By, Simon Rocker
1 min read
BySimon Rocker, Simon Rocker
England's World Cup soccer success in 1966 could have been down to a secret visit to a synagogue – or so we can dream.
In the recent BBC documentary Alfie's Boys, a member of the team, George Cohen, recalled seeing his colleague Nobby Stiles nip out of the Hendon hotel where they were based on the day of the final.
When Stiles was asked where he was going, he replied that he was off to "a Roman Catholic Church to have one last prayer for the afternoon".
Cohen told his interviewer that there must be more synagogues in the locality than in Israel and wondered how Stiles would have been able to find the right church.
"Well, did you find one," asked Cohen on his colleague's return a couple of hours later. "I'm not sure," Stiles replied, "but I said a prayer in a place that was certainly different."
So could the tough-tackling midfielder actually have slipped into a shul without quite realising it?