George Raynor

For the English clergyman, schoolmaster and cricketer, see George Raynor (cricketer).
George Raynor
Personal information
Full nameGeorge S. Raynor
Date of birth13 January 1907
Place of birthHoyland Common, England
Date of death24 November 1985 (aged 78)
Youth career
Elsecar Bible Class
–Mexborough Athletic
Senior career*
YearsTeamApps†(Gls)†
1929–1930Wombwell
1930–1931Sheffield United
1932–1933Mansfield Town
1933–1935Rotherham United
1935–1938Bury FC
1938–1939Aldershot
Teams managed
1943–1945Iraq XI
1945–1946Aldershot Reserves
1946–1954Sweden
1947–1948GAIS
1948–1952AIK
1952–1954Åtvidaberg FF
1954Juventus
1954–1955Lazio
1956Coventry City
1956–1958Sweden
1958–1960Skegness Town
1960Djurgårdens IF
1961Sweden
1967–1968Doncaster Rovers
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.
† Appearances (Goals).

George S. Raynor (13 January 1907 in Hoyland Common, Yorkshire – 24 November 1985) 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.[1][2][3][4][5]

Playing career

Raynor first played football in the non-Leagues for Elsecar Bible Class, Mexborough Athletic and Wombwell. 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".[6]

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 Highbury in 1947.[7]

1948 Olympic Games

The following year Sweden, famously, won the 1948 Olympic Games 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.

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 Cup 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.

1952 Olympic Games

Raynor was still in charge of the national side for their Bronze medal performance at the 1952 Olympic Games 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 Nándor 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".[8]

1958 World Cup

By that stage the Swedish FA 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."[9]

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.

Club manager

Raynor drifted back and forth into club management throughout this time with AIK 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.[10]

Later career

Nine years after these triumphs Raynor was being made redundant after a seven-month stint managing Doncaster Rovers 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.[11]

He published a book in 1960 called Football Ambassador at Large.[12] In 2012, the first biography of Raynor will be published by The History Press, entitled 'George Raynor, The Greatest Coach England Never Had': auth. Ashley Hyne.

References

  1. ↑ Ian Chadband (2002-05-27). "Sweden, Skegness and the 'first' Sven - Sport - London Evening Standard". Standard.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-11-13.
  2. ↑ "George Raynor, the greatest coach that English football turned its back on". Times. Retrieved 2012-11-14.
  3. ↑ Murray, Scott (2012-03-16). "Joy of Six: British and Irish managers in Europe | Scott Murray | Sport | guardian.co.uk". London: Guardian. Retrieved 2012-11-13.
  4. ↑ "Ask Norman: Out of their comfort zone - ESPN FC". Soccernet.espn.go.com. 2012-08-29. Retrieved 2012-11-13.
  5. ↑ "The Englishman who took Sweden to the World Cup Final - The Local". Thelocal.se. Retrieved 2012-11-13.
  6. ↑ Published on Thursday 10 June 2010 10:26 (2010-06-10). "George Raynor: Yorkshire's forgotten hero who took on the world with unfancied Sweden - Other clubs". Yorkshire Post. Retrieved 2012-11-13.
  7. ↑ "Norman Giller's England Lineups and Match Highlights 1946-47 to 1949-50". Englandfootballonline.com. 2005-04-03. Retrieved 2012-11-13.
  8. ↑ Richard Williams. "Swedes at a loss to understand Eriksson's bashing | Football | The Guardian". London: Football.guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-11-13.
  9. ↑ "4Insider". Channel4.com. Retrieved 2012-11-13.
  10. ↑ "George Raynor: the one that got away". World Soccer. 2012-04-14. Retrieved 2012-11-13.
  11. ↑ Purnell, Gareth (2012-08-11). "Hubbard's Cupboard: Englishman who guided Sweden to football gold - Comment - Olympics". London: The Independent. Retrieved 2012-11-13.
  12. ↑ "Football ambassador at large: Amazon.co.uk: George Raynor: Books". Amazon.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-11-13.