1966 The Beginning of the Ending

With eleven minutes of extra time gone, Alan Ball put in a cross and Geoff Hurst's shot from close range hit the underside of the cross bar, bounced down - apparently on or just over the line - and was cleared. The referee Gottfried Dienst was uncertain if had been a goal and consulted his linesman, Tofik Bakhramov from the USSR, who in a moment of drama indicated that it was. After non-verbal communication, as they had no common language, the Swiss referee awarded the goal to the home team. The crowd and the audience of 400 million television viewers were left arguing whether the goal should have been given or not.

England's third goal has remained controversial ever since the match. According to the Laws of the Game the definition of a goal is when the whole of the ball passes over the goal line.

German supporters cite the possible bias of the Soviet linesman (Bakhramov was from Azerbaijan), especially as the USSR had just been defeated in the semi-finals by West Germany (World War II had ended 21 years previously). Bakhramov later stated in his memoirs that he believed the ball had bounced back not from the crossbar, but from the net and that he was not able to observe the rest of the scene, so it did not matter where the ball hit the ground anyway. Swiss referee Gottfried Dienst, otherwise regarded as the best referee, did not see the scene, and was blamed later for again favouring the home team in the 1968 European Football Championship final.