Wolves Hero On World Cup Winning Boss

Would John Richards have gone to the 1974 World Cup finals had Poland, a ‘clown’ of a keeper called Jan Tomaszewski and a load of misfortune not caused England’s and Sir Alf Ramsey’s downfall instead?

The Wolves striker was in his prime and a Wembley match-winning hero a few weeks before West Germany staged the tournament for the first time, so he would surely have been in the conversation for a squad place.

We will never know, of course, but the man himself believes he would have missed out despite his 16 Wolves goals in 1971-72, his bumper haul of 36 the following season and 18 in the club’s first League Cup-winning season.

“In all honesty, I don’t think I would have gone to Germany,” he says. “I don’t think I performed well enough in that one senior international game I had and then there was my injury late in 1973-74.

“There were so many other good English strikers around and my guess is that I would not have been selected if we had qualified for the finals.”

The Molineux no 9 became a serious player in the international reckoning in the summer of 1972 when he went on tour with England under-23s after flying home from Wolves’ end-of-season trip to America and Canada.

He missed the even longer-haul adventure with his club to Australia and New Zealand shortly afterwards and instead won the first three of his six age-group caps by facing East Germany in Magdeburg, Poland in Warsaw and Russia in Kiev.

The trip by a squad also containing Richards’ future Molineux team-mate, Dave Thomas, began and ended with draws but the identity of the marksmen in a 3-0 win over the Poles gave another insight into the talent at Ramsey’s disposal.

Alongside Richards and Tony Currie on the score-sheet was Frank Worthington, with Kevin Keegan having netted and then been sent off in the opening 2-2 draw against the young East Germans.

“I think there were a number of lads who would have got in ahead of me if we had not lost in World Cup qualifying to Poland,” he added. “But I looked on all these experiences as a bonus while things were going well at Wolves.

“It was fantastic being part of the under-23 squad. I was room-mates with Mike Pejic of Stoke and got to know Kevin Keegan, who I was paired up with on the seniors’ tour the following summer.

“I had won my senior cap at the end of the 1972-73 season in a win over Northern Ireland at Goodison Park and remember Sir Alf being very thoughtful to me over that.

“I had so much respect for him. He was such a nice man, very approachable and very calm. He would come over for a chat with you in training and that’s how I learned I would be making my debut.

“He put his arm round my shoulder, enquired how I was and asked if I was ok to play at Goodison. Then he reminded me to let my parents know…..that was lovely as we were in the Lord Daresbury Hotel in Warrington just down the road from where they lived.”

It is well known and well recorded that the 2-1 Home International victory over Northern Ireland – switched from Belfast because of the troubles – was no great success story for Richards. He was played out of position on the left and saw Martin Chivers score both goals in an unconvincing success.

Mike Channon was also in the line-up, so were World Cup winners Bobby Moore, Martin Peters and Alan Ball, with Allan Clarke sidelined because of a slight injury.

The Wolves man was retained in the squad for the Wembley clash with Wales in the following midweek and then named in the tour party for a series of games that had the World Cup qualifier against Poland in Chorzow as its central feature. Again, though, there was no happy outcome.

“A few of the players not required to get kitted out for the game against Wales were in a hospitality area before kick-off and Mike Summerbee told me not to worry too much about not being selected because I would get another chance,” Richards said. “But I didn’t.

“Mike was in the tour squad as well and we went first to Prague, where we drew with Czechoslavakia. Then it was on to the Poland game, which we felt pretty confident about because we were on a long unbeaten run. A draw would have been good enough for us.

“Emlyn Hughes played and I was on the bench with Kevin Keegan, Malcom McDonald, Mike and others. Everything went wrong really. It was a disaster. Alan Ball was sent off late on and I recall Bobby Moore as the last man, on the far side of the pitch, being dispossessed as he tried to go round one of their forwards. It led to a goal and we lost 2-0.

“One of the criticisms aimed at Sir Alf was that he was reluctant to make changes during games. I didn’t think much of it at the time and my standpoint anyway would have been: Who am I to think I know better than Sir Alf? He had won the World Cup for goodness sake!

“I didn’t question his tactics and only became aware of the criticism when we got back home. I recall the coach dropping the London lads off at a hotel and a reporter rushed up to Peter Storey. Let’s just say Peter showed why no-one should have messed with him!

“We ended the trip by beating the Soviet Union in Moscow and losing a friendly in Italy but the Poland game was the damaging one – and Sir Alf was sacked after we could only draw with them back at Wembley in the November.”

That was the infamous night Brian Clough kicked off by referring in a TV studio to Jan Tomaszewski being ‘a clown’. The Polish keeper had the game of his night in a 1-1 draw and England were eliminated at the qualifying stage seven years on from their finest hour.

Opportunity didn’t knock again for Richards at senior level and he added: “My dream was to play at Wembley. I was never one for going to watch England play there because it didn’t interest me and it was so far to travel to games – and expensive.

“But it was a massive thrill to go to the stadium with Wolves to a couple of cup finals, to win both and to score in one of them.”