HAVE you ever had that conversation with your parent/grandparent remembering England’s famous day in 1966?
Today marks 60 years since Wembley rose to Sir Bobby Moore as he hoisted the World Cup aloft – and one Islander’s memories will make any football fans jealous.
Archie Terry, whose ticket to Wembley’s World Cup Final on 30 July 1966 came courtesy of a voucher within a book of tickets – coming in at a cost of 10 shillings a ticket, which is about 50p in today’s money.
With tickets for the recent World Cup Final in New York ranging between $2,000 and $11,000, it beggars belief the biggest day in English footballing history cost so little.
“I was fortunate enough to get a book of tickets for my 21st birthday for England’s group games against Uruguay, France and Mexico,” said Mr Terry.
“In the book of tickets, there was a voucher to enter a draw for a World Cup final ticket, and I was lucky enough to win one.”
It seems incomprehensible to win a ticket in this way now, but ‘World Cup fever’ was not always as big of a thing, and not as global and commercial as we see it now.
“For the opening game, when the Queen opened the World Cup, three of my friends wanted to go but only I had a ticket. We just turned up and paid on the door at Wembley to get in for the first game.”
When comparing this with the grandeur of the recent edition, Mr Terry said: “My point is that it was totally different from today. When you see what they did this year for the tournament, the razzmatazz and the way everything was presented was so over the top compared with how it was in 1966.”
In news announced this week, FIFA president Gianni Infantino confirmed he was intending to sell stakes in the global footballing organisation – further emphasising the globalisation and expansion of the World Cup, which has received mixed opinions from fans.
Mr Terry added his thoughts: “Even now, they are talking about selling off the rights to future tournaments – that’s another story in itself.”
As many England fans got to experience this year, the World Cup brought a traditional sense of unity across the nation, including in Jersey.
Although maybe not on the same scale as today, this unity was shared with the 1966 squad in response to their legendary triumph on that famous day against West Germany.
Mr Terry recalled upon several members of that squad visiting Jersey in 1995 for Jersey Wanderers FC’s centenary celebrations dinner, hosted at the Hotel De France.
“The dinner was advertised in the JEP and my friend and I went along, it was a wonderful evening – nine of the players even signed my programme from that final in ‘66.”
Mr Terry fondly recalled his meeting with player-of-the-final Alan Ball: “I always remember Alan Ball – he was so helpful and introduced me to various players. The evening was organised by David Sadler, who won the European Cup with Manchester United, it was a fabulous evening.”
An event with the superstars of today, such as captain Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham and Declan Rice, would cause an immense reaction on the island and undoubtedly would be a lot more difficult to organise.
In Mr Terry’s opinion though: “If you look through the players in that team back then and compare them with stars of today, there isn’t that much difference, although the game does seem quicker now.”
However, he was keen to emphasise Ball’s immense fitness even back then, adding: “Today we talk about players who run constantly and cover so many kilometres, Alan Ball did that for the whole 120 minutes of the final non-stop.”
The 2026 World Cup had its controversies on and off the pitch.
On the pitch, it was often the industrial style of the Argentinian’s that dominated pub discussions, however Terry’s description of England’s quarter-final win over the South American giants proved some habits die harder than others.
“The two most controversial incidents from that tournament [1966] were England’s quarter-final game with Argentina, where their captain Antonio Rattin was sent off,” Mr Terry described.
The incident in question relates to the 35th minute dismissal of Rattin by German referee Rudolph Kreitlin for “verbal dissent”.
This incident and the following commotion caused serious changes to be brought into the game regarding referee control, particularly their use of yellow and red cards.
The second moment, described by Terry, was the ‘ghost goal’ scored in the final by England’s Sir Geoff Hurst.
“Was it over the line?”, asked Mr Terry, who himself did not even know despite being present at the game.
“In my opinion, it didn’t cross the line,” he chuckled. “You look back at it now and there is no way the whole ball crossed the line, the linesman was most definitely influenced by the crowd.”
Credit to Mr Terry, immense honesty shown all these years later!
The chance to have been one of the very few to have been in the stadium on that day in 1966 is something Mr Terry is very aware of.
“I’ve never had any contact with anyone else who was actually at the final,” he said. “I would love to meet someone who was there, it’s a real shame.”
And although it is a real shame that Mr Terry may not be able to celebrate the 60th anniversary of England’s triumph with another first hand witness, it shows how special it is to be one of the few were blessed with one of the greatest memories in English sporting history.
With the track record of Gareth Southgate and now Thomas Tuchel’s sides in recent years, could there soon be new members of the illusive ‘World Cup winners’ eye-witnesses?
Personally, I think it’s about time this new England team gave Mr Terry some new friends to share his memories with.
