ON THIS DAY

Welshman John Toshack was sacked as the Real Madrid manager - for the second time. He had joined the club in February of that year but his unpopular reign came to an end after 11 matches of the new season with the club in a lowly 8th place. Almost exactly nine years to the day previously he had been sacked for the first time by the Spanish giants despite guiding the club to a La Liga title and only losing 8 of the 64 matches he was in charge.

It was 'Arise, Sir Geoff' as Geoff Hurst received his knighthood from the Queen in recognition of his services to football. He was the third person connected to England's 1966 World Cup victory to be knighted after player Bobby Charlton (in 1994) and manager Alf Ramsey (in 1967). He said that the Buckingham Palace ceremony was more important to him than the hat-trick he scored in the World Cup final against West Germany.

England might have failed to get to the World Cup finals - as did Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - but at least an English-born manager would be in the USA. Roy Hodgson's Switzerland beat Estonia in their final qualifier to finish in the second qualifying spot in their group behind Italy.

A tragedy in Wales. A distress rocket of all things was fired at the Wales v Romania World Cup qualifier at the Cardiff Arms Park which hit and killed a spectator. The two people responsible were later tried and convicted of manslaughter and were each sentenced to 3 years in prison, the judge describing the act as one of 'mindless and crass stupidity'.

A new low for England. In their final qualifying match for the 1994 World Cup finals England needed to thump mighty San Marino in Bologna to have have any chance of qualifying. Instead after just 8 seconds Davide Gualtieri scored for San Marino! OK England won 7-1 watched by a 2,378 crowd but they failed to qualify for the finals - finishing third in the group behind Norway and the Netherlands - and within a week Graham Taylor had resigned as manager.

One of the early steps Vinnie Jones took on the path to becoming a film-star was not a successful one. He brought out a video - Soccer's Hard Men - which the Football Association considered a glorification of violence in the game. He was charged by the FA for bringing the game into disrepute and on this day in 1992 was found guilty and fined £20,000 (then a record) and received a six month playing ban, which was suspended for three years.

Friendlies are rarely matches that stick in the memory but the one exception that I can think of was when Moscow Dynamo toured Britain in November 1945. The Second World War had just ended and the country wanted to be entertained again and the footballers from far-off Russia did just that. Unbeaten in their four friendly matches against Arsenal, Cardiff, Chelsea and Rangers they packed the grounds they played in with many believing over 100,000 were at Stamford Bridge and not many fewer being present at Ibrox. But when they played Cardiff City at a packed Ninian Park on 17th November 1945 Moscow Dynamo produced a masterclass in a 10-1 victory and British football was never quite the same again.