George Raynor
Encyclopedia
George S. Raynor was an English
professional footballer and one of the most successful international football managers ever. One of his greatest achievements was taking the Sweden national football team
to a World Cup final, and he also managed them to an Olympic
gold medal.
. When he did sign professional forms Raynor's career took him only on an uninspired jaunt around the Football League. His first professional club was Sheffield United whom he joined in 1930, making only one first team appearance in the two years he was with the club. Between 1932 and 1939 he played for another four different League clubs, the last of these (Aldershot) in the season before the start of the War. However, whilst in the course of working as a training instructor in Baghdad during hostilities, Raynor had clubbed together an international football team and this had come to the notice of the Secretary of the Football Association
Stanley Rous
. Thereafter, as Brian Glanville
notes (with some poetic licence) in his The Story of the World Cup, "the FA whisked him in 1946 from reserve team trainer at Aldershot to the team managership of Sweden
".
in 1947.
title defeating Yugoslavia
3-1 in the final, in front of 60,000 at Wembley
. This was after having surpassed Austria
, Denmark
and South Korea
in the earlier stages. At that stage Raynor was assisted by Putte Kock
. They had assessed the team and decided that Nils Liedholm
and Kjell Rosén could work effectively as defensive midfielders. The team had a core of players who would go on to play in Italy's Serie A
championship. Gunnar Gren
, Gunnar Nordahl
and Liedholm (later famously called Gre-No-Li
) formed the wonderfully inventive striking force and each were picked up by impressed Italian scouts following the Gold-medal victory. Raynor remains the last English manager to lead a team to Olympic Gold.
in Brazil
where the team overcame Italy
and finished in third place; losing 3-2 to the eventual champions, Uruguay
, after they were beaten 7-1 by a brilliant Brazilian team.
in Helsinki
and for the November 1953 international against Hungary
in Budapest
. Raynor is reputed to have said: "If we win, I'll paint [the Stalin statue's] moustache red." However he was not able to muster up a win, the game finished 2-2, against the brilliant Hungarian Golden Team, who remained undefeated for over 4 years. After the game he tried to give advice to the English FA about how to play the Hungarians, using man-to-man marking to cut out the threat of Nandor Hidegkuti
, this idea was met with opposition "can you really expect us to ask Stanley Matthews to track back?" was a response that left Raynor in shock and subsequently destroyed England unbeaten home record, as the Hungarians won 6-3 in the "Match of the Century"
. .
had decided to allow professionalism in domestic football, but there was still the need to go cap in hand to the Italian clubs in order to confirm the selection of Kurt Hamrin
(from Padova) and Liedholm (at AC Milan) and there was still a need to convince the Swedish public of the need to play 'foreigners' in the national side. Raynor said "It would have been impossible for us to meet world-class opposition without such performers as Liedholm, Gren, Hamrin and Skoglund. Some people thought it wrong to play these "Italians" as the side was not representative of Swedish football. Perhaps it wasn’t, but it was representative of the footballers Sweden produced."
Raynor managed Sweden to the final against Brazil
; a 3-1 win against 1954 FIFA World Champions
West Germany
confirmed their quality. He famously said that if Sweden get the first goal in the Final 'Brazil would panic all over the show'. Up to that stage the Brazilians had yet to go a goal down and when they were held, particularly by the Welsh in the quarter-final, they had struggled to unlock the defence. As it happened the Swedes did score first; Liedholm scoring after four minutes, but Brazil rode the set-back and both Pelé
and Vavá
scored a brace in a 5-2 victory for the South Americans. The runners-up place is still the greatest achievement ever for Sweden in a major football competition.
in Stockholm (1948-1951 season), Lazio
in Rome (1954-1955 season) and Coventry City FC in England (for 5 months in 1956) but was back as national manager for the 1958 FIFA World Cup
held in Sweden
. During his time at Coventry, he was asked to be the trainer for the Third Division South representative team
in 1956/57.
in the English Fourth Division. But perhaps nothing illustrates the contrast between Raynor's international profile and his English one better than the fact that during his career he managed Lazio
and later found work as a manager with Skegness Town
.
He published a book in 1960 called "Football ambassador at large".
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
professional footballer and one of the most successful international football managers ever. One of his greatest achievements was taking the Sweden national football team
Sweden national football team
The Swedish national football team represents Sweden in association football and is controlled by the Swedish Football Association, the governing body for Football in Sweden. Sweden's home ground is Råsunda Stadium in Stockholms län and their head coach is Erik Hamrén. Sweden made their first...
to a World Cup final, and he also managed them to an Olympic
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
gold medal.
Playing career
Raynor first played football in the non-Leagues for Elsecar Bible Class, Mexborough Athletic and WombwellWombwell
Wombwell is a small town near Barnsley, located in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley in South Yorkshire, England. It has a population of 15,180.Its name's origin may mean "Womba's Well", or "well in a hollow"....
. When he did sign professional forms Raynor's career took him only on an uninspired jaunt around the Football League. His first professional club was Sheffield United whom he joined in 1930, making only one first team appearance in the two years he was with the club. Between 1932 and 1939 he played for another four different League clubs, the last of these (Aldershot) in the season before the start of the War. However, whilst in the course of working as a training instructor in Baghdad during hostilities, Raynor had clubbed together an international football team and this had come to the notice of the Secretary of the Football Association
The Football Association
The Football Association, also known as simply The FA, is the governing body of football in England, and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. It was formed in 1863, and is the oldest national football association...
Stanley Rous
Stanley Rous
Sir Stanley Ford Rous, CBE was the 6th President of FIFA, serving from 1961 to 1974. He also served as secretary of the Football Association from 1934 to 1962 and was an international referee.-Early Life:...
. Thereafter, as Brian Glanville
Brian Glanville
Brian Lester Glanville is a leading English football writer and novelist.-Biography:Glanville was educated at Charterhouse School, where he played football to a high standard...
notes (with some poetic licence) in his The Story of the World Cup, "the FA whisked him in 1946 from reserve team trainer at Aldershot to the team managership of Sweden
Sweden national football team
The Swedish national football team represents Sweden in association football and is controlled by the Swedish Football Association, the governing body for Football in Sweden. Sweden's home ground is Råsunda Stadium in Stockholms län and their head coach is Erik Hamrén. Sweden made their first...
".
Sweden manager
Raynor was an irascible, indefatigable figure, character notes that possibly aligned him more to a responsive Sweden than they ever would in conservative England and accordingly, with his insights into club management coming to the fore, Sweden quickly developed into a force. Under his tutelage, Sweden gave England a scare before losing 4-2 at HighburyArsenal Stadium
Arsenal Stadium was a football stadium in Highbury, North London, which was the home ground of Arsenal Football Club between 6 September 1913 and 7 May 2006...
in 1947.
1948 Olympic Games
The following year Sweden, famously, won the 1948 Olympic Games1948 Summer Olympics
The 1948 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XIV Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was held in London, England, United Kingdom. After a 12-year hiatus because of World War II, these were the first Summer Olympics since the 1936 Games in Berlin...
title defeating Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
3-1 in the final, in front of 60,000 at Wembley
Wembley Stadium
The original Wembley Stadium, officially known as the Empire Stadium, was a football stadium in Wembley, a suburb of north-west London, standing on the site now occupied by the new Wembley Stadium that opened in 2007...
. This was after having surpassed Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
and South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
in the earlier stages. At that stage Raynor was assisted by Putte Kock
Putte Kock
Rudolf "Putte" Kock was a Swedish football, ice hockey and bridge player who won a bronze medal in the 1924 Summer Olympics as a football player, being voted the World's best left winger after the tournament...
. They had assessed the team and decided that Nils Liedholm
Nils Liedholm
Nils Liedholm was a Swedish football midfielder and coach. Il Barone , as he is affectionately known in Italy, was renowned for being part of Sweden's "Gre-No-Li" trio of strikers along with Gunnar Gren and Gunnar Nordahl at A.C. Milan and the Swedish national team...
and Kjell Rosén could work effectively as defensive midfielders. The team had a core of players who would go on to play in Italy's Serie A
Serie A
Serie A , now called Serie A TIM due to sponsorship by Telecom Italia, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and has been operating for over eighty years since 1929. It had been organized by Lega Calcio until 2010, but a new...
championship. Gunnar Gren
Gunnar Gren
Gunnar Gren was a Swedish football player and coach. He is best known for playing for IFK Gothenburg and AC Milan. He was part of the famous "Gre-No-Li" trio of forwards at A.C. Milan and the Swedish national team...
, Gunnar Nordahl
Gunnar Nordahl
Gunnar Nordahl was a Swedish football player, best known for his play in AC Milan 1949-1956.-Sweden:...
and Liedholm (later famously called Gre-No-Li
Gre-No-Li
Gre-No-Li is a contraction of the surnames of three Swedish footballers: Gunnar Gren, Gunnar Nordahl and Nils Liedholm. The denomination was colloquially used after these players composed a formidable trio of strikers while playing for the Swedish national team and Italian club AC Milan in the...
) formed the wonderfully inventive striking force and each were picked up by impressed Italian scouts following the Gold-medal victory. Raynor remains the last English manager to lead a team to Olympic Gold.
1950 World Cup
Divested of his best players and belaboured by the constraints of domestic initiative whereby professionals were barred from playing for the national side, Raynor was still able to qualify the side for the 1950 FIFA World Cup1950 FIFA World Cup
The 1950 FIFA World Cup, held in Brazil from 24 June to 16 July, was the fourth FIFA World Cup. It was the first World Cup since 1938, the planned 1942 and 1946 competitions having been canceled owing to World War II...
in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
where the team overcame Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and finished in third place; losing 3-2 to the eventual champions, Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
, after they were beaten 7-1 by a brilliant Brazilian team.
1952 Olympic Games
Raynor was still in charge of the national side for their Bronze medal performance at the 1952 Olympic Games1952 Summer Olympics
The 1952 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XV Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Helsinki, Finland in 1952. Helsinki had been earlier given the 1940 Summer Olympics, which were cancelled due to World War II...
in Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
and for the November 1953 international against Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
. Raynor is reputed to have said: "If we win, I'll paint [the Stalin statue's] moustache red." However he was not able to muster up a win, the game finished 2-2, against the brilliant Hungarian Golden Team, who remained undefeated for over 4 years. After the game he tried to give advice to the English FA about how to play the Hungarians, using man-to-man marking to cut out the threat of Nandor Hidegkuti
Nándor Hidegkuti
Nándor Hidegkuti was a Hungarian football player and manager. He played as a forward or attacking midfielder and spent the majority of his playing career at MTK Hungária FC. During the 1950s he was also a member of the Hungarian National Team team known as the Golden Team...
, this idea was met with opposition "can you really expect us to ask Stanley Matthews to track back?" was a response that left Raynor in shock and subsequently destroyed England unbeaten home record, as the Hungarians won 6-3 in the "Match of the Century"
England v Hungary (1953)
England v Hungary was an international football game played on November 25, 1953. The game was played between Hungary - then the world's number one ranked team, the Olympic champions and on a run of 24 unbeaten games - and England, then the world's number three ranked team, the inventors of the...
. .
1958 World Cup
By that stage the Swedish FASwedish Football Association
The Swedish Football Association is the governing body of football in Sweden. It organises the football leagues — Allsvenskan for men and Damallsvenskan for women — and the men's and women's national teams. It is based in Solna and is a founding member of both FIFA and UEFA...
had decided to allow professionalism in domestic football, but there was still the need to go cap in hand to the Italian clubs in order to confirm the selection of Kurt Hamrin
Kurt Hamrin
Kurt Roland Hamrin is a former Swedish footballer. He is currently the seventh highest goalscorer of all-time in Italy's Serie A with 190 goals. He was best known as goal scoring winger with incredible dribbling ability.-Career:Hamrin first played for AIK in Sweden, whom he joined in the 1952-53...
(from Padova) and Liedholm (at AC Milan) and there was still a need to convince the Swedish public of the need to play 'foreigners' in the national side. Raynor said "It would have been impossible for us to meet world-class opposition without such performers as Liedholm, Gren, Hamrin and Skoglund. Some people thought it wrong to play these "Italians" as the side was not representative of Swedish football. Perhaps it wasn’t, but it was representative of the footballers Sweden produced."
Raynor managed Sweden to the final against Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
; a 3-1 win against 1954 FIFA World Champions
1954 FIFA World Cup
The 1954 FIFA World Cup, the fifth staging of the FIFA World Cup, was held in Switzerland from 16 June to 4 July. Switzerland was chosen as hosts in July 1946. The tournament set a number of all-time records for goal-scoring, including the highest average goals scored per game...
West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
confirmed their quality. He famously said that if Sweden get the first goal in the Final 'Brazil would panic all over the show'. Up to that stage the Brazilians had yet to go a goal down and when they were held, particularly by the Welsh in the quarter-final, they had struggled to unlock the defence. As it happened the Swedes did score first; Liedholm scoring after four minutes, but Brazil rode the set-back and both Pelé
Pelé
However, Pelé has always maintained that those are mistakes, that he was actually named Edson and that he was born on 23 October 1940.), best known by his nickname Pelé , is a retired Brazilian footballer. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest football players of all time...
and Vavá
Vavá
Vavá, real name Edvaldo Izídio Neto, was an association footballer who is widely considered one of the best strikers of his generation. His nickname was "Peito de Aço"...
scored a brace in a 5-2 victory for the South Americans. The runners-up place is still the greatest achievement ever for Sweden in a major football competition.
Club manager
Raynor drifted back and forth into club management throughout this time with AIKAIK Fotboll
AIK, , an abbreviation for Allmänna Idrottsklubben, , when needed internationally AIK Stockholm, is a Swedish football club based at Råsunda stadium in Solna, a municipality in Stockholm County bordering to Stockholm City Centre...
in Stockholm (1948-1951 season), Lazio
S.S. Lazio
Società Sportiva Lazio, commonly referred to as Lazio, is a professional Italian football club based in Rome. The team, founded in 1900, play in the Serie A and have spent most of their history in the top tier of Italian football...
in Rome (1954-1955 season) and Coventry City FC in England (for 5 months in 1956) but was back as national manager for the 1958 FIFA World Cup
1958 FIFA World Cup
The 1958 FIFA World Cup, the sixth staging of the World Cup, was hosted by Sweden from 8 June to 29 June. The tournament was won by Brazil, who beat Sweden 5–2 in the final for their first title. To date, this marks the only occasion that a World Cup staged in Europe was not won by a European...
held in Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
. During his time at Coventry, he was asked to be the trainer for the Third Division South representative team
Football League Third Division North vs. South Representative Games
The Third Division North and Third Division South of The Football League was a level in English association football, which ran from 1921 to 1958.From 1954–55 season until 1957–58 season, there was a series of games between teams representing the Third Division North and the Third Division South.-...
in 1956/57.
Later career
Nine years after these triumphs Raynor was being made redundant after a seven-month stint managing Doncaster RoversDoncaster Rovers F.C.
Doncaster Rovers Football Club is an English football club, based at the Keepmoat Stadium in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. The team currently competes in the Football League Championship, after being promoted via the League One play-offs in 2008, and have remained there since.The club was founded in...
in the English Fourth Division. But perhaps nothing illustrates the contrast between Raynor's international profile and his English one better than the fact that during his career he managed Lazio
S.S. Lazio
Società Sportiva Lazio, commonly referred to as Lazio, is a professional Italian football club based in Rome. The team, founded in 1900, play in the Serie A and have spent most of their history in the top tier of Italian football...
and later found work as a manager with Skegness Town
Skegness Town A.F.C.
Skegness Town Association Football Club is an English association football club based in Skegness, Lincolnshire, that competes in the Lincolnshire League.-History:...
.
He published a book in 1960 called "Football ambassador at large".