Sixty years of USA hurt for Bert

It was the World Cup draw welcomed by everyone in English football. Everyone, that is, except our very own Bert Williams.

For just about 60 years, the legendary goalkeeper of Wolves and England has been trying to forget the most humiliating day in our football history.

But then came the draw for next summer's group stages in South Africa with England getting, what most observers agree, was as kind a first round group as they could hope for - competing with USA, Slovenia and Algeria.

The moment Fabio Capello's team were picked out to face the Yanks, the Hall of Fame-bound Molineux legend found himself once more at the centre of attention about the 'Game No One Will Let Him Forget.'

When England take on the US on Saturday, June 12 next summer it will be 60 years to the month they suffered what must still rank as the greatest World Cup shock of them all. Yes, Cameroon beat Argentina on the opening day of the 1990 tournament, Algeria once toppled West Germany and we all enjoyed Senegal overcoming the French.

But America beating England in Brazil in 1950? It would have a modern day equivalent of Chelmsford beating Chelsea. Chelmsford's reserves that is.

As the team's oldest surviving member, poor old Bert finds himself right in the thick of renewed media interest in that fateful day of June 29 in Belo Horizonte's Estadio Independencia. Not something to relish a couple of months short of his 90th birthday.

Newspapers and TV crews have all been in touch requesting interviews, including some from north America. But, as politely as possible, Bert has told them 'no thank you.'

For context, we must remember that - blissfully unaware of the rising strength of South American football - England flew to Rio regarding themselves as one of the most powerful teams on the planet with a strong chance of winning the tournament.

The USA hacked together what must have seemed like the only 11 footballers the nation possessed at the time – and most of them were barely American.

When they lined up to face England after the Three Lions had opened the tournament by beating Chile 2-0, it was an even bigger mismatch than last week's little episode at Old Trafford.

Bert said: "I've spent more than 50 years trying to forget it – and now they want to bring back all the memories again."

But an invitation for a cup of tea, a tour of Williams's treasure trove of memorabilia and the chance to chew the fat with this enduringly impressive champion of our game led me to go 'well, go on Bert, tell us all about it.'

Just one more time.

So he said: "The USA knew they were going to get beaten, we were a much better team. So they came with a plan to concede as few goals as possible. If they let one in, they were going to do everything to prevent another.

"It was the first time we had played against anything like that before. A team whose sole tactic was to defend. We had never experienced anything like it.

"We hit the crossbar or the upright at least three times; it could have been more. You could play that game a hundred times after that day and we would have got a cricket score against them.

"I could barely see the goals from my area, the Americans had so many players back. Their penalty area was so thick with bodies I literally could not see the goal. Can you imagine it? I don't think I had more than half a dozen kicks throughout the game and their goal was just a sheer fluke.

"I hate the picture there is of it, because it looks as if I haven't done anything. But they got a free-kick and the direction of the ball has taken a deflection off the lad who scored, Joe Gaetjens. But we were still confident at half-time. We thought we would win by five. 'This can't go on forever', I was thinking.'

But it did. It went on and on. The harder England tried, the harder it became. Bert, watching from his empty penalty area as the pride of the nation's football community flailed away at the opposite end, could not believe the escapes the American goal enjoyed.

He said: "It's been a nightmare for me ever since. It's always one of the first questions people ask me. What it did do was effect the confidence of the team so badly that we lost the last match against Spain 1-0.

"We could still have gone through had we won it and we could have won that World Cup in my opinion. We were a strong team and one of the favourites. But that game against America changed everything. We were so depressed. We couldn't believe it. We could hardly speak afterwards."

According to the Americans, you took the defeat very well, I remind him. They have said how classy the English were. Did you shake hands afterwards?

Bert laughs: "Shake their hands? Shake their throats more like! No, I didn't want to talk to any of them after the game."

On the congested walls of Bert's home, where a countless array of picture frames tell the story of his remarkable career and a remarkable time, there are precious few reminding you of a day so unbelievable to the folks back home that when the score came back, newspapers thought it must be a 'typo' and printed 10-0 to England instead.

It was not the only disturbing memory of his first visit to Brazil, though.

Bert recalls" "We had just crossed the coast on the flight home and were heading to sea, when the plane banked sharply and we realised we were in trouble with one of the engines.

"The pilot couldn't get us back to Rio so he made a landing at another small airstrip, goodness knows where, while the plane was fixed. We had no hotel, nowhere to go. So we all bunked down that night in a storeroom.

"Can you imagine that today? In fact the only good thing that I can remember from that trip is being in Rio and gazing up to that famous statue of Christ on the mountain top. It was lit up at night and was an amazing sight.

"Every house I've lived in since I have named after the hillside it stands on."

The Brazilians built the Maracana for this particular World Cup and England's party were invited to watch the opening ceremony and game there, where the hosts were facing Mexico.

Bert said: "No-one told us they were going to let off cannons which were directly under the stand in which we were sitting. When they did, every one of us jumped out of our skins as we got showered by plaster from above.

"I can also remember a commentator running up and down the side of the pitch with an extremely long microphone lead. In breaks of play, he would run on and interview one of the players!

"In our first game against Chile, we were preparing to defend a corner, I was at the back post and I suddenly felt this tap on my shoulder.

"There's this bloke asking me, in broken English, if i would mind having a word! 'Bugger off', I told him."

Still, however badly things turned out for Williams that day he had more than enough throughout his career with club and country to compensate him.

He said: "I've been so fortunate, so privileged. Others that day were less so."

Many years later, Williams received correspondence from the States informing him of the fate of the man whose fortunate header beat him that day.

Joe Gaetjens was actually Haitian-born and after a brief career in France, returned to a homeland where on 8 July 1964 he was arrested at gunpoint by brutal secret police loyal to dictator Francois 'Papa Doc' Duvalier and never seen again.

Williams added: "Somebody had gone to the trouble of telling me the whole story which was obviously a tragic one. It just goes to show there is always someone worse off than you."