In this video worksheet post we use a clip from the excellent The History Of Football [2002] [DVD] on the 1966 World Cup final between Germany and England. There is also a worksheet, transcript and answer sheet below. The report lasts for 3 minutes 30 seconds.

Transcript

Bobby Moore and Uwe Seeler were out in the middle exchanging international compliments and meeting the referee Dienst of Switzerland.

The West German attack had bite and purpose, on they came again. An English defensive lapse gave the ball to Haller… and that was it. One down after 12 minutes spurred the English attack. This time a chance came to West Ham’s Geoff Hurst – it’s the equaliser!!

It’s there. Peters has scored. If only they could keep the lead for a few desperate minutes against the West Germans, now a team playing their hearts out to keep in the running. Germany would not let up then seconds before the final whistle, agony for England. Webber scored. It had to be extra time. Then Geoff Hurst, cool and collected, had the ball in the net. No! It bounced out. ‘Goal!’ claimed England. ‘No goal!’ protested the Germans. The referee consulted the linesman who’d been in line with the posts and goal it was.

When there was only a minute to go England still had no thought of being content with that one goal lead racing to beat the whistle, Geoff Hurst saw an opening in the defence and achieved a hat trick.

Bobby Moore lead England up to the Royal Box to receive the Jules Rimet Cup and the winners’ medals. To be here as winners of the FA Cup has often been described as the summit of a footballer’s ambition, how much greater is the triumph they enjoy now.

Three years go Alf Ramsey set out on the hard road that lead to the World Cup. Only the optimists thought he could possibly succeed, certainly not West Germany whose team now ran a lap of honour. They were very sporting losers. Finally it was England that the whole world of sport was now cheering.

In this video worksheet post we use a clip from the excellent The History Of Football [2002] [DVD]on the topic of Folk Football. There is also a worksheet, transcript and answer sheet below. The report lasts for 2 minutes 10 seconds.

Folk Football Worksheet | Transcript

(for audio only, click here)

Transcript
The legend, whether true or not, is still enacted year in, year out by the people of Kirkwall, Scotland, making it one of the last strongholds of the game, which for hundreds of years dominated Britain.

The game itself is remarkably similar to other long-abandoned folk matches played on the island. The pitch is the entire town; the players number in their hundreds; the goals are local landmarks a mile apart. One goal was generally all it took to win the game, although that could take a whole day. In Kirkwall, two sides compete: the ‘up-the-gates’ and the ‘down-the-gates’. Their struggle for the ball, or ‘baa’, is deeply symbolic.

The tradition was for a long time that if the ‘down-the-gates’ managed to get the ‘baa’, which was a fertilising influence of the sun – it was the sun and its fertilising influence – and they threw it into the waters of the harbour then that would bring good fishing. And if the ‘up-the-gates’ got the ‘baa’ to their goal, and they were mostly farmers, that would bring good crops, particularly good potatoes. And there was a small town in Norway that until recently phoned every New Year’s Day to see which way the ‘baa’ had gone so that they could assess whether or not there was going to be good fishing in the months ahead. In terms of roughness, there are no rules, it’s hard, a hard physical contest. Perhaps sometimes old scores are settled but generally speaking there is little gratuitous violence.