Fifty years ago this weekend, this was not No.1.

It was No.5. Yet whenever England’s 1966 World Cup triumph is celebrated, this song is said to have been top of the charts. Its status as a British pop classic seems to match this nation’s greatest sporting achievement. Another myth about 1966 is that England were the best team in the world. Apparently not. Unimpressive in the early rounds, they’d almost certainly have lost to Argentina in the quarter finals had the talismanic Argentine skipper Antonio Rattin not been sent off. But in the final, England were blessed. Geoff Hurst, never a world-class striker, played the game of his life and scored that hat-trick. It’s not that England didn’t deserve their triumph – they absolutely did – but the 1966 team were not as good as the England teams of 1970 and 1990. Doesn’t matter; they won the World Cup. Just like Portugal won the Euros fifty years later.