At last, after years of planning and months of preparation, the great day had arrived when the 1966 World Cup finals began. After Her Majesty The Queen had completed the opening ceremony and all the pre-match ballyhoo was over, the serious business got under way. The first match was between England, the hosts, and one of the South American giants, Uruguay.

Sadly, the game was something of an anti-climax and proved to be very disappointing for the fans present. Gate receipts of £85,000 were taken but few of the spectators would claim that they had value for money.

The pattern of play which followed was something that England would have to get used to over the coming weeks. A massed defence of sometimes eight or nine players was determined not to lose, to give the hosts a problem they must solve. On this night they failed.

The expectancy at the beginning was soon gone as the Uruguayans negatively began their campaign. True, they had players of skill and Rocha, Silva and Viera all showed their qualities. Early on a fierce long-range shot from Cortés was turned away for a corner by Gordon Banks, but that proved a rare moment of aggression by Uruguay and possession was mainly England's.

Bobby Charlton and Alan Ball worked hard for the openings but apart from long-range shots by Bobby Charlton, Jimmy Greaves and Roger Hunt, few clear chances were created. At half-time the players trooped off and the crowd were left with a feeling of boredom uppermost in their minds.

After the break, the determination improved but still a goal could not be found. With 25 minutes to go, Ray Wilson crossed from the left, Greaves headed backwards and a left-foot shot by Bobby Charlton was diverted by a flick from John Connelly's boot. But Mazurkiewicz, a very able goalkeeper, turned the ball brilliantly around a post.

Time after time Wilson and George Cohen made lung-bursting runs down the wings to support their forwards and they must have been exhausted at the end.

England went close again when with a quarter of an hour to go Greaves, for once, outpaced the defenders to run on to Ball's pass, only to see his cross picked off Connelly's head by Mazurkiewicz. With the crowd willing them on to the one goal they needed, England went desperately close twice in the last five minutes.

Connelly headed a flick by Jack Charlton against the Uruguayan crossbar, held his head in his hands, and then found he had been given offside, anyway. Then, in the very last moments, a fine move begun by Jack Charlton enabled Ball to find Greaves on the right. Big Jack followed up to receive the ball from Greaves and his headed square pass was back-heeled inches wide by Connelly.

That was England's last chance and the evening ended with everyone being totally frustrated by the game. Needless to say, the Uruguayans were jumping for joy at the end. At least they had achieved what they wanted.
  

A dull and uninspiring start to the World Cup left neutrals wondering on what Alf Ramsey based his confidence that England would win the tournament. Uruguay played with nine men back in defence and defied all England's attempts to break them down. It was the first time in twelve matches that England had failed to score. John Connelly was Ramsey's one winger. The Uruguayans celebrated at the final whistle as if they had won. They had squeezed exactly what they wanted from the game with their stifling defensive tactics. It was not a pretty sight.
  

Since England had beaten them for the first time, in 1964, Uruguay had won their World Cup qualifying group without dropping a point. England, of course, had qualified automatically as hosts and were aiming to go beyond the quarter-finals for the first time. Uruguay had won the competition twice, but not since 1950, and had beaten England in the 1954 quarter-finals.
Uruguay had come to defend and secured the point they wanted with a well-organised defence which England found impossible to penetrate.
Uruguay followed up this result by beating France 2-1 at White City, returning to Wembley to face Mexico.
     

Source Notes

TheFA.com
Original newspaper reports
Rothman's Yearbooks
Mike Payne's England: The Complete Post-War Record (Breedon Books Publishing Company, Derby, U.K., 1993)
Norman Giller, Football Author
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CG