Ray Wilson remains the only player to date to have lifted the World Cup while with Everton
Everton's Ray Wilson (right) and Liverpool's Roger Hunt parade the World Cup around Goodison Park before the 1966 Charity Shield
Everton's Ray Wilson (right) and Liverpool's Roger Hunt parade the World Cup around Goodison Park before the 1966 Charity Shield
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The ECHO’s Christopher Beesley continues his daily series of articles on Everton and the World Cup running throughout the tournament in the United States of America, Canada and Mexico.
As it stands, 60 years on from his Wembley triumph, Ray Wilson remains the only player to have won the World Cup while with Everton at the time.
Marco Materazzi of Italy (2006) and Shkodran Mustafi of Germany (2014) both secured winners’ medals after their spells with the Blues had come to a close while England team-mate Alan Ball soon joined Wilson at Goodison Park after the 1966 success, but to date he remains on his own in an exclusive club of one.
Whereas Ball at 21 was the youngest member of Alf Ramsey’s side, Wilson was the team’s elder statesman at more than a decade older. Indeed, despite having been England’s first-choice left-back for five years by the time West Germany were defeated 4-2 in extra-time, Wilson had to wait until he was almost 30 to taste top-flight football at club level on a regular basis.
Born in Shirebrook, Derbyshire, Ramon Wilson, to give him his full title, became an apprentice railwayman on leaving school and started out working on the tracks at night and training with Huddersfield Town by day. Although the Terriers were still a First Division side when he made his debut against Manchester United in October 1955, it wasn’t until after relegation at the end of the same season that Wilson established himself in the team.
For over three years at the Yorkshire club, Bill Shankly was Wilson’s manager, but despite possessing talents such as himself and teenager Denis Law, the Scot was unable to steer them back into the First Division and departed for Liverpool in December 1959. Although he became the most-capped player in Huddersfield’s history, Wilson wouldn’t follow his former gaffer across the Pennines to Merseyside for almost five years until Harry Catterick, who had once tried to sign him for Sheffield Wednesday, parted with £35,000 and Mick Meagan to finally prise him from Leeds Road.
After finally getting his crack at the big time, Wilson suffered a hip injury on his home debut against Nottingham Forest that kept him sidelined for almost four months but thankfully it remained a blip and after returning to fitness, he became a stalwart in the Everton side for the next four seasons.
With the Blues also lifting the FA Cup with a 3-2 comeback win over Sheffield Wednesday in 1966, Wilson also holds the distinction of being the only player to have won the FA Cup and World Cup at the same stadium in the same year (others to have subsequently achieved the feat playing in World Cup finals elsewhere are Patrick Vieira of Arsenal and France in 1998; Mesut Ozil and Per Mertesacker of Arsenal and Germany in 2014; N’Golo Kante and Olivier Giroud of Chelsea and France in 2018) and would parade the Jules Rimet Trophy around Goodison Park alongside Liverpool's Roger Hunt before the subsequent Charity Shield game.
Goodison Park stalwart Gordon Watson, who served the club as a player, coach, promotions officer, barman and matchday steward for 62 years between 1933 and 1995 rated Wilson as England’s best-ever left-back and said of him: “Brian Labone confessed to me that if he was in trouble he’d get the ball to Ray who was guaranteed to get him out of a jam.”
Ivan Ponting also attests to such coolness in his magisterial book Everton Player by Player in which he says of Wilson: “His left-footed distribution was precise, imaginative and calm, he never passed to team-mates in dangerous positions – so many defenders dispense hot potatoes under pressure – and his powers of concentration were worthy of Geoffrey Boycott with his score on 99.”
Describing Wilson’s display in the 1966 World Cup final, Ponting adds: “That day Ray demonstrated both his class and character as he refused to be ruffled by an uncharacteristic error, a weak header that had let in the West Germans for the opening goal and was duly rewarded with footballing immortality.”
The Everton and the World Cup series sees Christopher Beesley writing about the Blues' links with the tournament throughout the 2026 finals
The Everton and the World Cup series sees Christopher Beesley writing about the Blues' links with the tournament throughout the 2026 finals
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Recalling his Everton team-mate in 2022, Colin Harvey told the ECHO: “Ray was quick. He was a good communicator with a real will to win but he wasn’t like Bally, he wasn’t an extrovert. Alan walked in on his first day and he’d take over the room – in a really nice way – but Ray, despite everything he’d achieved in the game, would just say a quick ‘hello’.
“He was at Huddersfield Town for a long time before he came to Everton, and a lot of that was in the old Second Division, even though he was an England international. Back then it wasn’t really worth moving because everyone was basically on the same wage no matter where they were.
“You could move outside of your area but the wages wouldn’t go up to make it worth your while and he probably got more in bits and pieces staying where he was as he might have had things like a house provided by the club at Huddersfield. It was only when wages got higher and higher a few years later that certain clubs, like Everton, had more money and they went after players.”
Huddersfield Town and Everton celebrated ‘Ray Wilson Day’ on April 28, 2018, the Terriers’ first top-flight fixture against the Blues since 1972.
A Huddersfield club statement read: “Ray’s World Cup victory brought immense pride to the terraces of Leeds Road after his talent was cultivated at Huddersfield Town. Unfortunately, Ray now suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, but attends Huddersfield Town matches with his two sons when he can.”
Like Wilson himself, his former team got their timing just right as he passed away aged 83, little over a fortnight later, on May 15.
Today’s game – Third place play-off: France v England, 10pm, Miami.