Sir Alf Ramsey
Join Stephen Roberts for the first of his new series on Essex greats. He kicks off with football legend Sir Alf Ramsey.
People laughed when he predicted England would win the World Cup. Come 30th July 1966, no one was laughing, least of all the Germans. England had won football’s World Cup for the first and only time, and the manager who orchestrated that triumph was Dagenham’s own Alf Ramsey.
When Alfred Ernest Ramsey was born on January 22, 1920, at 6 Parrish Cottages in Halbutt Street, it was a different Dagenham, described as an agrarian village. Halbutt Street soon changed, its rural isolation swallowed up by London County Council’s Becontree Estate, built between the 1920s-30s, which soon surrounded the cottages where Ramsey grew up. Becontree was home to 120,000 people by 1934, plus the Ford factory was a part of the throng from 1931. Ramsey’s childhood home was an anachronism, a bit of old surrounded by the new. Why, it didn’t even have electricity installed until the 1950s.
Alf was the third of five children born to Herbert Ramsey, a manual labourer, and Florence née Bixby. A quiet, introspective boy who loved sport, Ramsey spent hours in the meadow behind the cottage perfecting ball skills that took him to the highest echelons of professional football. Aged five, he was at Becontree Heath School, where he was remembered as socially awkward but supremely talented with a ball. In a school where the oldest children were 14, Ramsey made the school team at seven and captained it at nine.
When he left school, Alf’s first thought was obtaining employment at Ford before settling on being an apprentice greengrocer. He’d still be in that employ when he was drafted into the Army in June 1940. There’d be no heroics from Ramsey in foreign fields as he spent the conflict on home defence duties. However, the experience taught him much about discipline and leadership, qualities he’d employ as player and manager when he found his vocation within ‘the beautiful game’. Later on, he’d fib about his age to eke out his playing career.
The war gave his football career a kick start. With many established players away on military service, Ramsey was able to sign as an amateur with Southampton FC. He was there from October 1943 until May 1949, by which time he’d become an England player, making his debut against Switzerland in December 1948. Ramsey played 32 times for England as a defender, captained the national side on three occasions and participated in the 1950 World Cup in Brazil. He was nicknamed The General because of his tactical nous and authority. And a rarity among English players, Ramsey could score a penalty. Ramsey’s last England appearance came against Hungary in November 1953, when England finally lost its much-vaunted unbeaten home record against overseas opposition. It wasn’t even close (3-6).
After Southampton, Ramsey played for Tottenham (1949-55) and was a member of the side that won the First Division Championship in 1951. He was also married in the December, Rita becoming the force by his side for nearly half a century. After his playing career ended, aged 35, Ramsey moved into management with Ipswich Town, an obscure Third Division side. Alf took a team of journeymen players to the First Division, then won it at the first attempt in 1962, an outcome that shocked the footballing establishment, which had predicted relegation. Ramsey, now arguably the best manager in the land, was appointed England boss the same year. The rest, as they say, is mere history.
Alf had a bit of Captain Mainwaring about him, a working-class boy done good who saw Sergeant Wilsons around every corner – upper middle class ‘condescenders’, the men in blazers, who’d mock him for his lack of polish. Like Mainwaring, he could be a bit xenophobic especially where the Scots were concerned. As he ascended footie’s greasy pole, he attempted to obscure his working-class origins and accent, putting on a voice one journo described as ‘sergeant-major posh’. This probably earned him more ribbing than if he’d just been himself; a lesson to us all maybe. He also stood by his players though, something they loved him for, and was not averse to making the tough decisions that managers must take sometimes.
Alf was confirmed as England manager in October 1962 and waved his new broom about immediately, demanding autonomy on team selection, appointing 22-year-old Bobby Moore as captain and declaring boldly that England would win the next World Cup to titters and guffaws. An early setback, a 2-5 pummelling by France in a European Championship Qualifier (February 1963) drew more chortling. Come the summer of ’66 though it was Alf sporting a wry smile. Perhaps the most famous of his managerial masterstrokes came when his players faced extra time in the final after the shattering disappointment of conceding a last-minute equaliser. Making his players stand, rather than languish on the turf as the opposition was doing, Ramsey declared their adversaries ‘finished’ before summoning the words that made his troops believe they could scale one final height: ‘You’ve won it once. Now you’ll have to go out there and win it again’. They did.
Ramsey was sacked from the England job in May 1974 after failure to reach that summer’s World Cup Finals. The feeling persists that he was shabbily treated by the blazered brigade; he wasn’t one of them. My favourite story about Alf came later when he was asked to conduct a half-time draw at Brighton’s ground. When his name was announced the place erupted with raucous cheers bouncing off stands and terraces around all four sides of the ground. Alf was genuinely taken by surprise, overwhelmed in fact, with a tear in his eye. ‘I never knew I was loved like this,’ he said afterwards. Well, he was and still is by those of a certain age. Whether we like it or not, whenever the England football team is involved in a major tournament nowadays, we hear the urgings to ‘bring it home’. Well, Sir Alf Ramsey was the one England manager (to date) who did. That’s why we still love him.
CHRONOLOGY
1920 – Birth of Alfred Ernest Ramsey in Dagenham, Essex (22nd January).
1948 – Ramsey makes his debut for the England team, going on to play 32 times.
1951 – Ramsey marries Rita Norris née Welch in Southampton (10th December).
1962 – Ipswich Town wins the League Championship under Ramsey’s management.
1963 – Ramsey formally takes over as the new England team manager in May.
1966 – England wins the World Cup for the only time with Ramsey as manager.
1967 – Alf Ramsey knighted, the first football manager to be so honoured.
1974 – Ramsey is sacked as England manager after failure to reach the 1974 World Cup.
1999 – Death of Sir Alf Ramsey in Ipswich aged 79 (28th April).
2010 – First person to be inducted to the National Football Museum Hall of Fame twice.
