England's 58 years of hurt – by numbers

England play Spain in the final of Euro 2024 on Sunday and Gareth Southgate’s team have the chance to win their country’s first men’s major trophy since 1966.

If England are victorious in Berlin it will end a drought — the so-called 58 “years of hurt” — that has lasted from the moment Geoff Hurst’s hat-trick against West Germany helped win the 1966 World Cup final.

Since that triumph at Wembley Stadium, 21,168 days have passed. There have been 13 different Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom. At the time of that 4-2 victory on home soil, the Big Mac was still nine months away from being released and only four James Bond films had come out. Oh, and another World Cup would be staged before Southgate was even born.

Here, The Athletic takes a look at the numbers, names and facts behind England’s decades-long quest to win a second major tournament.

The 457 players

England have used 457 players since the 1966 World Cup final. These men have come from 70 different clubs (more sides than there are in the Premier League, Championship and League One combined).

The player with the earliest date of birth to appear for England since the 1966 World Cup triumph is Ray Wilson, born in December 1934, and the one with the most recent is Kobbie Mainoo, born in April 2005 — a gap of almost 71 years. Tony Adams (October 1966) was the first man born after the World Cup win (July 30, 1966) to play for England, making his debut in February 1987.

Peter Shilton has played the most number of games in this period with 125 caps while, at the other end of the scale, 79 men have played just once for England since the World Cup triumph.

Here are the 10 players to have played the most games for England since the 1966 final:

And here are those 79 men who have earned just one cap:

Jordan Pickford, Kyle Walker, John Stones, Kieran Trippier, Luke Shaw, Declan Rice, Harry Kane and Bukayo Saka all have the chance to become the first Englishmen to play in two major tournament finals on Sunday, having all featured against Italy in the final of Euro 2020.

The overall record

England have played 652 matches since winning the World Cup in 1966 (the final in Berlin will be the 653rd). They have won 362 of those games, drawn 177 and lost 112. One match was abandoned, against the Republic of Ireland in Dublin in 1995 due to crowd trouble, but all players were awarded caps for the fixture.

The country they have played the most times in this period is Scotland with 33. The side they have lost to the most often is Germany/West Germany with 13 defeats.

England’s biggest win since 1966 was the 10-0 thrashing of San Marino in a World Cup qualifier in November 2021 and their heaviest defeat was the 4-0 humbling at the hands of Hungary in a Nations League fixture at Molineux in June 2022.

The top scorers

England have scored 1,161 goals since the 1966 World Cup final, with Harry Kane’s 66 the most of any player.

These goals have been scored by 182 different men, with Roger Hunt netting the first against Northern Ireland in October 1966 and Ollie Watkins the most recent against the Netherlands in July 2024.

Here are England’s top scorers since the 1966 final:

England’s two scorers in the 1966 final, Hurst and Martin Peters, scored 19 and 18 international goals respectively after that match at Wembley.

The only instances of an England player winning the Golden Boot at the World Cup or European Championship since 1966 (as well as before that) are Gary Lineker at the 1986 World Cup, Alan Shearer at Euro 1996 and Harry Kane at the 2018 World Cup.

Kane is still in the hunt for the award at Euro 2024 and is tied at the top of the standings on three goals with five other players.

If the England captain does win the Golden Boot at this tournament he will become just the fourth player in history to win the award at the World Cup and European Championship, after the Soviet Union’s Valentin Ivanov and Yugoslavia’s Drazan Jerkovic at Euro 1960 and the 1962 World Cup (the award was shared at both tournaments), and Gerd Muller for West Germany at the 1970 World Cup and Euro 1972.

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The most goals scored in a game by a player since 1966 is Malcolm Macdonald’s five against Cyprus in a European Championship qualifier in 1975. Macdonald scored all of England’s goals that day, in a 5-0 win, and four of them were headers.

The then Newcastle United forward scored just six goals for England in his career and never found the net again for his country after that glut against the Cypriots.

England have benefitted from 40 own goals in this period, the first coming from Wales’ Terry Hennessey in November 1966 and the most recent scored by North Macedonia’s Jani Atanasov in November 2023.

The fastest England have scored from kick-off since the 1966 final was when Bryan Robson found the net after 27 seconds against France at the 1982 World Cup.

Robson celebrates after scoring against France in 1982 (Peter Robinson/EMPICS via Getty Images)

Overall, England have scored six goals inside the first minute of matches since the World Cup triumph. Three of these have been scored by Robson (also 1982 v Northern Ireland and 1989 v Yugoslavia), one by Hurst (v Switzerland in 1971), one by Lineker (v Malaysia in 1991) and one by now-manager Southgate (against South Africa in 2003).

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The managers

Including caretakers, 18 managers have taken charge of England since the 1966 World Cup. That is every manager in the national team’s history apart from Walter Winterbottom — who was in charge from 1946 to 1962.

Sir Alf Ramsey, England’s manager when they triumphed in 1966, carried on in the job until April 1974.

Southgate (Euro 2020 and Euro 2024) is the only one of these managers to guide England to a final since 1966. Ramsey (Euro 1968), Sir Bobby Robson (1990 World Cup), Terry Venables (Euro 1996) and Southgate (2018 World Cup, Euro 2020 and Euro 2024) are the only managers to reach semi-finals in this period.

Sam Allardyce, with victory in his only match in charge in 2016, has the highest win percentage of these managers with 100 per cent. The one with the lowest (excluding caretakers) is Kevin Keegan with 39 per cent.

Keegan resigned after defeat by Germany in a World Cup qualifier in the final game at the old Wembley Stadium in October 2000 after a failed experiment of playing a 30-year-old Southgate in a holding midfield role.

Keegan departs the pitch, and his role, against Germany at Wembley (Mark Leech/Offside via Getty Images)

Tournament record

Euro 2024 is the 29th major tournament (World Cup and European Championship) since the 1966 World Cup.

England have qualified for 22 of these tournaments and missed out on seven. This is how they have got on in each of them:

Here is a comparison with other countries in this period:

If Southgate’s team secure victory over Spain in Berlin it would mean that every country that has won the World Cup (Uruguay, Italy, Germany, Brazil, England, Argentina, France and Spain) has also won their main continental championship.

Then and now

Clearly the world has changed enormously in the 58 years since England men’s only major trophy was won.

Back in 1966, the currency used in the United Kingdom was the pre-decimal ‘pounds, shillings and pence’ and things cost a lot less money back then. Adjusting for inflation, a pint of beer in the UK would have cost an average of £1.80 when England won the World Cup. Now it is £4.70.

The average price of a house in the UK in 1966 was an inflation-adjusted £32,000. Now, it is £282,000.

Moore receives the Jules Rimet trophy from Queen Elizabeth II (Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

The first moon landings were still almost three years away when Moore lifted the Jules Rimet trophy on that Saturday afternoon in 1966, there were still no cash machines in the country, there was no such thing as a Rubik’s Cube and the first email was still five years away from being sent.

But, should Kane — born in Walthamstow, north London, just six miles away from Moore’s birthplace — hold aloft the European Championship trophy in the German capital this weekend, all those years of hurt will be over.

(Top photos: Getty Images)