The Greatest England Games 1920-1966

1966 was, of course, the finest achievement of English football; a win so feted and mythologised that it has hung over the England team for the following forty-four years (and counting). Generation after generation of footballers are asked to live up to Geoff Hurst, to Nobby Stiles, to the Bobbys, Moore and Charlton, only to be discarded, oft-derided, having wilted in the shadow of greatness.

The idea that an England team could take to the field without this pressure is an alien and entertaining one, and is captured wonderfully on this DVD (available from the excellent Tikabooson, and narrated by the incomparable Barry Davies). Forty-six years of Pathé news footage traces the England team from the resumption of international football following World War One, to the 1966 final, taking in the opening of Wembley, the astonishing 22-year international career of Stanley Matthews, the humbling at the hands of the Hungarian Aranycsapat, and any number of Home Nation tonkings.