If those of a certain age justifiably remember English domestic football in the 1970s as a golden era for the game, a bitter irony is that it was a decade of major underachievement for the England national team.
With the 2022 World Cup finals in Qatar well under way, we're looking back at previous tournaments, recalling the Newcastle United connections, and remembering what else was going on in those years. So far, we've covered the World Cup finals from 1950 to 1970.
Come the 1974 finals in West Germany, a shock result against Poland at Wembley Stadium a year earlier meant England had agonisingly failed to qualify. Poland goalkeeper Jan Tomaszewski, infamously dubbed a “circus clown in gloves” by Brian Clough on TV before kick-off, pulled out a heroic performance to prevent Sir Alf Ramsey’s side achieving the win they required to reach the finals.
