World Cup Games That Took Place at Goodison Park - 1966

With the league season over the whole world turned its eyes to the greatest football event to take place in England, the 
World Cup. Goodison Park had been chosen as the most prominent ground, outside of Wembley, and was honoured 
to be used not only for group games, but for quarter final and semi final matches. A further honour was bestowed on 
the club when it was announced that the 1962 World Champions, Brazil, would play all of there games at Goodison 
and would use Everton’s training ground, Bellefield, as there base. Unfortunately for the Merseyside fans Brazil were
not allowed to play their usual stylish football when they were literally ‘kicked’ out of the tournament. 

Their first game was a routine win against Bulgaria but when they met Hungary three days later they found they had an
over lenient referee and their star players, in particular Pele, received severe treatment and lost the game 3-1. Next up
were Portugal and again the players from South America did not receive any protection from the referee and succumbed
to another 3-1 defeat. The champions were out of the competition but went home impressed with the treatment they had
received off the field, so much so that when they returned home they set up a training camp modelled on Everton’s own
Bellefield. 

The quarter final awarded to Everton was arguably the best game of the World Cup, Portugal met the surprise team of 
the tournament, North Korea, who had earlier knocked out fancied Italy. The Goodison crowd took the Koreans to their 
hearts and cheered them to an unbelievable 3-0 lead after just 25 minutes; by half time, however, Eusebio had reduced
the arrears to 3-2, could an astonishing comeback be on or could Korea cause one of the biggest shocks in World Cup
history. Everyone had only 11 minutes of the second half to wait when Eusebio equalised with his third goal of the game
and then three minutes later added a fourth to send Portugal into the lead. The game was wrapped up in the 80 th minute
when Jose Augusto added a fifth to send Portugal into the semi final. 

 England had also progressed to the semi final after a bad tempered match against Argentina, which was held up for
 several minutes following the sending off of the South American’s captain, Rattin. The game was settled in the 78th minute
 when Geoff Hurst headed England into the lead, which they held onto until the final whistle. 

The semi final line up was England v Portugal and West Germany v Russia, with the games scheduled to be played at 
Goodison Park and Wembley, respectively. Much to everyone on Merseyside’s dismay the FA switched the England game
to Wembley, so that the national side did not have to leave its base in London and Goodison had to be satisfied with the
other match. The game at Everton was an ill tempered affair which West Germany won, 2-1. Although disappointed by not
hosting the England game it was still an enormous honour for the club to host a semi final of the World Cup and Goodison
Park remains the only club ground to do so, with all games at this stage being played at national stadiums. 

England progressed to the final by beating the Portuguese 2-1 and met the West German side on 30 July 1960. Merseyside
was represented in the Final by Ray Wilson from Everton and Roger Hunt from Liverpool, both played their part in an 
unbelievable game which England won by four goals to two, after extra time, and saw Geoff Hurst become the only player to
score a hat-trick in a World Cup final. 
            

Tickets from some of the games played at Goodison Park