GOAL!

On the 30th July 1966 I was sitting in the front room of our house watching the tv alongside 32.3 million other viewers in addition to the 96,924 at Wembley stadium. I was really surprised when I was checking the numbers to discover those figures of almost 97,000 and that the viewing total made it the United Kingdom's most-watched television event ever.

I’m talking, of course, about the FIFA World Cup final between England and West Germany, with England winning 4–2 after extra time.

I can still remember the England team managed by Alf Ramsey:
Gordon Banks; George Cohen, Jack Charlton, Bobby Moore, Ray Wilson, Alan Ball, Nobby Stiles, Bobby Charlton, Martin Peter, Geoff Hurst, Roger Hunt.

England 1966 World Cup Winners

I can manage Tilkowski, Schnellinger, Beckenbauer, Haller, Weber, Overath, Seeler and Emmerich of the West German side.

I can remember some of the moves, especially when England were 2-1 up and one minute from the World Cup when Jack Charlton fouled Germany's skipper Uwe Seeler and all the red shirts of England lined up against the white shirts of West Germany on the edge of the area. Wolfgang Weber scored. I couldn’t believe it.

I remember the amazing scenes after the final. The players jogging round the beautiful green Wembley pitch, the colours of the flags and banners. I raced out the back, I’ve no idea why, and saw our next door neighbour working under his car. I told him the result and he said “that’s nice, pass me that spanner”.

I remember so much of that game quite clearly. And I am wrong.

I’m wrong because the game was only broadcast in black and white.

I can only presume that my memories have been altered by the watching of GOAL! the official FIFA film of the whole competition which went out to cinemas shortly afterward. I must have seen it at the Odeon in Sheldon, Birmingham.

GOAL!

I would certainly have wanted to forget it as now I’m remembering how I really thought it was a terrible film. All fancy camera angles, jumpy narrative, awful music, accents of a lost time.

In 2002 someone named Rick posted that:
‘In the sixties this was possibly a mediocre film of our greatest football year. Thirty years later however Goal is as collectable and nostalgic as Charlie Chaplin or Laurel and Hardy in that it takes us back to a distant era totally alien to anyone below the age of 35. Granted the football coverage isn't great but that isn't what Goal is all about (in 2002 anyway) - watch the opening sequence and listen to the music and you'll get my gist, this is classic stuff perfect for post pub, late evening viewing with a few mates.

But it doesn't stop there, the one liners are stunning and pregnant pauses the work of an unknowing genius - it sounds like the bloke from the clangers. The tension is built slowly and the description of the various teams and their various Stars as they disembark their planes at Heathrow keeps you smiling. If you love football, and have a sense of humour you will treasure this film and get excited every time you show it to unwitting friends. A three word summary - Hilarious, nostalgic, genius’.

Completely off topic but there is a ball from the Wembley game in the National Football Museum in Manchester.

Paul Cookson did have an idea to celebrate 1966. He wanted to get 11 poets to write 11 poems about the team of ’66. However, he couldn’t get a publisher or sponsor interested, so in the end he wrote a series of poems himself. He says that they are everyman recollections that try and capture something of the men, the magnitude, the mood and the memories. You can click on the names on the image to see the poems at this link: 1966 World Cup England Team

George Cohen before the 1966 World Cup Final

Almost Forgotten
( For George Cohen )

Almost forgotten
But you were there.

You may not have scored the three goals
You may not have scored the other goal
You may not have been dramatic in your exploits

But you were there
Solid and dependable

Not so much what you did
But more what you stopped them from doing
Without you it would not have been the same

A link in the chain
A brick in the wall
Part of the process
Integral to victory

Your place in history secure
Forever a World Cup winner
Forever a hero

Your heroics may be unsung
But you were there

And for that alone
We all wish we could have been you
And been in your boots that day
The day that you were there

                                          Paul Cookson

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

Read More

More precious than gold

This week we are looking at treasure, which, of course, means different things to different people. I have reached the conclusion that my memories are my greatest treasures, for they contain all the people and occasions that I hold dear in life.

 I’ve always been rubbish at photos. At every photo-worthy occasion I can be relied upon to forget my camera. Even when I’ve remembered to take it with me, I can easily leave it in the car, on the coach or just forget that it’s in my bag. With such a cavalier attitude to preserving noteworthy occasions for posterity, it is no surprise that my photo collection down the years is not a neat pile of albums, all thoughtfully populated with photos carefully annotated and in date order, so that some sense can be made of the decades they commemorate. No, it is an ungainly jumble of assorted packets and loose pictures, all rammed in a cupboard somewhere at my previous home and spilling out whenever the door is opened. This chaos is no doubt symptomatic of a disordered mind!

To me photographs are not the vital treasures that they are to many people. For some it feels almost like the occasion didn’t happen if there is no photographic evidence to prove that it did. I think there’s sometimes a tendency to use all one’s energy in getting the perfect shot and, in so doing, enjoyment of the moment itself can be lost. My treasures rely on memories of happy times, rather than the photographs produced for them. In recent times, I can think of a couple of brilliant occasions, for which the memories mean more to me than the commemorative photos.

My graduation day last year was one of the happiest of my life. I have a professional set of photos of me and my family, posed and somehow static and lifeless, which is rammed in a cupboard etc. It in no way reflects my memories of that day, which are of me and my family, sitting for hours in the glorious sunshine outside the No. 5 café after the ceremony, chatting and downing unseemly numbers of bottles of Prosecco. All around us were my college friends with their families doing the same, all united in pride at our achievement and relief that it was all over, getting gently sozzled in the warmth of a July afternoon.

Another occasion was Blackpool FC’s highly memorable promotion to the premier league. I have the programme to remind me, copies of all the press clippings of the event, the commemorative issues of newspapers, the match ticket stubs. None of them are necessary to enable me to conjure up at will the memories of a glorious sunny day, when the world turned tangerine; every service station on the long journey to Wembley thronged by singing, happy Blackpool supporters and neutrals wishing us well; milling around the ground in apprehensive anticipation and bumping into every Blackpool fan you’ve ever known; the breathtaking first sight of our end inside the ground, a sea of tangerine semi-hysteria; the noise and the heat of the remorseless sun; the match, the growing incredulity that we were going to win; the final whistle, the disbelief; the surprisingly muted atmosphere as we all trouped out of the stadium; the daunting realisation that we would actually have to play in the premier league!

Memories – more precious than gold, rammed in the cupboard of my mind. Hope they never spill out.

To finish, here are a couple of quotations about treasures that I enjoyed reading.

“Nothing in the tangible word that isn't living has any value beyond a dollar amount. Considering that dollars can only buy more tangible and inanimate objects, it would seem a far more worthwhile goal to instead learn to place value on the treasures of the mind. Memories, knowledge and skill together are the only things we will ever actually own.”
― Ashly Lorenzana

“Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.”
― Oscar Wilde

Thank you for reading,

Sheilagh

Read More

Dreams: It could have all been so different.

As a small boy in Blackpool, I spent most of my summers kicking balls up and down alleyways, fields and the beach. I cannot have been alone in dreaming of making it as a footballer- playing on the hallowed turf of Wembley. That and seeing my side in the top flight were the dreams and I never thought either day would come.

Long time Pool fans have had their share of the suffering over the years. Supporters around my age can count themselves fairly lucky having seen the boys rise up through the leagues but, even with the Wembley wins of yesteryear, Saturday was not an easy one to take. To be quite frank, we bossed it. We dominated possession first half and with a timely equaliser straight from the break, momentum looked to be pushing us over the line again. Looked... that wonderful word that counts for absolutely nothing in football.

The truth of the matter is that West Ham were a very good side. After seeing Big Sam tear down the touchline last season flailing his arms- helicopter fashion- I wanted nothing more than for Ollie's lads to go out there on Saturday and stick it to the former Pool boss. Oyston famously sacked him from his prison cell after a play off heartbreak- it seems Big Sam has learnt his lesson.

The very reason that I am talking football today is because the blog theme for this week is dreams. Blackpool came close, we came very close but goals win games, not half chances and might-have-beens. Had young Mr Phillips popped in his two chances, we'd have been 2-0 up and comfortable. Had Mr Dobbie turned his second half effort home, we'd be Premier League. Alas, we aren't.

The newspapers can tell you half the story, the record books will tell you even less but in truth, as a Blackpool fan, we're still in wildest dreams territory. Premier League or no Premier League, if you'd have asked me after Allardyce's last game as Blackpool boss- deep in the depths of league football and dumped out of the play offs at home, through the tears I would never have seen days like Saturday on the horizon.

I have a carrier bag with a match programme in it. On the side of the bag are the words "Que Sera Sera, Whatever will be will be, We've been to Wembley". That is exactly how we've got to look at this one- onwards and upwards- try again next year.
I'm gutted we've missed out but am so very proud of the lads.

For this week I'm leaving it at that. We have a theme, we have a mission and we all know how young boys can dream. This one didn't pay off but it does give me a nice opportunity to plug the book, A Poet's Guide to Blackpool (get in touch if you want a copy). I wrote Dreamland after the Premier League relegation and after Saturday, I think it makes a nice end to the post.

Dreamland

A bald headed man took a town by the laces
Gave witty soundbites and put smiles onto faces
& while those in the game said they’d be a disaster
Nobody predicted the run that came after
For just over an hour they looked down on football
The table can’t lie, Blackpool written above all
They took three points at Anfield, amongst other places
What a buzz, what a ride, every fan so elated
No money, no big stars just one little squad
But the bald man from Bristol kept getting the nod
On Match of the Day, first up for excitement
Their attacking football kept neutrals delighted
And whilst years ago, many thought it a dream
This small town found joy in the great Tangerines.
They went bursting with pride but not all went quite right
At Old Trafford, Pool’s dream reached the end of the night.
Results swung on a knife-edge, so nearly, so close
And left teary eyed men walking back to the coaches.
As fairytales go this was one of the best
A full team of heroes, all taking the test
of their lives. Sadly, this time there was no happy ending
But tell that to Blackpool, whose pride is unending
For the Premier League dream is still well within sight
Dream well little town: Goodnight Blackpool. Sleep tight


Thanks for reading,
S

Read More