How a World Cup-winning boss saved player's career

A recently released book shines new light on England's only World Cup-winning manager Sir Alf Ramsey

World Cup-winning manager Sir Alf Ramsey saved a player's career after they were charged with gross indecency with another man in the 1950s, according to a new book.

Sir Alf, who died in 1999 aged 79, managed England for 11 years and won the World Cup in 1966; he also managed Ipswich Town and helped the team win the First Division title in their 1961/62 campaign.

Grant Bage, the author of The Unseen Sir Alf: A Different Kind of Hero, began researching the England football manager six years ago.

Mr Bage said Sir Alf's support for the player and that he argued their "case with the directors" showed his progressive views as same-sex relationships were illegal at the time.

While in the Suffolk Archives in Ipswich, Mr Bage said he was looking at documents around the time Sir Alf joined Ipswich Town as manager in 1955.

He found a note that detailed how a player admitted to gross indecency with another man in court.

Sir Alf was born in Dagenham, east London, in 1920 and died in Ipswich in 1999

"What really unfolded over the next few weeks, months and years even was an amazing story on how Alf saved a player's career," Mr Bage said.

"The player went out on loan, but what is really interesting for me is that it was Alf Ramsey arguing that he should be brought back into the Ipswich squad and be paid the same as everyone else.

"Alf did have to really argue [the player's] case with the directors, that happened in the summer of 1956."

The Sexual Offences Act 1967 decriminalised private, consensual homosexual acts between persons aged 21 and over in England and Wales, before the age was lowered to 18 in 1994 and to 16 in 2000.

Grant Bage says Sir Alf experienced prejudice throughout his life after it was rumoured he came from a Gypsy background

Sir Alf also battled prejudice and was given a racist nickname his whole life as it was rumoured he came from a Gypsy background, according to the new book.

"We can't tell whether Alf Ramsey was ever shouted out, whether he was violently abused in the tragic racist ways that are still happening today," the author explained.

"But what we can track is that he was constantly sneered at behind his back, he was perhaps undermined and laughed at.

"I think it's probably only because of his immense strength and what he achieved in football that the sneering didn't escalate into outright abuse, but we'll never know that because that's speculation," he added.

Sir Alf's strengths, such as his obsession with the game and ability to hyperfocus, "aligned perhaps with elements of what nowadays is recognised as neurodivergent", Mr Bage said.