Legendary England manager Sir Alf Ramsey passed away eleven years ago.

Sir Alf Ramsey, England’s World Cup-winning Manager, passed away on this day in 1999 after suffering a heart attack in a Suffolk nursing home. He was 79 years old.

He was a top-class player, serving Southampton and Spurs with distinction and being capped 32 times for England at right-back, three times as captain. He managed Ipswich Town for eight years from 1955, taking them from Division Three South to the top flight and lifting the Championship in 1962.

In his first match in charge, England lost a ‘European Nations Cup’ First Round second leg match 5-2 in France. But, having secured The FA’s agreement that he alone would select the team, he promised that England would win the World Cup ‘at home’ in 1966. He was proved right.

In his brief team talk before the start of the extra-time period in the Wembley Final with West Germany he told his exhausted players: “You’ve won it once. Now you’ll have to go out there and win it again.”

Only the eleven players on the field received World Cup winners’ medals. Following an FA-led campaign to persuade FIFA to award them to every non-playing squad and staff member, George Cohen (England’s right-back in the Final) received one on behalf of Sir Alf’s family at a Downing Street ceremony in 2009.