Football fever sweeps the nation... and this time I can't get fired!

DATELINE: Saturday, July 30 1966

I am just about to start my second year as a cub reporter on the Express and Echo and its sister paper, the Western Times and Gazette. I'm loving my job, driving around the lanes of East Devon in my trusty A35 (three forward gears, handbrake down the right hand side of the driver's seat, annoyingly slow windscreen wipers), getting a taste of the country life.

I'm covering a whole swathe of East Devon and at weekends I spend most Saturday afternoons in the summer covering fetes and flower shows.

But here's my dilemma. I have three flower shows to cover this afternoon. That entails taking down the names of all the winners (first, second and third) of all the flower and veg classes – and in some cases there are in excess of 50 classes.

The trouble is that at 3pm this afternoon England kick-off against Germany in the final of the World Cup and as a football nut there's no way I'm going to miss it. So I decided I will miss one of the flower shows. I think it was Whitford.

I get back to my home in Lyme Regis just in time to see the kick-off and settle down to watch the biggest game England has ever played. Against the old enemy – Germany – alongside my Dad and my brother John.

You know the rest.

I write up my flower show stories the next morning and put my copy on the Exeter train out of Axminster. No electronic transmission in those days.

At 8am on Monday morning the phone goes. I know who it is – my news editor, a tough little guy with the fearsome Scottish temper, Andy Buchan. I was in perpetual fear of it.

"Where's the copy for Whitford Flower Show?" he bellowed down the phone. Before I had chance to come up with an excuse, he butted in: "I know what you've done, laddie. You haven't filed it because you were watching the football. Do that again and you're sacked!"

Then he slammed the phone down.

That Saturday evening me and all my mates went out to celebrate England's wonderful 4-2 victory over Germany, ending up always in the Marine Theatre where I think it was The Troggs (it may have been The Searchers) at one of Bob Alexander's Big Beat Nights. Very 1960s.

It was packed, 600 plus. The chant "IN-GER-LAND" went up and continued for nearly an hour. The Troggs (or Searchers) walked off stage and didn't come back until it stopped. The girls were not impressed.

These memories have come flooding back in recent week, watching England reach the semi-finals of the European Championship, including a 2-0 win over Germany – the first time since 1966 they had won a knock-out against our old adversary.

This wasn't a final, just the first round of the knock-outs, but judging by the scenes of celebration up and down the country, you would thought we had won the tournament. Even non-football people were excited by the win.

After nearly two years being confined to our homes with very little sport or entertainment, the UK was more than ready for a reason to let our hair down. We needed it. And no one was going to stop it. Sod the science.

The day England won the World Cup is one of the great memories of my life. It nearly cost me my job and there was a lesson to be learned. I can honestly say, however, that since that day I have never knowingly missed a job for a football match.

So can we dare to think we can go the whole way in this tournament? With some of the big guns already out, we will never have a better chance. And what a celebration that will be.

And now I'm my own boss, I don't have to worry about getting the sack!