Ask any England football fans their favourite chant and often the politically incorrect little ditty, ‘Two World Wars and one World Cup’ is trotted out. It is a dubious fusion of sport and politics supposedly meant in the spirit of jovial banter; a reference to a football match in July 1966 and the great conflagrations engulfing the planet in the early and mid-twentieth century. Germany emerged from the horrors of the Nazi regime a beaten nation in war; a divided nation and one in the paroxysms of its people suffering shame and humiliation. Football changed the German people’s self-image. England’s victory over West Germany in the 1966 World Cup final was a rare success for the English. West Germany and then a re-unified Germany grew into a dominant World footballing superpower during the post-war decades, a success story reflecting its immense social and economic recovery over the same period. Arguably it all began in neutral Switzerland. It began with a game still laced with controve