Back Home: England and the 1970 World Cup [Illustrated] (Hardcover)

The 1970 World Cup has, in the intervening years, seemingly gained in fame and status particularly among the thirty/forty-somethings who view Mexico ’70 as the golden age of international football when great players met in great games, and a great team (Brazil) won the Jules Rimet trophy which they kept forever (until it was stolen and melted down). It has become both a link to our innocent childhoods and a benchmark against which all succeeding tournaments will be judged; harshly it has to be said.

As I sat watching the Italia ’90 Final between West Germany and Argentina and saw it transform itself into a spectacle that disgraced the World Cup and twisted its ideals of the brotherhood of footballing nations, I reminded myself that it wasn’t always like this. Jeff Dawson’s affectionate and highly entertaining book about the Mexico World Cup reminds us of the joys of a bygone footballing age, and also startles us with examples of how maybe it wasn’t so innocent as we used to think.

The fact is that IF Sir Alf Ramsey’s England team (regarded by many as maybe England’s best ever side, even, according to Dawson, superior to the 1966 side) had won the World Cup in Mexico in 1970 it would have been a triumph against the odds. Incidents like the famous ‘Bobby Moore Bogota Bracelet’ fiasco when England’s captain is accused and held (without any evidence) for stealing from a hotel jewellers, Jeff Astle’s and Peter Osgood’s inebriation, the intense hostility towards England of the Mexican press and public (the latter of whom conspire to deprive England of sleep prior to the clash with Brazil) coupled with the loss of Gordon Banks going into the watershed encounter with West Germany in Leon, not to mention the endless ‘administrative difficulties’, all seemed to occur with the sole intention of thwarting England’s progress (successfully as it turns out). All these, and other incidents, are fully examined by Dawson, who talked to players, press and media personnel who were there to help compile this book.

The football of course is what it’s all about, and the famous matches and incidents are all relayed in such detail by Dawson (complete with extracts of the famous commentaries from Hugh Johns, David Coleman and Kenneth Wolstenholme) that in our minds eye we can see ‘that tackle by Moore’ on Jairzinho, that appalling miss by Jeff Astle, that flukey headed goal by Seeler, Beckenbauer’s arm in a sling, and of course the Carlos Alberto goal in the final, ‘sheer delightful football’ says Wolstenholme in a line for me as famous as his oft-quoted ‘they think it’s all over’. Even the famous long pauses by Coleman whenever England suffered a setback are described.

Dawson relishes the small background details of the competition and leaves no stone unturned in his quest to give the reader a feel for the Mexico of 1970, so that amongst other things we learn about the great ‘Findus cock-up’ which saw England’s supply of burgers impounded and destroyed by Mexican customs, the seemingly endless presentations to Bobby Charlton, and most amusingly, the erratic and wild behaviour of the recently deposed Brazilian coach Saldanha (thought to be so unbalanced the Brazilian authorities banned him from flying in case he hijacked the plane). We also enter into the great ‘What caused Banks’s dicky tummy ?’ debate. Was it skullduggery ? bad luck ? the result of an ‘illegal’ room service delivery ? The funny thing is, Dawson has the ability to get us so caught up in the competition again that he makes us care about all these things. I want to know what DID cause Gordon Banks’s stomach cramps, just what DID go on in the little jewellery store in the Hotel Tequendama and most importantly, I want to know WHY, WHY, WHY, didn’t the referee give that penalty against Germany when Beckenbauer clattered into Bell when he was through on goal ? (cowardly and incompetent refereeing was a feature of this World Cup…..unlike all the others.)

At the end of the day the best team won the trophy…I suppose, although the magical Brazilians were revealed by Dawson to be mighty ‘physical’ against England, as well as indulging in ‘gamesmanship’. However no-one or no team is perfect but how you felt for the England boys, and for Alf Ramsey too.

Dawson’s examination of England’s campaign has no criticism for Ramsey at all. While he is variously described as short-tempered, grumpy, a strict disciplinarian, sensitive about his roots, and by Bobby Charlton as, ‘frightening’, these are not seen as faults, just as ‘Alf’. As confirmed by Norman Hunter, ‘You’ll never hear one of the players have a bad word about him’. Alf didn’t have the relaxed and easy-going nature of a Helmut Schoen (as Dawson relates, no England player would ever have thrown Alf into a pool fully clothed) his commitment to England’s cause, his meticulous preparation and his belief in his boys is undeniable.

‘Back Home – England and the 1970 World Cup’ should be read as a tribute to Alf and the boys, they tried but they couldn’t quite bring it off, but the memories…………and those matches !

Written, naturally, from an English point of view (and why not, we were the World Champions) the book catalogues the series of events both before and during the tournament which culminated in the cruel dashing of English hopes of remaining the dominant power in world football. All Englishmen should read this book to remind themselves of how good our football teams were both at club and international level, how we were feared by other European nations, and seen as being the only country which could seriously challenge Brasil.

The goal by the “small hairy German” Gerd Muller in Leon on 14 June 1970 changed the course of English football for the next thirty years and arguably started the development of a footballing inferiority complex from which we as a nation have never recovered.

Jeff Dawson writes with an obvious passion and love for the game. Whilst he details the undoubted injustices in some of the refereeing decisions, the calculated fouling of top class players by other top class players, and the obvious bias of the Mexican population towards the Brazilians and against the gringos - particularly the English who, worried about food poisoning, had brought their own fish fingers with them (in those days your average Englishman thought a tortilla was a cross between a tortoise and small dog) – the overwhelming message of the book is that football is a beautiful game and human frailties and imperfections are a vital part of the beauty, drama, and magic.

If you were around at the time and can remember the 1970 World Cup then this book will rekindle and restore many wonderful memories. If you weren’t around then enjoy it just as a brilliant potted history of a fantastic event.

"Back Home" brings the 1970 tournament to life, although pieced together after-the-event from reportage and research, the match descriptions are dramatic and vivid (especially England -v- Brazil) and the story of England's world cup defence, eventually doomed, is lifted by the wonderful story of Pele and Brazil winning the cup. Interlaced with this is the story of Bobby Moore and the infamous "Bogota Bracelet" and an astute link to what was going on Back-Home in Britain whilst the first ever world cup to be televised in colour was going on. Highly recommended and fun reading.