The Alf Ramsey Story

‘We Will Win the World Cup’ was an astonishingly bold statement for Alf Ramsey to make in 1963. An introvert in an extrovert’s job. A man who loathed publicity, the press and anything that was pretty much not football. And yet there he was promising to deliver where all else had failed and all else have gone onto fail.

David Goldblatt takes the measure of this utterly modest, button downed footballing mono-maniac. Ramsey, from deeply humble Essex roots took on the world and won. He only became a professional footballer at the age of 26, winning his first England caps as the national team repeatedly failed on the world stage. As a neophyte manager he achieved not just successive promotions with lowly Ipswich Town but astonishingly won the league with them in 1962. Still one of the most remarkable feats in English soccer. And then Ramsey set out to transform the role of the England manager whilst contending with a pomposity of blazered F.A. officialdom, a deeply sceptical press and a largely disinterested English public. Slowly his meticulously shaped team took shape & became legendary lions in 1966.

As results and luck began to turn against him, the furies of the press and enemies within the F.A. brought about his brutal end. From nothing to the global stage back to nothing by his mid 50’s. Largely forgotten, cold shouldered by his former employers and full of bitterness. It was no way to treat Sir Alf, a waste of his enormous footballing insight. Every decade since 1966 is a poignant reminder of his team’s achievement.

With archive of Sir Alf from 1953 onwards, extracts from his 1952 autobiography Talking Football and with the voices of Grant Bage-author of The Unseen Sir Alf, Duncan Hamilton - author of Answered Prayers, Paul Hayward - author of England Football: the Biography, and Jonathan Wilson.

My Way performed by organist Martijn Koetsier.

Producer Mark Burman. A Tell Tale Production for BBC Radio 4.