So how many ‘years of hurt’ are we up to now? Forty-four years and counting since England’s last – and first – football World Cup win; forty-four years since Geoff Hurst’s hat-trick, the Russian linesman and Nobby Stiles dancing and flashing a toothless grin. In those days, England played in red rather than white, the twin towers meant Wembley and a WAG was something a dog did when you stroked it behind the ear.
     Even the trophy has changed: the winged Victory on the Jules Rimet Trophy, given to Brazil in perpetuity after they won their third World Cup in 1970, was replaced four years later by two muscled Atlases supporting the globe. Yet much of football and the World Cup remains unaltered: the passion, the hopes and the ultimate despair when, more often than not, England are knocked out on penalties.
     When people think of the closing moments of the 1966 World Cup final, invariably they hear the words of the late Kenneth Wolstenholme: ‘Some people are on the pitch... they think it’s all over – it is now!’ But if you had been watching the final on ITV rather than Wolstenholme’s BBC, you would instead have heard Hugh Johns describe the closing seconds with these words: ‘Here’s Hurst, he might make it three. He has! He has! ... So that’s it. That is IT!’
     Johns, who died three years ago, was not only the velvet-voiced guardian of ITV’s early football coverage, he was an active Freemason, serving as external communications officer for the province of South Wales, which had appointed him a Past Provincial Senior Grand Warden in 2002, as well as preceptor and director of ceremonies almost until his death.
     Starting out after the war in theatre, Johns became a journalist in the 1960s and commentated for ITV on four World Cups (1966-78) and the European Cup final in 1968 when Manchester United won the trophy. He was initiated in the Services Lodge, No. 7139, in Penarth in 1969, where he served asWorshipful Master in 1976. He was also a member of Hendre Lodge, No. 3250, Proscenium Lodge, No. 9059 (a lodge largely populated by those in the entertainment industry) and St Mildred’s Lodge, No. 5078.
     Johns probably would not have known, but England were managed that day by another Freemason. Alf Ramsey, who was knighted for his services to football in 1967, was initiated in Waltham Abbey Lodge, No. 2750, in Essex on 5 October, 1953.
     A talented right back who had played for Southampton before joining Tottenham Hotspur in 1949, Ramsey was nearing the end of his playing career when he entered masonry at the age of thirty-three.
     He was passed at the lodge’s next meeting on 6 November and nineteen days later played the last of his thirty-two matches for England, watched by more than 100,000 spectators at Wembley. It was an historic match: Ramsey scored a penalty, one of three goals for England, but Hungary, inspired by Ferenc Puskas, scored six times and ended England’s unbeaten run at home against non-British opponents.
     Ramsey was raised in October 1954, retired at the end of that season and began his impressive career in management with Ipswich Town. He remained a mason until 1981, when he resigned. After his death in 1999, his widow donated his master mason’s apron, Grand Lodge certificate and the summonses showing his initiation and passing to the lodge. They are now on display at Chingford Masonic Hall.
     At least one of Ramsey’s team-mates in that last England game in 1953 was also a mason. Stanley Matthews of Stoke City and Blackpool had played the first of his fifty-four matches for England as long ago as 1934 and was still going strong when he played up the right touchline from Ramsey against the Mighty Magyars in 1953. In fact Matthews carried on playing for England until 1957 when he was forty-two and remained an intermittent player for Stoke until 1965. Matthews was initiated in Clifton Lodge, No. 703, in Blackpool on 5 February, 1948, halfway through his first season with his second club. He played in the FA Cup Final three weeks after being passed in April 1948 and lost 4-2 to Manchester United but made up for it five years later in emphatic style when he inspired Blackpool to come back from 3-1 down to beat Bolton Wanderers.
     Among other notable footballing masons of the day we find Leslie Compton, who like his brother Dennis played football for Arsenal and cricket for Middlesex. Compton was initiated in Oriel Lodge, No. 6545, in January 1951, two months after he had become the England football team’s oldest postwar debutant at the age of thirty-eight (a record he still holds).
     Then there is Jackie Milburn, ‘Wor Jackie’ to his adoring fans at Newcastle United where the club won the FA Cup three times in five years at the start of the 1950s. Milburn was initiated in Shiremoor Lodge, No. 6921, in January 1950 and raised that March. Three months later, he played for England in theWorld Cup in Brazil alongside Matthews and Ramsey. It was not a tournament that ended happily for England. They won their opening match against Chile but were eliminated after an embarrassing 1-0 defeat by the United States. Sixty years later, it is good to know that England have at least managed to scrape a draw with the Americans.

Historical link

There is a strong link between football and Freemasonry. The first rules of football were drawn up by the new Football Association in six meetings at the end of 1863 at the Freemasons’ Tavern on Great Queen Street in London, now the New Connaught Rooms next door to Freemasons’ Hall. After the first match under the rules, in January 1864, a toast was drunk – how very masonic in itself – to ‘success to football, irrespective of class or creed’.
     Many of the founding fathers of famous football clubs were Freemasons, none more notable than John Houlding, a brewer from Liverpool who owned the land on Anfield Road where Everton football club, founded in 1878, played from 1884 to 1892.
     When they moved to their own ground at Goodison Park, Houlding filled the vacancy at Anfield by creating a new football team: Liverpool FC. Of the original six directors of the club, four were masons. Houlding, who also served as a Tory MP and Mayor of Liverpool, founded Anfield Lodge, No. 2215, and had been Master of Everton Lodge, No. 823, and Hamer Lodge, No. 1393.
     He was Provincial Senior Grand Warden in West Lancashire and, in 1897, was appointed Senior Grand Deacon; he was also a 33° member of theAncient andAccepted Rite.
     Other notable Liverpudlian football administrators in masonry, all members of Cecil Lodge, No. 3274, were John McKenna, Liverpool’s first manager and president of the Football League for two decades from 1910;Will Cuff, chairman of Everton and the Football League in 1938; and Sidney Reakes, who as chairman of Liverpool took the shrewd decision in 1959 to appoint a then little-known Scot called Bill Shankly to be the club’s manager. Under Shankly, Liverpool went from the foot of the old Second Division to winning the Uefa Cup.
     Another notable football administrator who was a mason was Sir Stanley Rous, a schoolmaster who began refereeing Football League matches in 1927, four years before he was initiated in Exonian Lodge, No. 3415, in London, and served as secretary of the FA from 1934 to 1962. He was President of Fifa, the sport’s world governing body, from 1961 to 1974.
     Then there is Manchester City, a club so masonic they even play in light blue. The club, founded in 1880, was rescued from bankruptcy in 1894 by local masons who asked that they change their strip from red and black to the colour of a master mason.
     That is the claim, anyway, although the club’s early records are patchy. By the 1960s, though, the masonic influence on the club was clear. Five of the six directors in 1965 were masons and they appointed another mason, Joe Mercer, as the club’s manager.
     Mercer, the son of a footballer, played for Everton and Arsenal, but war robbed him of his best years. He played twenty-six wartime international matches for England, many as captain, while serving as a sergeant-major. In 1941, he was initiated in Rivacre Lodge, No. 5805, in his home town of Ellesmere Port, but he resigned soon before the end of his playing career in 1955.
     It is unknown whether the Manchester City directors were aware he was a lapsed Brother when they appointed him manager ten years later – his predecessor, Les McDowall, was also in the Craft – but it was certainly a shrewd move. In his first season at Maine Road, City won the Second Division title.
     Two years later they were First Division champions.
     A 1969 FA Cup victory was followed by wins in the League Cup and European Cup Winners’ Cup a year later. Three years after that, England failed to qualify for the 1974 World Cup when they failed to beat Poland at Wembley (a game commentated on by Hugh Johns). Alf Ramsey fell on his sword as manager and was replaced by Mercer, one mason succeeding another to arguably the nation’s toughest job.
     But Sir Alf Ramsey and Joe Mercer were not the only England managers to be Freemasons.
     Don Revie took on the job in 1974 after Mercer's brief spell as Ramsey's successor. Revie played for five clubs in his career, most notably for the strongly masonic Manchester City from 1951 to 1956, but he did not become a mason until 1965, when he was managing Leeds United, his last club. He was initiated in Leodiensis Lodge, No. 4029, in Leeds and remained a member until his death in 1989. His three years as England manager were not distinguished, with the national team failing to qualify for the 1976 European Championships or the 1978World Cup.
     Ron Greenwood made amends during a five year spell as England manager from 1977-82. Greenwood took England to the 1980 European Championships and the 1982 World Cup in Spain. They began the latter with wins over France, Czechoslovakia and Kuwait and held West Germany and Spain to 0-0 draws in the second group stage, but their inability to score denied them a place in the semi-finals.
     Greenwood became a mason in 1956 at the end of his final season as a player, a career that took in spells at Brentford, Chelsea and Fulham. He was initiated in London at the Lodge of Proven Fellowship, No. 6225, and remained in the Craft during a long spell as West Ham United manager but resigned in 1977.

Other masons who have been associated with football include:

Joseph ‘Joe’ Bradford (1901-1980) Centre forward for Birmingham City (1920-1935) who scored 267 goals in 445 appearances, making him Birmingham City’s all-time record goal scorer. He also played for England twelve times and scored seven goals (1923-1930). Bradford was initiated in Sphere Lodge, No. 5051, Birmingham, on 2 December 1936. William Ralph ‘Dixie’ Dean (1907-1980) A legendary centre forward for Everton (1925-37) and the club’s highest-ever goal scorer. Dean scored 383 goals in 433 appearances, including a remarkable thirty-seven hat-tricks, and set an unbroken record of sixty league goals in a single season. He was also capped for England sixteen times (1927- 32) and found the net eighteen times. He was initiated while still playing for both Everton and England on 18 February 1931 in Randle Holme Lodge, No. 3261, Birkenhead, Cheshire. Leonard 'Len' Francis Shackleton (1922-2000) Forward player for Arsenal, Newcastle United and most notably for Sunderland (1948-1957) for whom he scored 101 goals in 348 games. He also played for England five times (1948-1954), scoring once. He was initiated while still playing football for Sunderland and England in Phoenix Lodge, No. 94, Durham, on 3 July 1952. Gilbert Harold ‘Gil’ Merrick (1922-2010) Birmingham City goalkeeper who made 551 league appearances for the club (1939-60), was capped twenty-three times for England (1951-54), and subsequently ended up as Birmingham City’s manager (1960-64). Merrick, who is regarded as a legend in his home city, was initiated in Benevolence Lodge, No. 4035, Birmingham, in 1964. Jim Finney (1924-2008) English referee who took charge of the 1962 FA Cup Final between Tottenham Hotspur and Burnley, as well as the 1971 League Cup Final at Wembley. He was a linesman in the first European Nations Cup Final held in Paris in 1960 and was also one of the English referees selected for the 1966 World Cup. He was initiated in Cantilupe Lodge, No. 4083, Hereford, in 1962 and served as its Worshipful Master in 1984.