Did You Know… life in 1960s Britain: The Year England Won the World Cup, With Thanks to Pickles the Dog

 

When people think of 1966, one thing immediately comes to mind: England winning the World Cup. Sixty years later, and with the World Cup of 2026 about to start, England will try again to add a second win and end “sixty years of hurt”.

But 1966 stands out for so many reasons. 

Even today, football fans can recite the famous words of commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme as Geoff Hurst iced victory over West Germany.

“Some people are on the pitch… they think it’s all over… it is now!”

And it was. By four goals to two, England lifted the trophy, and little Nobby Styles, all five feet, six inches of him, went on a merry dance around the pitch with the trophy on his head.

It was a World Cup that gave people many lasting memories, including one that happened four months before England lifted the trophy.

That famous World Cup trophy was stolen.

And if it hadn’t been for an ordinary dog named Pickles, football history might have been very different.

The Biggest Football Tournament on Earth

The summer of 1966 was an exciting time in Britain. The swinging sixties were in full flow, with The Beatles at the height of their fame, and, for the first time, the World Cup was to be held in England. 

In 1960, England had been chosen as the host nation for the 1966 tournament over rival bids from West Germany and Spain.

For the first time, football was coming home.

Hosting the tournament became a matter of national pride. Actually winning it in front of a national audience was something that dreams were made of. But before the football started, the famous Jules Rimet Trophy, awarded to the World Cup winners, was sent on a tour of the country as part of the build-up.

Then disaster struck.

The Day the World Cup Was Stolen

On 20 March 1966, the trophy was on display at Westminster Central Hall in London as part of a stamp exhibition. Security was arranged, but unlike today, when cameras and sensors can monitor 24/7, the trophy was not under constant surveillance. It was during a brief period when the guards were on patrol, or distracted, that thieves got inside the building and removed the trophy from its display case.

Did You Know… Life In 1960s/70s Britain: You Could Only Watch Three Television Channels?

 

BBC1, BBC2 and ITV — and sometimes nothing at all.

In 1960s and ’70s Britain, television was a very different experience. Today, there are hundreds of channels to choose from, with satellite, cable, and the internet giving options from around the world. It’s now possible to spend more time scrolling endlessly looking for something to watch than actually watching.

There was a time when the choice was simple.

In the early 1960s, there were just three television channels: BBC1, BBC2, and ITV. And BBC2 didn’t arrive until 1964.

And that was it.

A Nation Watching the Same Family Favourites

With so few options, television became a shared national experience in a way that’s hard to imagine today. Families across the country watched the same programmes at the same time.

Favourite programmes were watched by millions. When the weekly stats came out showing what we had watched, the top programmes would often have viewing figures of ten to twenty million.

And there were times when everyone did seem to be watching at the same time.

England’s world cup win over West Germany in 1966, shown live by both BBC and ITV, was watched by 32.3 million people.

The Apollo 13 splashdown was watched by 28.6 million.

I was too young for England’s win, but I do remember watching a number of Apollo splashdowns. Thirteen must have been one of them.

The next day, conversations at work or school often began with:

“Did you see that last night?”

And most people had.

Big moments on television felt bigger because everyone experienced them together.

BBC1, BBC2 and ITV

Each channel had its own identity.

BBC1 was the main channel. The BBC had been around for years. The first radio and then television broadcaster in Britain. It was why we had a television licence. Because of the licence, it was also advertisement free.

ITV was the commercial alternative. Each region had its own ITV channel, like Thames TV, Anglia and Grenada. It had many popular shows, but as soon as those advertisements came on, someone would shout out, “Not another one.” The steady flow of breaks for commercials were never popular.

I never came across anyone who ever said they bought something because they saw an ad “on the telly”.

BBC2 was launched in 1964, and was considered a little more experimental, highbrow, and initially not available across the whole of the country. I seem to remember that it was the home of anything a little different, not seen as mainstream.

Even Fawlty Towers was originally broadcast on BBC 2, in 1975 and 79.

No Daytime TV

And television didn’t run all day.

For much of the 60s and 70s, daytime broadcasting was limited.

There were programmes for schools, and also the Open University. Mostly on the BBC. The average OU lecture was presented by someone with long hair, a beard and wearing corduroy trousers. They might have a blackboard behind them covered in diagrams of thermodynamics, or of the vote share of parties during the Weimar Republic in Germany.

If you turned over to ITV, you might be presented with a hiss and a blank screen, nothing to watch there during the day. Screens for all channels were often blank for hours at a time, until the official start time of the days programmes.

Morning and afternoon television as we know it today, simply didn’t exist.

For children, this meant that if you were home during the day, there was nothing to watch — other than those programmes for schools. Television was something that happened in the evening, not something you dipped into throughout the day.

The lack of daytime television was in part due to government restrictions on the number of hours that television could be shown each day. The law was changed in 1972 when the Conservative government lifted all broadcasting hours restrictions.

ITV were the first to take advantage of the new law. In 1972, they introduced an afternoon schedule. The BBC didn't change. Their daytime schedule might gave us a selection of pages of Ceefax teletext, rather than the testcard, but, daytime television didn't arrive on the BBC until October 1986.

Closedown

Perhaps the most striking difference of all between then and now was what happened at night. There was no 24/7 television. No late-night scrolling. No “just one more episode to watch” of binge viewing. When the television for the night stopped, it stopped. At night, it closed down.

Except, in a way, it typically didn’t.

A few things happened to end our day.

That Friday Feeling… A Journey back in time to 1966, 1968 and 1970

Here are three things that we may never see again.

1) A pay packet with actual money in it (but, in this case, not much money). So low, that they paid no income tax.

2) England winning the World Cup.

The 1966 World Cup, at Wembley Stadium.

By a score of four goals to two. It is a scoreline that every English football fan remembers. Alas, it will never happen again, as West Germany no longer exists. Now, England have to play the whole of Germany.

3) House prices this low (I think this one is a certainty).

There was a time when five grand could buy you a house in Britain. Semi-detached as well, with gardens, front, and back — and a garage.

And they were still being built with a chimney!

But I suppose how low pay was for some — see number one, five grand would have been a lot back then.

Son of My Father - “They Think It's All Over, It Is Now...”

                                           

They think it’s all over…it is now. The famous last words remembered from England's 4-2 World Cup victory over West Germany at Wembley Stadium in 1966.

I was too young to remember that game, but I do have my own personal football memory from the 1960s. It would have been the late 1960s as I was till at Junior school, and I was playing for the school football team on council run pitches. Getting to the ground was a long journey, usually by bus. One day we missed our stop, and had to wait for the driver to have his tea break before he turned around to take us back.

"I won't charge you this time." He cheerily said as he drove away. 

By the time we got to the ground, the game was underway, but with everything to play for. We sat on the subs bench and waited. I don't think the coach was happy.

It was not quite 1966 World Cup level, but I played.

From Son of My Father, a further extract.

I played for the school football team, but it almost didn’t happen. We played on a Council run park that was on the outskirts of the city. The facilities were basic at best, and there were three football pitches.

Boys in the school team or close to selection played on the main pitch. The game was usually between two sides picked by the school football captain and the football coach. I was never picked, probably because I wasn’t a mate of the captain, and the coach hadn’t seen me play. I went and played on one of the other pitches. Pitch number three it was called. I played against boys who were not very good. At that level I was pretty good. I seemed to have a knack for scoring and most weeks, against inferior opposition, I would score several goals.

During one game I noticed that the coach was watching from the sidelines. I thought nothing of it until the following week when, as the teams were being picked for the main game, he pointed his finger at me when it was his turn and he said, “come on lad, you are too good for the other game.” Then he said, “Oh, what’s your name…” I told him, and he replied, “right, I’m playing you up front today. Good luck.”

The rest, as the saying goes, is history. Admittedly not that big in the greater scheme of things, but big for me at the time as no one had ever picked me for anything before. I wasn’t in with the right boys that would ever pick me for their sides, whether it was for games or playtime in the school yard.

I must have done something to impress the coach because when the school squad was picked for the first game of the season, I was on the subs bench. The other players on the team looked at me as if to say, who are you…

And so began my school football career. Was it life changing? Not really, but just to get picked I must have done something right. 

My Dad never watched me play football, and it never crossed my mind at the time that he wasn’t there. It was years later when it did occur to me. 

Mind you, most parents didn't turn up back then. Perhaps they thought that we had no chance of progressing, or being spotted by a scout. Football was just a game we played. No one really expected us to make the big time.

That’s just the way it was.