1966 World Cup Success

Images of Bobby Moore and Geoff Hurst are embedded on the consciousness of all sports fans despite this being the fortieth year since England conquered all in the World Cup. I predicted last week that cricket would struggle to compete against the football festival in Germany. As I walked around Bath on Thursday evening searching for a pub that would be showing the England vs. Sri Lanka Twenty20 contest, my worst fears were confirmed. Wall-to-wall Sweden vs. Paraguay was all that was on offer.

As well as sport’s biggest global competition, England also hosted the first world tournament in limited-overs cricket in 1966. The 1912 triangular tournament featuring Australia, England and South Africa was the first ever competition featuring three teams, but was of the longer format. The 1966 version was also a threesome, with a World XI joining the touring West Indians to meet up at the end of the season for a round-robin contest at Lord’s.

The tournament was sponsored by Rothmans cigarettes, who had already associated themselves with one-day cricket by supporting travelling International Cavaliers contests against County sides on a Sunday, and was billed as the World Cup.

The competition took place against the backdrop of discussion about how to make cricket appeal to a wider public. Falling attendances at county matches was causing serious concern. In 1947, the number who paid for admission totalled two million, but within a decade that number had dropped to 1,200,000 and by 1966 to just over 500,000. The then Times cricket correspondent bemoaned the lack of variety, skill and inventive captaincy on offer at the average cricket match.

The England team was experiencing one of its too-regular cyclical downturns. In 18 home Tests against West Indies, Australia and South Africa, over the previous four years, England had won only twice, and for the first time on record, in 1966 had three captains in the same season, MJK Smith, Colin Cowdrey and Brian Close.

Desperate times allow for innovation, and if cricket was to compete with football, it had to offer something to the millions basking in the success of the shorter and easier to play game. That would be the one-day contest.

England won the 1966 World Cup by winning both of their games. Each of their players was rewarded with £100 in prize money. Interest though was patchy and three days of cricket featuring a wealth of world talent only persuaded 13,000 to pay at the turnstiles. And although the series was covered by the BBC, it had to share airtime with the racing from Goodwood.

The competition was repeated the following year, but came to an end once John Player moved onto scene to support the newly established one-day Sunday League. John Player would only plough their funds into cricket if they were guaranteed television coverage. The BBC was happy with showing the star-studded Cavaliers games, so the TCCB banned their players from competing in them.

MJK Smith spoke of how the players enjoyed playing the one-day game, and that they were enthusiastic for it to continue. Forty years on and we can point to these developments, which were possibly a consequence of the football tournament, as the advent of commercialism in cricket. England’s inability to master the subtleties of the one-day format may mean that the 1966 World Cup may be their last for some time.

Contrasting World Cups

The World Cup has started, and for a month the rest of the sporting world struggles for the crumbs of coverage that football allows it. The nation maybe absorbed by the state of Wayne Rooney’s foot, but for the Morning Star reader looking for something a little deeper when following sport, there are the great clashes, where politics is played out by twenty-two footballers on an level playing field. Consider, for example, the rare opportunity that Angola had to take on the old colonial-masters Portugal. And whilst the draw makes it unlikely, the US playing Iran would be some prospect.

The World Cup is the biggest global sporting event. Up until the latter stages of the nineteenth century, though, cricket was the most popular spectator sport in England. By the century’s close it had been surpassed by football. In a familiar story, cricket had failed to adapt to society’s changing conditions and became increasingly associated with exclusiveness.

When the trade unions won the half-day on Saturday many workers took up playing and watching sport. But it was to football rather than cricket that the majority turned. Workers didn’t go to sporting events for quiet and decorum but to support their local side. Football gave them the opportunity to do this vocally, cricket did not.

The Test series against Pakistan begins after the final of the World Cup. The one-day internationals will be up against the football. Some may argue that this is the only format in which cricket can compete, and I’m sure that all the games will be played in front of capacity crowds.

Yet, in contrast with football, I don’t believe that the England team knows which direction it is heading. Injuries have deprived them of at least five players who would be considered as starters in next March’s cricket World Cup and a further six have been dropped from the squad who lost heavily to India earlier this year. Six newcomers have never played international one-day cricket, and Tim Bresnan and Glen Chapple took all but the clairvoyant by surprise.

England’s Four-Year Plan to win the World Cup has been redrafted more times than David Cameron’s thesis on modern-day Conservatism. This suggests that the one-day game is the inferior cousin of the Test match. I have no problem with this, except that the World Cup does provide the spotlight that cricket needs as it competes with the Premiership’s millions. An English early exit, unlike the tournament in Germany, will lead to a lack of interest.

Then there is the format of the World Cup. Football’s version has teams from every continent, and whilst we can predict the handful from which the winner will emerge, it is fascinating to watch the different styles and frequent surprises. Cricket’s version is all about witling the numbers down to the eight teams who have the resources to play professional cricket on a full-time basis. The ICC includes over 100 members representing all continents. A truly world event would raise cricket’s profile. This will not happen under the current format that rewards the strong over the weak. A level-playing playing field makes sport more interesting. The football World Cup in Japan and South Korea in 2002 threw out the form-book and made every game unpredictable. The Twenty20 format could do the same for cricket.