For most people football during the sixties had its own language and vocabulary. It was the decade that gave us Alf Ramsey’s ‘Wingless Wonders’. Then there was the football’s very first pop star El Beatle -George Best who, with the ball at his feet, fell hopelessly in love with it. Best was the most outstanding all round player ever to appear on an English ground and for most of the sixties brought a whole new quality and texture to the world game.

It was at the national home of football, Wembley stadium in 1966 that the England team enjoyed its finest hour as Alf's boys won the World Cup. With Ball, Peters and Stiles bossing in midfield, the Germans had no answer to the English, Bobby Moore giving one of his most immaculate performances as captain.

This was a time of experiment and revolution in the English game since Alf had already tried a succession of players on the wing. But he stuck to his guns during the 66 World Cup Finals preferring sweat and graft to the more cunning ploys of the South Americans. With Bobby Charlton firing in his thunderbolts from midfield and Nobby Stiles so tireless, England had no need of the wide boys. And one Englishman in particular shot his way into the history books by becoming the first (and to date only) player to score a World Cup Final hat-trick. any felt that Geoff Hurst's second goal didn't cross the line and the controversy still reigns 40 years on. But England did win the cup and were crowned champions of the world.

That wasn't the only contoversy in football in the 1960s. The sport had its scandalous moments and in the early sixties when three players Tony Kay, Peter Swan and David Layne were caught up in infamous match fixing outrage. Other notorious examples involved matches between York and Oldham as well as Lincoln and Brentford. In Scotland, the Scottish Under 23 team were also caught red handed. Goalkeeper Dick Beattie, Walter Bingley, Jackie Fountain and Harry Harris were all alleged to have taken money for the result of a game.

In 1964 football, alive to its commercial possibilities, found a new friend. Football on TV gave the game greater media coverage and most importantly a financial shot in the arm. In September 1964 BBC2 broadcast its first TV football magazine programme. At Saturday tea time Kenneth Wolstenholme, presented a new programme called Match of the Day which broadcast highlights of Liverpool against Arsenal from Anfield.

Two years later Wolstenholme was given his dream ticket when the BBC used its cameras for the World Cup Finals in England. When Geoff Hurst scored England’s decisive fourth goal against West Germany, Wolstenholme also gave football on the box its first immortal catch phrase. ‘They think its all over...it is now!’