Alf Ramsey
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Sir Alfred Ernest Ramsey (born January 22, 1920 in Dagenham, Essex; died April 28, 1999) was a footballer and manager of the English national football team from 1963 to 1974. His greatest achievement was winning the 1966 World Cup with England on July 30, 1966. They also came third in the 1968 European Championship and reached the quarter-final stage of the 1970 World Cup under his management. He was knighted in 1970.
Having been a gifted amateur as a pupil and as a player for his army regiment, he played for Southampton from 1943 to 1949 (since 1944 as a professional), and Tottenham Hotspur after that. He was very successful with Spurs, playing as a right-back in more than 250 cup and league games, and in 1953 made his England debut; he went on to captain his country three times. His coolness and capability for analysis earned him the nickname The General.
He retired from playing in 1955 to become manager of Ipswich Town, which he managed very successfully, taking the team from the Third Division South to First Division champions.
He was made England manager in 1963. After predicting that England would win the 1966 World Cup, he successfully fulfilled the prophecy. Ramsey's "wingless wonders" dispatched Argentina in a famously dirty quarter-final match, and then Portugal in the semi-finals, before beating West Germany 4-2 (after extra time) in the final at Wembley.
Despite famously losing to Scotland 3-2 at home in qualifying, England still qualified for the 1968 European Championship, but lost narrowly 1-0 to Yugoslavia in the semi-finals, and had to settle for third place after beating the Soviet Union.
However, England gradually declined in the 1970s; they lost to the Germans 3-2 in the quarter-finals of the 1970 World Cup, after having led 2-0 with twenty minutes remaining. Part of the blame was put on Sir Alf's cautious tactics, but also on the stand-in England goalkeeper, Peter Bonetti. Ramsey was sacked in 1974, after England failed to qualify for the World Cup tournament of that year; again while Ramsey's tactics were partly to blame, England had also been spectacularly denied a win over Poland that would have secured qualification, by the Polish goalkeeper Jan Tomaszewski.
The later stages of his career were as caretaker manager of Birmingham City and then technical advisor to Panathinaikos between 1979 and 1980.
Quotes
- "Never change a winning team."
- "Our best football will come against the right type of opposition - a team who come to play football, and not act as animals." - Ramsey's indignant opinion of Argentina after England beat them 1-0 in a bruising quarter final in the 1966 World Cup.
- "You've won it once. Now you'll have to go out there and win it again." - Ramsey's brief team talk prior to the extra-time period in the 1966 final.