World Cup Memories

[Sutekh]

TBF he's telling that story for years so if it's BS he's sticking with it!

First World Cup memory for me is Archie Gemmil v the Dutch and the ticker tape in the final in '78

I hated Scotland for qualifying at our expense but I have to say I loved that goal and at that stage they were 3-1 up needing just one more goal to get through.

I saw a doc on MacLeod a year or so ago. It was poignant and in the end I thought he was a decent bloke

Scotland didn’t qualify at England’s expense. England failed to qualify as they simply couldn’t smash the then “cr@p” sides in their group by as much as Italy smashed them, the deciding games really being at home to Finland (2-1 v 6-1) and the rather limp display in Luxembourg (0-2 v 1-4).

Those results left England really needing a big win over Italy at Wembley as after that game had been played Italy still had one game left in qualifying which they were always going to win (home to Luxembourg). As it turned out England would probably have needed at least a 4 goal win over Italy to have the remotest chance of qualifying but only won 2-0 which meant all Italy had to do was beat Luxembourg which they did by 3-0 and that’s the size of GD which condemned England to another summerless World Cup.

Of course this was a time without recognised international dates and it seemed associations just slotted games into any available midweek (you could then as European competitions didn’t ponce about with stupid group stages in their tournaments) and so England had played 2 qualifiers before Italy even started their campaign.

[Sutekh]

I had a World Cup Esso football collection for 1970 and again vaguely remember filling some of the scores in.

The front of this collection was a pic of Bobby Moore held aloft by his teammates in 1966. He was beaming and looked like a film star. I wanted to be him. He was my first sporting hero.

Like this one? I’ve got one somewhere in amongst all the junk you get throughout life.

[Zip]

TBF he's telling that story for years so if it's BS he's sticking with it!

First World Cup memory for me is Archie Gemmil v the Dutch and the ticker tape in the final in '78

I hated Scotland for qualifying at our expense but I have to say I loved that goal and at that stage they were 3-1 up needing just one more goal to get through.

I saw a doc on MacLeod a year or so ago. It was poignant and in the end I thought he was a decent bloke

Scotland didn’t qualify at England’s expense. England failed to qualify as they simply couldn’t smash the then “cr@p” sides in their group by as much as Italy smashed them, the deciding games really being at home to Finland (2-1 v 6-1) and the rather limp display in Luxembourg (0-2 v 1-4).

Those results left England really needing a big win over Italy at Wembley as after that game had been played Italy still had one game left in qualifying which they were always going to win (home to Luxembourg). As it turned out England would probably have needed at least a 4 goal win over Italy to have the remotest chance of qualifying but only won 2-0 which meant all Italy had to do was beat Luxembourg which they did by 3-0 and that’s the size of GD which condemned England to another summerless World Cup.

Of course this was a time without recognised international dates and it seemed associations just slotted games into any available midweek (you could then as European competitions didn’t ponce about with stupid group stages in their tournaments) and so England had played 2 qualifiers before Italy even started their campaign.

I support Wales.

[Sutekh]

I hated Scotland for qualifying at our expense but I have to say I loved that goal and at that stage they were 3-1 up needing just one more goal to get through.

I saw a doc on MacLeod a year or so ago. It was poignant and in the end I thought he was a decent bloke

Scotland didn’t qualify at England’s expense. England failed to qualify as they simply couldn’t smash the then “cr@p” sides in their group by as much as Italy smashed them, the deciding games really being at home to Finland (2-1 v 6-1) and the rather limp display in Luxembourg (0-2 v 1-4).

Those results left England really needing a big win over Italy at Wembley as after that game had been played Italy still had one game left in qualifying which they were always going to win (home to Luxembourg). As it turned out England would probably have needed at least a 4 goal win over Italy to have the remotest chance of qualifying but only won 2-0 which meant all Italy had to do was beat Luxembourg which they did by 3-0 and that’s the size of GD which condemned England to another summerless World Cup.

Of course this was a time without recognised international dates and it seemed associations just slotted games into any available midweek (you could then as European competitions didn’t ponce about with stupid group stages in their tournaments) and so England had played 2 qualifiers before Italy even started their campaign.

I support Wales.

So you do, sorry forgot that bit

At least you got a little bit of payback this time round by dumping the team that had dumped them.

[Zip]

I had a World Cup Esso football collection for 1970 and again vaguely remember filling some of the scores in.

The front of this collection was a pic of Bobby Moore held aloft by his teammates in 1966. He was beaming and looked like a film star. I wanted to be him. He was my first sporting hero.

Like this one? I’ve got one somewhere in amongst all the junk you get throughout life.

Nope. It was an album with pics of each country’s playing squad.
I also have an Esso collection of football club badges which I collected in the early 70’s. For some reason Reading FC were not included.

[Sutekh]

I had a World Cup Esso football collection for 1970 and again vaguely remember filling some of the scores in.

The front of this collection was a pic of Bobby Moore held aloft by his teammates in 1966. He was beaming and looked like a film star. I wanted to be him. He was my first sporting hero.

Like this one? I’ve got one somewhere in amongst all the junk you get throughout life.

Nope. It was an album with pics of each country’s playing squad.
I also have an Esso collection of football club badges which I collected in the early 70’s. For some reason Reading FC were not included.

Not Esso, but the FKS (equivalent of Panini or Merlin these days) World Cup collection




Still can’t help but feel the days of FKS “sticker” collections were just so much better than the standardised “everything looks the same” interchangeable dross produced by Panini and Merlin these days. A lot of FKS collections used to have pen pics of each player and the pictures tended to be wildly different e.g some players pics taken of that player in a game while other pics were the standard head and shoulders. And of course due to late transfers there’d always be one or two pics using very early photo shop techniques where a player’s new team kit would be transposed onto that player. Seem to remember you got around 7 cards in a pack for about 3p in 1973. Now you get just 5 stickers in a pack that costs 90p and collections these days have lots of extra utterly pointless pics of the same players to pack out collections to ridiculous sizes.

[Zip]

Like this one? I’ve got one somewhere in amongst all the junk you get throughout life.

Nope. It was an album with pics of each country’s playing squad.
I also have an Esso collection of football club badges which I collected in the early 70’s. For some reason Reading FC were not included.

Not Esso, but the FKS (equivalent of Panini or Merlin these days) World Cup collection

That's the one.

[Winston Biscuit]

[Vision]

I remember this. It was the Reading crowd for That Robin Friday goal.

[Hendo]

I remember this. It was the Reading crowd for That Robin Friday goal 1hr before kick off.

[From Despair To Where?]

My abiding g World Cup memory.

1998.

My dad test drove a Vauxhall and got entered into a prize draw. Lo and behold, he won 2 tickets to the World Cup Final, what with Opel being a main sponsor. .

He had no interest in football so said I could have the tickets.

I took a day off work and drove to the nearest passport office (in Newport) to get a passport issued on the day. 3hrs and I'm 2 from the front of the queue when my dad rings me (yes, I had a mobile phone in 1998) to tell me that it was an all expenses paid weekend in Paris including a trip to the opera and a gala dinner and he was going to keep the tickets and go with my mum.

Fair play to him but I was gutted, mainly because I'd hatched a naive plan to go to Paris and flog the tickets on the black market for £2k apiece.

[South Coast Royal]

I remember this. It was the Reading crowd for That Robin Friday goal 1hr before kick off.

Just spotted myself in the crowd.

[Franchise FC]

I remember this. It was the Reading crowd for That Robin Friday goal 1hr before kick off.

Just spotted myself in the crowd.

I was stood with Lux so give us a minute or two to look ......

[South Coast Royal]

Just spotted myself in the crowd.

I was stood with Lux so give us a minute or two to look ......

So that makes at least 3 of us on here.

[Loafer]

I just finished watching the (original R9) Ronaldo docu on BBC

What a oxf*rd player he was and completely forgot how great he was in his peak and how great he was in 2002 world cup