Martin Polley

King Alfred's College of Higher Education, Winchester

The 1966 football World Cup finals were held in England. Famously, the England team won the competition - for the only time in its history to date - in a thrilling final against West Germany that ended 4-2 after extra time. This event has become an icon in English sporting history, summed up well by Clarke and Critcher:

It is said that most people can remember where they were and what they were doing when told of the death of President Kennedy. As memorable, is the day England's team won the World Cup in 1966.1

Even for those of us too young to remember the event, or born after it, the Final has, like Kennedy's death, become a received memory. Images of the event are repeatedly recycled in English sports and non-sports media, particularly during other major international footballing events. Two recent examples can suffice: the public expressions of sympathy and goodwill towards the retired Sir Alf Ramsey, who had managed England's successful team in 1966, when he suffered a stroke during the 1998 World Cup finals; and the tabloid newspapers' battle during the months before to the 1996 European Championships (also hosted in England) to get the 1966 final match ball back from Germany for England's 1966 hat-trick scorer Geoff Hurst.2 Unsurprisingly, with this kind of resonance, the great success story of 1966 has been exhaustively written up. A number of surveys of the finals were produced immediately after the events, clearly with a view to the large market of people interested in reading about England's success.3 Since then, it has been covered by a number of historians, from sporting, journalistic, and academic backgrounds.4 A number of people involved, from players to journalists, have covered it in their memoirs;5 and it has even provided the inspiration for some popular fictional writing and pop music.6 As Clarke and Critcher noted in 1986, `a series of images'7 from the final are widely known and understood: and from the recent popular obsession with Kenneth Wolstenholme's most famous commentary, `Some people are on the pitch, they think it's all over ... It is now', to the nostalgic resonance of the `thirty years of hurt' in the 1996 and 1998 England anthem this received memory currently shows no signs of fading.

However, as well as the drama and - for English football supporters - glory of the final itself, a number of other images from the tournament as a whole have also attained almost mythical status in English sporting memory. The most memorable include the `brutal, inexplicable' foul on Brazil's Pelé by Portugal's Morais;8 the ill-tempered quarter-final between England and Argentina that saw Rattin, the Argentine captain, sent off and the England manager, Alf Ramsey, describe his opponents as `animals';9 and the performance of the North Korean team.10 It is this national side, making their first and to date only appearance in the World Cup finals, that caused the less well-known diplomatic problem that occupied the British government and the football authorities in the run up to the finals. Widely seen as the tournament's outsiders, they managed to draw against Chile and beat the highly-rated Italy during the group stage. The 1-0 win over Italy has been described by Freddi as `an astounding result, perhaps the most popular in any World Cup', a shock qualified by Wolstenholme as one that rivalled the USA's victory over England in the 1950 World Cup.11 In their quarter-final match against hotly favoured Portugal, they took a 3-0 lead in the first twenty minutes before letting in five goals. The North Koreans became firm favourites with crowds, particularly in the north-east where their group matches were played. Moreover, the images of the team as sporting giantkillers and naive underdogs have endured in subsequent writing about the competition. From The Times' match report of the Italy match - `We came expecting the inevitable. We left having witnessed the impossible'12 - through Glanville's eulogy for the `little Koreans' with their `splendid spirit and refreshing sportsmanship',13 to the brief history of the tournament on the official 1998 World Cup website with its coverage of the North Koreans as the `surprise' of 1966,14 there is little variation in the - occasionally patronising - enthusiasm shown for this team of `frail Orientals'.15

What has been absent from these representations of the North Koreans - and , indeed, from discussions of the 1966 World Cup itself - has been an account of the diplomatic crisis that the Korean presence caused. With the emphasis on them being concerned with orientalism, exoticism, and sporting surprises - summed up finely in Geoffrey Green's view of the North Koreans as a `mysterious element from the East who ... [set] the commentators a problem or two with their ringing names that sound like waterfalls'16 - little has been done on the politics. Dennis Howell, who was sports minister in 1966, covered it briefly in his 1990 memoirs; and Jack Rollin made passing reference to it in his 1966 account:17 but these are exceptions. However, with the British government's papers on the affair now available under the 30 year rule of the 1968 Public Records Act, the diplomatic background to the competition can be explored in some detail. This exploration can fill a gap in the historiography of a well-known event in sports history. It can also serve as a case study in the sports diplomacy of the Cold War period, and as a case study in the sports diplomacy of a British government that had recently formalised its attitude towards sport. This will be achieved through a brief narrative of the diplomatic background, followed by thematic consideration of three questions: Why did the British Foreign Office involve itself? What were the Foreign Office's objectives? How was the involvement characterised?

The North Korean crisis

North Korea qualified for the 1966 World Cup finals by an unorthodox route. The normal group basis was disrupted for Asia for 1966, as sixteen countries' federations boycotted the event. FIFA's allocation of just one place in the finals for Africa, Asia, and Oceania was seen as too restrictive, and the following withdrew in protest: Algeria, Cameroons, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Libya, Mali, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal South Korea, Sudan, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates.18 The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Australia were the only non-boycotting federations. Qualification for the one available place was settled by a two match play-off, staged in Pnom-Penh in November 1965. North Korea won both matches, 6-1 and 3-1 respectively.

Their qualification was immediately problematic to the British government: the UK did not recognise the DPRK, and, on hearing the news of the victories over Australia, the Foreign Office identified a number of potential problems. Admission of the North Korean team to the UK might be seen to imply recognition, particularly if the ceremonies at matches involved flags and national anthems. Their presence might offend British Korean War veterans (although this was a minor consideration as no problems relating to West Germany's presence were discussed in these terms). More centrally, there was a genuine fear in this Cold War context that any exceptions made for representatives of the DPRK would be taken as precedents by `national' representatives of other unrecognised nations, most particularly the German Democratic Republic; and that the admission of the North Koreans would damage British relations with South Korea.

In the light of these problems, the Foreign Office briefly considered the simple solution of refusing visas to the North Koreans.19 Such a solution might have worked in previous decades of British sporting diplomacy: the classic precedent was the Labour Government's refusal of visas in 1930 to a Soviet football team on the grounds that the visit was propagandist, not sporting, in tone and intent.20 However, such an approach was not viable in the mid-1960s, particularly in relation to such a significant international sporting event as the World Cup finals, with its attendant media interest, and particularly in the context of changing governmental thinking on sport. The Labour Party had won the General Election in October 1964, and had shown their commitment to sport as a constructive leisure pursuit that could have high profile national benefits. The two main ways in which they had done this had been by establishing the Advisory Sports Council and appointing Birmingham MP and Football League referee Dennis Howell as Department of Education and Science Minister with Special Responsibility for Sport, a post with which the previous Conservative Government had briefly experimented.21 Moreover, the Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, had already committed a grant of up to £500,000 to help with the organisation of the World Cup.22 As Howell was quick to point out, any overt political disruption to this high profile event would be unpopular not only with football administrators and supporters, but also with British tax payers. The Foreign Office reflected on the visa solution, and realised that FIFA might remove the competition from England if the Government barred a duly-qualified team, and rejected it as too extreme: as Timms noted, if FIFA pulled out, `You can imagine what the papers would make of this. We would be accused of dragging politics into sport sabotaging British interests and so on.'23 Over the next seven months, from December 1965 until the North Koreans were knocked out at the quarter final stage by Portugal in July 1966, the Foreign Office, the Department of Education and Science, and the Football Association were in regular contact about how best to manage the diplomatic embarrassment of the necessary North Korean presence. These contacts were supported by well-resourced discussions between various Foreign Office departments - including Cultural Relations Department, with its sporting brief, Western Department for German parallels, and the Far Eastern Department, which led the discussion, due to its Korean remit - and through contacts with the British Embassy in Seoul and the South Korean Embassy in London.

The solutions eventually arrived at included the minimal usage of any national symbols, restrictions on formal presentations of the teams to government and royalty, and the insistence that the team play under the name of North Korea rather than their preferred and FIFA-recognised title of DPRK. These issues were faced and dealt with tactfully and diplomatically. The North Koreans came; the potential crisis was not only averted but also kept out of the press; and government and sport proved that despite their different agendas, they could work together. While the attitudes towards the `troublesome North Koreans'24 may not have been generous, they were kept quiet in the interests of successful crisis management.

Why did the Foreign Office get involved?

The basic answer to this question is that the Foreign Office had no choice. The North Koreans were members of FIFA, and they qualified for the finals under FIFA rules, however unusual their pathway due to the boycott. It was the British government's non-recognition of the DPRK - seen as part of the wider politics of alignment in the Cold War period - that created the problem, especially for such a country as the UK in which the administration of football was on a voluntary, non-statutory basis. As the department responsible for overseas relations and visas, the Foreign Office was thus drawn in. As we have seen, this was a period of growing structured involvement in sport, but this was taking the form of advice and funding rather than direction of policy from the centre. So, once the North Koreans had qualified, the Football Association immediately approached the Foreign Office for advice and co-operation. On 27 November 1965, Dennis Follows, the FA's Secretary, wrote to Michael Stewart, the Foreign Secretary:

Whilst I am not clear about the state of diplomatic relations with North Korea, I understand that the position is not normal. I hope thatno [sic] obstacle will be placed in the way of players, officials and supporters of North Korea coming to this country.25

The Foreign Office was pulled into the affair from another direction in the same week when John Lang of the Department of Education and Science asked them to study the problem and find a way of letting the team in despite the lack of recognition. His approach was sympathetic to the embarrassment that the North Korean presence might create, but he also expressed his `fervent hope' that they would be allowed in.26 The background to this hope lay in the fact that Lang's department, under Howell's leadership, had already pledged government funds to the World Cup, and were keen for the event to go well. The Foreign Office thus got involved because it had to. In this, the incident had much in common with other sports diplomacy of the period. Despite the formal recognition of international sport as a part of Cultural Relations Department's remit, and despite the growing relationship between the Foreign Office and some sports administrators that brought a lot of useful information the Foreign Office's way in the 1950s and 1960s,27 the Foreign Office's involvement was characteristically reactive rather than proactive. The reasons for the Foreign Office's involvement in the 1966 World Cup were therefore typical of the sports diplomacy of the period.

What were the Foreign Office's objectives?

With this in place, it is crucial to think about what the Foreign Office wanted out of the embarrassing situation. A number of desirable outcomes - both positive and negative - soon emerged. The basic point, clearly accepted as non-negotiable within the Foreign Office from a very early stage in this affair, was that nothing should be done to endanger the competition itself. This was present in Timms' minute of 24 November 1965 which reported that the North Koreans had `[t]houghtlessly' beaten Australia 9-2 on aggregate in the qualifying competition, and went on to stress the point quoted above that any obstruction from the Foreign Office would be very bad publicity.28 It was given more force in a minute from a Foreign Office legal advisor on 8 December, which suggested that the Foreign Office would have to `adopt more liberal rules about the participation of unrecognised "states" in sporting events', as the alternative would be to

face a public outcry, doubtless directed particularly against the F.O., because we had prevented these finals taking place in England on what would be regarded as purely doctrinaire grounds and - quite possibly - to face claims for compensation for losses suffered as a result of the cancellation.29

This view became enshrined in the Foreign Office's approach the following day, when Edward Bolland, Head of the Far Eastern Department, wrote a key submission, `North Korean Participation in the Finals of the World Cup'. Here, alongside outlining the maximum demands to be used in negotiating the conditions of North Korea's participation, he flagged the need for compromise if these conditions were not accepted by the Football Association and FIFA, `working on the assumption that H.M.G. cannot allow these finals to be transferred elsewhere solely on grounds of our non-recognition of North Korea'. The fear of `undesirable political repercussions'30 of forcing the World Cup to be moved or cancelled, combined with the fear of legal action in such a scenario, thus quickly became a bottom line, an interesting feature of the sports diplomacy of the period. Domestic and international considerations based around popular cultural activity in a democracy, and its international media coverage, outweighed what might have been the initial diplomatic instinct to refuse the non-recognised team into the country.

Above this bottom line, the Foreign Office's next desired outcome was to do everything possible to avoid the implication that the North Korean football team's presence signified official recognition of the DPRK. Again, this was based on legal advice of early December, and formally adopted in Bolland's 9 December paper. By April 1966 this line had become such an orthodoxy in Foreign Office dealings with the issue that one official described how the Foreign Office was trying to show `as much discrimination against them [the North Koreans] as possible'.31 The reasons for this were in part linked to the basic point of the UK's lack of relations with the DPRK: but they were also linked in discussions and in the assumptions behind the discussions to the effect that any implied recognition would have on South Korea and on the German situation. The former mattered because the UK was in relations with them, and was attempting as part of a broad NATO line to encourage co-operation with the west. The German aspect was based on the assumption that any courtesies extended to the North Koreans could be taken as precedents by future sports teams from the German Democratic Republic, which again might strain British relations with Bonn.

This desire to avoid the implication of recognition fed into the Foreign Office's conditions for North Korean entry that they took into discussions with the Football Association and FIFA. They mainly focused on three areas: the team's name; their contacts with British officials; and the display of national symbols. The naming aspect was that the team must play under the name of `North Korea', rather than as the DPRK. This was generally unproblematic, despite some evidence that the team officials tried to get their preferred title used at the reception for defeated quarter-finalists on 24 July 1966.32 The second issue, that of minimising formal contacts, was slightly more problematic, as it would have been very difficult to extend the discrimination so publicly and obviously. However, the opportunities were reduced, in particular with the decision to limit royal presentations to the opening match and the final: the planners knew that North Korea would not be in the former, to be played between England and Uruguay, and assumed that they would not be in the latter.

It was the final way of avoiding the implication of recognition - that of minimising national symbols - that created the most problems. Bolland's planning paper of 9 December specifically called for no flags, emblems, or insignia to be displayed, and no anthems to be played.33 Here, he was responding to Timms' original minute, which noted that the FA were `going to make a big thing of the finals.... Flags will be flown, National [sic] anthems will be played'.34 This was clearly seen as an expedient way of denying recognition: by rejecting the public and non-linguistic symbols of nationhood, it was hoped that the reality of that nation in the public mind would be dented. However, the Foreign Office's semiotics came unstuck when they met with the hard-headed empiricism of Department of Education and Science grants. At a meeting of all interested parties held on 14 December 1965 at the Foreign Office, Howell revealed that the government grants for the host clubs had included payments for flagpoles which were scheduled to fly the flags of all competing nations throughout each match:35 and this soon became the subject of a dispute between the Foreign Office and the Department of Education and Science.

Howell - who revealed in his memoirs his desire for the World Cup to be held in `a festival atmosphere ... [with] flags to be flown for all the competing nations'36 - told the Foreign Office that the lack of flags would lead to criticism from taxpayers and would annoy all other countries involved, and that the Foreign Office should `swallow [their] principles and fly the North Korean flag'.37 Various compromises were suggested to get out of this embarrassing situation, all of them designed to restrict the opportunities for flying the North Korean flag. The most complicated was for all countries' flags to fly at the opening match and the final; for each group's countries' flags to fly at the regionalised group stage; and for the flags of the countries still in the tournament to fly at all the quarter and semi- finals. In this reckoning, the North Korean flag would be seen only twice at Wembley and three times in the north-east, a central assumption being that North Korea would be knocked out in the group stage.38 However, Howell attacked this as a `bastard arrangement' which would leave some flagpoles uncovered at some matches, and which would be seen, domestically and overseas, as `a device to minimise flying the flag of one country and of reducing all countries to the same miserable level'.39 The Foreign Office backed down on this point, allowing all flags to be flown for all matches.40

The Foreign Office was more successful over national anthems, with all parties agreeing rapidly to drop anthems from all bar the opening match and the final, again assuming that North Korea would not get that far. This position was agreed in a meeting between Howell and Lord Walston, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, of 10 February 1966,41 and was agreed by the meeting of the secretaries of the staging clubs on 17 February 1966 (although the minutes of this meeting do not reveal the source of the suggestions).42

The Foreign Office thus engaged with this problem from a clear position on what they wanted, and what they were prepared to negotiate. The acceptance of maximum conditions by different departments involved, based on the knowledge that overt politicisation would be embarrassing but that any chance to signify normality should be avoided if possible, suggests a realistic level of crisis management. Moreover, the Foreign Office's preparedness actually to concede on a major point, that of flags, shows their ability to compromise.

How was the intervention characterised?

This question can be considered under three categories. internal; interdepartmental. and external.

Internally, the Foreign Office's intervention was carried out extremely well. The Far Eastern Department led, due to North Korea's falling within its geographical scope even though there were no relations. However, all other departments with an interest were used for information, advice, and contacts. For example, legal advisors were consulted over the implications of refusing the team visas and over the technicalities of recognition;43 Passport Control Department were consulted over the issuing of visas,44 Western Department were approached for advice on the German parallel and the likely reactions from the Federal Republic;45 and Sir Walter Godfrey, the British Ambassador to Seoul, was used as a channel of information to and from the South Korean government.46 Such a consultation process should not surprise us: it reflects the Foreign Office's structure, and was the appropriate way for the situation to be managed. What should cause us to reflect is that these resources were all being spent on a sporting event.

Inter-departmentally, the affair was characterised by a great deal of co-operation between the Department of Education and Science, with its sport remit, and the Foreign Office. There were good channels of communication, especially between Lang and Bolland, and the tone of much of the correspondence shows a genuine recognition of each other's positions. This is best exemplified by Lang's letter to Bolland of 28 March 1966 after the Foreign Office had backed down on the flags: `I am grateful to you for finding the solution you have though I can recognise something of the heart searching that must have gone on behind the scenes.'47 However, at times, there is evidence of tension between the two departments, especially over the flagpoles. When Howell revealed the £1,000 spent on flagpoles at each ground, and noted the embarrassment of leaving some empty, Wilson let his sense of professional outrage show:

If we wanted to be really nasty we could say that they [the Department of Education and Science] should have thought about N. Korea and asked the Foreign Office first before spending their £1,000! But 1 do not think that this kind of bickering would get us anywhere.48

The diplomatic training won through, and Denson's advice to avoid what he euphemistically called `an exchange of correspondence' with the Department of Education and Science, and to keep ministers out of the matter, was adhered to.49

Although the Department of Education and Science's papers for this incident have so far proved impossible to locate,50 Howell's memoirs show a sense of reciprocal ill-feeling towards the Foreign Office involvement. His account does not stand a favourable comparison with the unpublished primary sources: his first reference to any diplomatic disquiet over the North Korean presence is dated 11 July 1966 with an intervention from NATO through the Foreign Secretary, Michael Stewart, with none of the earlier meetings or discussions even alluded to. However, on the flag issue, he claims that the non-flying of the North Korean flag was unsustainable, and NATO `would be looking very silly indeed':

They would be undermining their principal purpose which was to support our basic freedoms and I couldn't think of a more basic freedom than to play football.51

However suspect this is as a source, it is a useful indication of the tensions that existed in this incident between the different departments, and between ministers and permanent staff.

The Foreign Office's dealings with external organisations and individuals were characterised by co-operation and stated sympathy. Although they had objectives, and although they were genuinely unhappy about the prospect and reality of the North Korean team, the wider considerations of public and international reactions forced the compromising attitude we have already established, and this set up the Foreign Office's helpful attitude. For example, Bolland invited Follows and Rous to the 14 December 1965 meeting as `interested parties' despite the private and voluntary nature of their remits, a recognition based on experience that sports diplomacy works best when the sporting administrators are involved in the discussions.52 The public courtesy even extended to Bolland's sympathetic remarks to Rous when the trophy itself went missing in March 1966.53 Some less flattering remarks were made behind the scenes. The experienced Arthur de la Mare, an Assistant Under-Secretary of State who had joined the Foreign Service in 1936, revived a traditional strand in Foreign Office discourse on sport when he noted on 18 February 1966 that `these international athletic meetings, far from improving international relations, are always a source of friction',54 and his view of the World Cup organisers as having `gone out of their way to offend a country with whom we are in relations' over the North Koreans' presence at a reception in July brought this view up again.55 When the South Korean Ambassador, Hon Kon Lee, complained to the Foreign Office in July 1966 that the appointed South Korean referee had not been used in any of the matches, de la Mare noted that he did not expect to find out the reason, as `the football authorities were not very much in love with the Foreign Office and that they might well tell us that this was none of our business'.56 Lee was a consistent thorn in the Foreign Office's side throughout the first half of 1966, but officials continued to placate him while trying to trivialise the situation as merely sport. Lee's `mild' démarche of 17 February 1966, when he urged the Foreign Office to bar the North Koreans, was met with the familiar line that the sporting bodies were not under government control.57 His stronger complaint of July 1966, following the flying of the DPRK's flag in public in Middlesbrough, and the display of the same flag at a luncheon he attended at Simpson's - clearly he was invited in error - met a similarly firm but conciliatory response that the Foreign Office had no control over what private individuals did, but that they had done all they could to minimise the official displays.58 Lang cynically remarked in a letter to Bolland that `the man who accepts a free luncheon should not then complain of the mere part of the table decorations which he does not happen to like':59 but the official line given to Lee was conciliatory.

Conclusion

Whenever we consider sports diplomacy, we need to place it in context as in many ways a trivial and ephemeral part of international dialogue and confrontation. This is brought home to us very firmly in relation to this episode in one of Godfrey's letters from Seoul:

When the [Korean] Foreign Minister asked me to call on him yesterday to tell me of the decision to send troops to Vietnam he also raised the question of the North Korean footballers.60

However, the amount of time and energy spent on this matter within Whitehall shows that the officials concerned felt the event was significant in its own right for what it said about relations with the two Koreas, and for precedent for the German situation. It shows their awareness of sporting occasions as publicly symbolic events, where flags and anthems were seen to matter because of the meanings attached to them. It shows an ability to work with sport administrators, despite the difference in remit and agenda. It also shows up the complexity and magnitude of the UK's Cold War diplomacy: not only that sport was definitely seen to be a legitimate area for diplomats; but that the presence of a group of sportsmen from one country was seen to set up potential problems of a global scale concerning not just other governments but also non- governmental international bodies. What is also fascinating is how, in keeping with so much previous sports diplomacy, the machinations involved were kept hidden from public view. The FA minutes are extremely circumspect about the meetings that took place; and the FA's official report for the finals - while thanking the government for its funding - makes no reference to the diplomatic problem bar a brief comment on the removal of a commemorative stamp design that had featured national flags.61 This was the greatest success of the whole episode: not just that the Foreign Office managed through skilful diplomacy to broker a satisfactory solution to a potential crisis; but that they did so without laying the government open to the charge of politicising sport.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to express his gratitude to the staff of the Public Record Office for their assistance; to David Barber for access to the Football Association's Library; and to Nicholas Casey of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and that department's Sports Division, for their help in trying to trace papers.

References

Books, articles and theses

Ball, Alan, It's All About a Ball: an autobiography (London: Allen, 1978)

Banks, Gordon, Banks of England (London: Arthur Baker, 1980)

Clarke, John and Critcher, Chas, 1966 and All That: England's World Cup victory, in: Tomlinson, Alan and Whannel, Garry (eds.), Off the Ball: the football World Cup (London: Pluto Press, 1986), pp. 112-26.

Coghlan, John with Webb, Ida, Sport and British Politics since 1960 (Basingstoke: Falmer, 1990)

Critcher, Chas, England and the World Cup: World Cup willies, English football and the myth of 1966, in Sugden, John and Tomlinson, Alan (eds.), Hosts and Champions: soccer cultures, national identities and the USA World Cup (Aldershot: Arena, 1994), pp. 77-92.

England, Chris, 1966 and All That, in Hancock, Nick, What Didn't Happen Next: Nick Hancock's alternative history of football (London: Chameleon, 1997), pp. 66-79

Finn, Ralph, England: World Champions 1966 (London: Hale, 1966)

Freddi, Cris, The Complete Book of the World Cup (London: Collins, 1998)

Glanville, Brian, The History of the World Cup, revised edn., (London: Faber and Faber, 1982)

Green, Geoffrey, A glorious occasion for British sport, F.A. News, 15, 12, July 1966, pp. 468-70.

Hill, Dave, England's Glory: 1966 and all that (London, Pan: 1996)

Howell, Denis, Made in Birmingham (London: Queen Anne Press,1990)

Jones, Stephen, Workers at Play: a social and economic history of leisure 1918-1939 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986)

Leatherdale, Clive, England's Quest for the World Cup: a complete record (London: Methuen, 1984)

Mayes, Harold, The Football Association World Cup Report 1966 (London, Football Association/ Heinemann, 1966)

Murray, Bill, Football: a history of the world game (Aldershot: Scolar, 1994)

Murray, Bill, Cultural revolution? Football in the societies of Asia and the Pacific, in Wagg, Stephen (ed.), Giving the Game Away: football, politics and culture on five continents (London: Leicester University Press, 1995), pp. 138-62

Oliver, Guy, The Guinness Record of World Soccer: a history of the game in over 150 countries (Enfield: Guinness, 1992)

Peters, Martin, Goals from Nowhere (London: Stanley Paul, 1969)

Polley, Martin, The Foreign Office and International Sport 1918- 1948, PhD thesis, University of Wales, 1991

Polley, Martin, Moving the Goalposts: a history of sport and society since 1945 (London: Routledge, 1998)

Rollin, Jack, England's World Cup Triumph (London: Davies, nd [1966])

Stiles, Nobby, Soccer: my battlefield (London: Stanley Paul, 1969)

Sugden, John and Tomlinson, Alan, Global power struggles in world football: FIFA and UEFA, 1954-74, and their legacy, International Journal of the History of Sport, 14, 2, (1997), pp. 1-25

Sugden, John and Tomlinson, Alan, FIFA and the Contest for World Football, Cambridge: Polity, 1998

Taylor, Rogan and Ward, Andrew, Kicking and Screaming: an oral history of football in England (London: Robson, 1995)

Thomson, David, 4-2 (London: Bloomsbury, 1996)

Wilson, Harold, The Labour Government 1964-1970: a personal record (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson/Michael Joseph, 1971)

Wolstenholme, Kenneth, They Think It's All Over.... memories of the greatest day in English football (London: Robson, 1996)

Newspapers and magazines

F.A. News

The Times

When Saturday Comes

Internet site

France 98, http://www.france98.com/english/index.html

Notes

1 Clarke and Critcher, 1986, p. 112

2 When Saturday Comes, June 1996, pp. 4-5.

3 See, for example, Finn, 1966; Rollin, nd [1966]

4 See, for example, Clarke and Critcher, 1986; Critcher, 1994; Glanville, 1982, pp, 131-58; Freddi, 1998, pp. 135-62; Hill, 1996; Leatherdale, 1984, pp. 120-58; Taylor and Ward, 1995, pp. 161-75; Thomson, 1996

5 See, for example, Ball, 1978; Banks, 1980; Peters, 1969; Stiles, 1969; Wolstenholme, 1996.

6 For fiction, see, for example, England, 1997. Pop songs that cover the events, and album titles that allude to them, include Baddiel and Skinner with the Lightning Seeds, `Three Lions', Half Man Half Biscuit, `1966 And All That', and The Dentists, Some People Are On The Pitch They Think It's All Over It Is Now.

7 Clarke and Critcher, 1986, p. 112.

8 Glanville, 1982, p. 145.

9 Leatherdale, 1984, p. 142.

10 Throughout this article, the title `North Korea' is used for the team for convenience and consistency. The country the team represented properly styled itself then, as now, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), and this title has been used here when referring to the country and its government. Despite the usage of North Korea as the name for the team here, as in most other writing on the subject, the sport's governing body in that country is, and was, the Football Association of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the name formally recognised by the sport's international governing body, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA).

11 Freddi, 1998, p. 150; Wolstenholme, 1996, p. 95.

12 The Times, 20 July 1966, p. 5.

13 Glanville, 1982, p. 147.

14 `Past World Cups: England', France 98, July 1998, http://www.france98.com/english/index.html

15 Campbell in Finn, 1966, p. 73.

16 Green, 1966, p. 470.

17 Howell, 1990, pp. 171-2; Rollin, nd [1966], pp. 53-4.

18 F.A. News, 15, 7, February 1966, p. 263. For historical discussions of this protest, and the wider context of FIFA politics, see Glanville, 1982, pp. 141-2; Murray, 1994, pp. 203, 213; Murray, 1995, p. 144; Oliver, 1992, pp. 24, 848; Sugden and Tomlinson, 1997; Sugden and Tomlinson, 1998.

19 Minute by D. Timms, 24 November 1965. Public Record Office (hereafter PRO), FO 371/181150, FK 1801/1.

20 Jones, 1986, pp. 183-4; Polley, 1991, pp. 73-4.

21 Howell 1990, pp. 111-12; Coghlan with Webb, 1990, pp, 11-42; Polley, 1998, pp. 20-25; Wilson, 1971, pp. 175-6.

22 For the FA's acceptance of this funding on behalf of the clubs which were to receive it, see Football Association, World Cup Organising Committee (WCOC), 9 June 1965, minute 7. A narrative of the FA's bid for government funding, which dated back to 1963, is in Mayes, 1966, pp. 86-9. For Howell's accounts of Wilson approving the funding, see Taylor and Ward, 1995, p. 163; Howell 1990, pp. 162-3.

23 Minute by D. Timms, 24 November 1965. PRO, FO 371/181150, FK 1801/1.

24 J. Denson to Sir W. Godfrey, 12 August 1966. PRO, FO 371/187181, FK 1801/8.

25 D. Follows to M. Stewart, 27 November 1965. PRO, FO 371/181150, FK 1801/1.

26 J. Lang to E. Bolland, 25 November 1965. PRO, FO 371/181150, FK 1801/1.

27 The most significant correspondent for this period was the Marquess of Exeter of the British Olympic Association and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), who frequently kept the Foreign Office informed of key developments in the Olympic movement as they related to the changing politics of the period. See, for example, PRO, FO 371/110375 for 1954 discussions on the German Democratic Republic's application to enter the Olympic Games; PRO, FO 371/150557 for 1960 correspondence on Chinese representation at the Olympics; and PRO, FO 371/170793 for the IOC's discussions of South Africa, Korea, and Indonesia in 1963.

28 Minute by D. Timms, 24 November 1965. PRO, FO 371/181150, FK 1801/1.

29 Minute by J. Simpson, 8 December 1965. PRO, FO 371/181150, FK 1801/1.

30 Minute by E. Bolland, `North Korean Participation in the Finals of the World Cup', 9 December 1965. PRO, FO 371/181150, FK 1801/1.

31 31 Minute by J Bennett, 4 April 1966. PRO, F0371/187181, FK 1801/1.

32 Minute by J. Denson, 27 July 1966. PRO, FO 371/187181, 1801/8.

33 Minute by E. Bolland, `North Korean Participation in the Finals of the World Cup', 9 December 1965. PRO, FO 371/181150, FK 1801/1.

34 Minute by D. Timms, 24 November 1965. PRO FO 371/181150, FK 1801/1.

35 Record of meeting, 14 December 1965. PRO, FO 371/181150, FK 1801/1.

36 Howell, 1990, p. 162.

37 Minute of telephone conversation by R. Stratton, 23 December 1965. PRO, FO 371/ 181150, FK 1801/1.

38 Report of meeting by V. Beckett, 28 February 1966. PRO, FO 371/181150, FK 1801/1.

39 J. Lang to E. Bolland, 17 March 1966. PRO, FO 371/181150, FK 1801/1.

40 E. Bolland to S. Rous, 25 March 1966. PRO, FO 371/187181, FK 1801/1.

41 The Foreign Office's record of this meeting is in a report of 11 February 1966; the Department of Education and Science's record - which diverged from the Foreign Office's over flags - was minuted on 10 February and sent to the Foreign Office on 11 February. Both reports are in PRO, FO 371/187181, FK 1801/1.

42 Football Association, World Cup Organising Committee, 8 March 1966, item 3.

43 Minutes, 7-8 December 1965. PRO, FO 371/181150, FK 1801/1.

44 C. Wilson to Passport Control Department, 29 December 1965; Passport Control Department to C. Wilson, 30 December 1965. PRO, FO 371/181150, FK 1801/1.

45 Western Department minute, 17 February 1966. PRO, FO 371/187181, FK 1801/1.

46 See, for example, E. Bolland to Sir W. Godfrey, 14 January 1966. PRO, FO 371/181150, FK 1801/1; Sir W. Godfrey to E. Bolland, 3 March 1966. PRO, FO 371/187181, FK 1801/1.

47 J. Lang to E. Bolland, 28 March 1966. PRO, FO 371/187181, FK 1801/1.

48 Minute by C. Wilson, 23 December 1965. PRO, FO 371/181150, FK 1801/1.

49 Minute by J. Denson, 29 December 1965. PRO, FO 371/181150, FK 1801/1.

50 Personal correspondence from Nicholas Casey, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, 9 March 1998.

51 Howell, 1990, p. 171.

52 E. Bolland to D. Follows, 3 December 1965; record of meeting 14 December 1965. PRO, FO 371/181150, FK 1801/1.

53 Bolland to Rous, 25 March 1966. PRO, FO 371/187181, FK 1801/1.

54 A de la Mare to Lord Walston, 18 February 1966. PRO, FO 371/187181, FK 1801/1.

55 Minute by A. de la Mare, 19 July 1966. PRO, FO 371/187181, FK 1801/1.

56 Minute by A. de la Mare, 29 July 1966. PRO FO 371/187181, FK 1801/8.

57 Record of meeting between Hon Kon Lee and E. Bolland, 17 February 1966. PRO, FOI 371/187181, FK 1801/1.

58 Minute by E. Bolland, 8 July 1966. PRO, FO 371/187181, FK 1801/8.

59 J. Lang to E. Bolland, 13 July 1966. PRO, FO 371/187181, FK 1801/8.

60 Sir W. Godfrey to E. Bolland, 3 March 1966. PRO, FO 371/187181, FK 1801/1.

61 Mayes, 1967, pp. 79, 86-9.