that era) and England won 1-0 with a late Geoff Hurst goal that Argentina, almost inevitably, claimed was offside. It was the 100th goal of Alf Ramsey’s tenure as manager but that wasn’t what made the headlines.
Ramsey was an old-school Englishman who carefully weighed every word he reluctantly spoke at press conferences. For a former player, he was prim, proper and punctilious. Stiff upper lip. Didn’t suffer fools gladly.
Journalists couldn’t believe their luck when Ramsey used the “A” word in his post-match comments. A headline writer’s dream. It was akin to Queen Elizabeth II dropping an F-bomb.
This is the quote: “It seemed a pity so much Argentinian talent is wasted. Our best football will come against the right type of opposition — a team who come to play football and not act as animals.”
“Go home, thugs” and “Animals” were the verdicts of Fleet Street’s finest moral guardians. Ramsey later pointed out he had not said Argentina were animals but that they had acted in the manner of our four-legged friends.
(Sir Alf Ramsey and his World Cup winning team reunited in 1974)
The damage was done, however. The die was cast. Every subsequent World Cup meeting (Hand of God, 1986; Beckham’s red card, 1998; the redemption of Golden Balls, 2002) would have more fireworks than Guy Fawkes Night.
One welcome consequence of the 1966 controversy was the introduction of yellow and red cards for the 1970 tournament. Lover, who went on to write several football books and provided the words for You Are The Ref, a popular strip cartoon in Shoot! magazine, says the idea came to Aston as he drove home from Wembley. The referees’ chief seemed to hit every amber and red light. Amber (yellow warning) and red (stop) would be ideal as cards to replace verbal cautions and dismissals, he thought. Never again would the referee’s decision be lost in translation.
The smart money suggests Argentina v England in Atlanta, even in this tournament of laissez-faire refereeing, will feature more than one card.
Whatever happens in the semi-final, don’t expect any player to go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.