Rapid rise of Hurst shows nobody is a certainty

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Rapid rise of Hurst shows nobody is a certainty

We had, 36 years ago, a prime example of how easy it is to be left embarrassed by the unfolding of events that overwhelm logical assessment. An untold truth – to my knowledge it has not appeared in print or gone out across the airwaves – about the 1966 World Cup is that Geoff Hurst's unique hat-trick in the final came less than a month after failing to impress Alf Ramsey in a friendly against Denmark in Copenhagen.

The morning after that game – one of four arranged by Ramsey in preparation for the finals, each of ascending difficulty – I fell into conversation with England's trainer, Harold Shepherdson, who shook his head when Hurst's name was mentioned. "I felt sorry for the lad," Shepherdson said. "The pitch [grassless, rutted] was a problem but he didn't look like an international footballer."

With Jimmy Greaves and Roger Hunt restored in tandem for the last match of the tour, a solid 1-0 victory against Poland in Chorzow, it appeared that Hurst's chance of making the team had gone. However, Ramsey, typically allowing second-guessers in the accompanying press corps to go their merry way, had not entirely made up his mind about Hurst and neither was he convinced that England's hopes of winning the World Cup centred on the talismanic Greaves, who was established as one of the greatest goalscorers the game had ever seen.

Fast forwarding to last night's match between England and Netherlands in Amsterdam, from which Greaves' modern-day equivalent Michael Owen was missing through injury, questions have been asked about the worth of friendly encounters if the England coach, Sven Goran Eriksson, does not use them to bed his best team down. "By now, Eriksson must have a pretty good idea of the line-up he wants so why not keep it together," a friend said this week.

Something like this can send up a tremendous uproar as it did when one of Eriksson's successors, the recently appointed Aston Villa manager, Graham Taylor, foolishly entered into protracted discussions with reporters over matters of selection and strategy. A view long held here, one nobody is required to share, is that football managers are under no obligation to comment until the action is over but that is not how some fellow toilers in this vineyard, who are inclined to take themselves far too seriously, see things.

Anyway, the argument that Eriksson has built up more than enough knowledge of English football not to be experimenting at this stage of proceedings does not hold up in the light of history. At one of the functions I am sometimes persuaded to attend, it was put by a speaker that England's success in 1966 stemmed, in part, from Ramsey's unswerving belief in a team that was set in his mind many months before the finals took place.

Not so. Privately, he was concerned over the fitness of Greaves, who had been down with hepatitis. Greaves scored four goals against Norway in the tour referred to earlier but did not look sharp in group games against Uruguay and Mexico, failing to score then picking up an injury against France that let in Hurst for the quarter-final against Argentina. Ramsey sprang a surprise in the build-up by selecting Martin Peters against Poland then left him out against Uruguay, preferring a natural winger, John Connelly. Accused of a prejudice against wingers, Ramsey still was not sure that he could afford to take the field without one. Connelly dropped out to be replaced by Terry Paine. Peters was back, Alan Ball omitted. Paine then gave way to Ian Callaghan, with Ball still on the sidelines.

Apart from Greaves, none of the changes were forced by injury. In fact, the most successful team in England's football history did not finally take shape until the quarter-finals; Hurst paired with Hunt; Ball and Peters filling the flank positions in midfield.

Earlier this week, Eriksson said that it would not bother him at all if Owen was not seen again in an England shirt until next summer's great adventure. Forged at Liverpool, the partnership between Owen and Emile Heskey does not need much tinkering. Owen's fragile fitness is something else. It justifies the experiments Eriksson made in Amsterdam and will probably make again.

Let us suppose that Ramsey had not already seen enough of Hurst to hold back from writing him off in Copenhagen, sensing that there was a great deal more to come. When it came to a choice, Ramsey's preference for Hurst over Greaves caused a great deal of consternation. The rest you know.