Look at photographs or film clips from the 1966 World Cup final at Wembley and you will see there is something missing: the flag of St George. Most of the flags being waved in the crowd are Union Jacks. This was still a time when Englishness and Britishness were essentially coterminous or considered to be interchangeable, by the English at least, and when the United Kingdom could be rationalised as, in the words of the Cambridge historian David Reynolds,“a mini-English empire”.
Fabio Capello, the Italian hardman who managed the England football team from 2008-12, describes the 1966 World Cup triumph as the “returning ghost” of our national game. It's an astute observation because we are haunted by the events of that radiant July afternoon when Alf Ramsey's side, captained by the blond-haired gentleman East Ender Bobby Moore, defeated Germany 4-2 after extra time.
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