My English friends of similar vintage will not thank me for recalling this hour and a half of pure footballing drama.
England v Poland on 17 October 1973 sticks in my memory like a limpet to a rock. It remains to this day one of the greatest games of football I’ve ever witnessed.
I was still short of my eleventh birthday, but in an age when very few matches were televised live, excitement had reached fever-pitch. It was billed for weeks before, ‘England’s most important game since 1966’. Practically the whole population was primed for the event.