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England 1966 World Cup - Qualifying

FIFA World Cup 
1930 - 1934 - 1938 - 1950 1954 - 1958 (Finals) - 1962 - 1966 -
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With England hosting the 1966 World Cup Finals this was as close to a "home" World Cup as Northern Ireland are ever likely to get. Sadly, their qualification campaign fell agonisingly short as they could only draw with the unfancied Albanians in the final match.

European Qualifying Group 5
#
Team
Pl
W
D
L
GF
GA
GD
Pts
1
Switzerland
6
4
1
1
7
3
4
9
2
N. Ireland
6
3
2
1
9
5
4
8
3
Netherlands
6
2
2
2
6
4
2
6
4
Albania
6
0
1
5
2
12
-10
1

Results

Alb
Ned
NIr
Sui
Alb

0-2
1-1
0-2
Ned
2-0

0-0
0-0
NIr
4-1
2-1

1-0
Sui
1-0
2-1
2-1


Northern Ireland Line-Ups

Match Programmes

Comments

Anonymous said…
Draw in Albania must rank as NI's most costly result ever. I would like to read the match report to see how a full strength NI failed to win.
jcd said…
It was for the 1966 World Cup and Euro '84 that draws against Albania cost us finals places. Which one was worse, hard to say, but if Denmark and Greece could win the Euros, us missing out in 1984 was a real missed opportunity!

Match report can be found below, highlighting our typical "lack of finishing power". However, look at our forward line - McIlroy, Crossan, Irvine, Dougan and Best - it couldn't have been much stronger!
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=GmxAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=gaMMAAAAIBAJ&pg=1424,4158026&hl=en