New Year 2006-7 Part One

Decades have a habit of lingering on beyond their allotted ten years. Or they cut themselves off early: the ’20s didn’t quite make it to 1930, jumping as they did from their stockbroker’s window ledge on the 55th floor the morning after the Crash.

The 60s, in English footballing terms, persisted beyond poor Peter Bonetti’s unhappy quarter final against West Germany. I think they were gone before Ramsey, though – the 60s ended at Wembley against Gunter Netzer. Netzer’s West Germany was the best team that country produced, and the belief and expectation he and they created in ’72 and ’74 carried lesser German teams to success for the next twenty years. It’s hard to find any footage of them on the web – I’d love to have some of the Wembley game, but this, of the European Championship Final of 1972, in grainy B and W, is the best I can come up with.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-etdpFe3lA]