The summer football fever started early in Hendon, North London, when a tin foil replica of Arsenal’s Premier League trophy was rigged up to some traffic lights and thousands of motorists sounded their horns when passing it. Now, the England bunting is going up.
But it will take something spectacular from Thomas Tuchel’s side to eclipse the extraordinary collective memory of a group of people who have found themselves thrown together in later life at a handsome building which played an indelible part in the England team’s summer of ‘66.
Hendon Hall was the hotel, eight miles from Wembley, where Sir Alf Ramsay’s squad was based, and as a residential care home it is now a place where at least six people in the crowd for the Wembley final against West Germany live.
Their individual vivid recollections of that day – one behind the goal ducking when Sir Geoff Hurst’s hat-trick shot headed straight for his face before hitting the net; several becoming convinced they would miss kick-off when the No 83 London bus became stuck in morning traffic; not a single word of antagonistic singing about the Germans – forms a previously untold narrative of the nation’s most famous football day.
There was absence of celebrity around Sir Alf’s players – unimaginable, now – as they lived out their tournament at Hendon Hall that summer. Sir Bobby Charlton and Gordon Banks described taking a walk around Hendon village to relieve tension on the morning of the final and being barely recognised.
It was the same when Sir Alf decided the squad would walk down the hill to watch Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines at the Hendon Odeon, on the eve of the final.
Sidney Perez was at the 1966 World Cup final – he is now a resident of Hendon Hall where the England team stayed during the tournament. When a full screening of the final takes place in the home, he seizes the chance of an anxiety-free re-run, celebrating Hurst’s goals with gusto
Captain Bobby Moore holds aloft the Jules Rimet trophy in 1966 after leading England to glory
‘I remember the net bulging towards me like it was yesterday,’ says Geoff Goldston, 85, who was at Wembley that day to see Geoff Hurst’s hat-trick goal
The building’s current residents tell a different story, based on the scene which greeted them at the stadium in late morning that day. John Forshaw, 76, and Edward Cohen, 86, describe the inside of the stadium being packed at midday, fully three hours before kick-off.
‘Awful traffic. That No 83 bus! The relief when we walked in. The smell of hot dogs,’ are Mr Forshaw’s memories.
Geoff Goldston, aged 85 now but 23 back then, woke early and took the Tube to Wembley Park, remaining rooted to the same spot when Hurst powered towards the goal he was standing behind, to despatch England’s fourth goal.
‘I was mesmerised by the fact he was running towards me and there was no one in front of him,’ he says. ‘We were begging him to bury it but when he shot, it was heading straight towards me. I ducked, but then it hit the net. I remember, like it was yesterday, the net bulging towards me.’
His ticket, one of a bundle to watch every England game which he’d bought months in advance, cost 10 shillings and sixpence – equivalent to less than £9 today – and the tension he felt was in part borne of the deep-rooted rivalry with West Germany, barely 20 years after the end of World War II.
‘It did matter because of the War. Memories were still fresh,’ he says. ‘But there was a respect about that. There was no singing. No anti-German chants.’
He wasn’t one of the many who poured on to the pitch that day because he had to catch a bus to work at White City Stadium greyhound track. ‘They didn’t believe me when I told them where I’d been.’
Another of the witnesses to that glorious summer – brought together for an event to mark Care Home Open Week – is Neil Rioch, a ballboy who threw the ball back to England’s Martin Peters within seconds of the kick-off. He thus lays claim to being the first Englishman to touch the orange Slazenger ‘Challenge 4-Star’ ball in the final that day.
Residents cheer on England again whilst watching the 1966 World Cup final replay at a special event at Hendon Hall
Queen Elizabeth II presents the World Cup trophy to Moore
The ballboys changed in a room above the England dressing room and it is the old Wembley tunnel’s slope up to the pitch that Mr Rioch most recalls: ‘gradually seeing the crowd and then being hit by that wall of noise’.
Mr Rioch, who as a professional footballer later played against Hurst in the US, when his own Portland Timbers side faced Hurst’s Seattle Sounders in the NASL, was positioned half-way up the Wembley pitch on the Royal Box side.
He walked across the hallowed turf at half-time. ‘I was desperate to see how it felt but I made a sharp exit when I saw the Royal Marines Band marching towards me at pace.’
Hendon Hall’s current residents also include Peter Lawrence, whose own story of listening to the match commentary on a tinny radio while on a cross-Channel ferry to France is also testament to kinder times.
Mr Lawrence, 83, a retired dentist, was then a 24-year-old medical student heading to southern Italy with mates in his friend’s sister’s racing green MGB. ‘Our transistor radio had a plastic aerial, and we had to find the best spot on the ferry to get snatches of the commentary,’ he says.
‘We were halfway across the channel when the game went to extra time and Hurst’s last goal went in as we docked.
‘There were half a dozen little groups following the game – English and German – and the banter with the Germans wasn’t aggressive. None of us were in mind to leave when we reached Calais. We all repaired to a little place there for a celebratory drink, then hugged the Germans and set off. We vowed to keep in touch but never did.’
Another match-going resident, Sidney Perez, shared the tension others felt inside Wembley. ‘We were 1-0 down fairly early on. It was exciting but worrying,’ he says. When a full screening of the final takes place in the home, he seizes the chance of an anxiety-free re-run, celebrating Hurst’s goals with gusto.
Geoff Cohen, Perez and Peter Lawrence are residents of Hendon Hall where England stayed before the 1966 final.
England’s Bobby Charlton signs autographs as he leaves Hendon Hall Hotel during England’s World Cup campaign in 1966
The England team leaves Hendon Hall Hotel and heads for the 1966 Wembley final at Wembley as well-wishers line the streets
Buses drive up what is now ‘Wembley Way’ to get fans to the World Cup final in 1966
The delight shared by these witnesses to a moment of football history reflects the vibrancy of life in care homes which the awareness week is designed to convey. Vishal Shah, chairman of the Championing Social Care (CSC) organisation, says: ‘Care homes have somehow been defined by difficulties but they bring huge variety and opportunity to people and in many cases are at the heart of communities.’
CSC’s Mitesh Danak adds: ‘The care sector workforce can sometimes be overlooked. So many people rightly paused to clap the NHS staff during Covid but this sector did so much, too.’
The walls of Hendon Hall’s ’66 Bar’ have been filled with mementos of the final by Signature, the care home operator which has run the place since 2018, but the memories surpass everything.
’It was 60 years ago and I’m still talking about it,’ says Mr Goldston. ‘Little did I know back then that it would be an ice-breaker with people I met throughout my life.’
