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 1966. The 1970 finals took place in Mexico at the dawn of a new decade when, for the first time, some folk were able to watch the action unfold on newfangled colour television.
Mexico ‘70 became a benchmark for the so-called beautiful game, symbolised by the brilliant yellow of the Brazil team in all their glory. For football fans in pubs, workplaces and schoolyards, it was more or less accepted who the world’s best players were at the time. If the likes of George Best, Bobby Charlton, Eusebio and Franz Beckenbauer were high up the list, it was Brazil's number 10, Pele (already a World Cup winner in 1958 and 1962) who by general consensus was the finest player on the planet His legend would be cemented during the 1970 World Cup finals.
