England’s first World Cup adventure was a voyage of the damned

In 1950 the ‘kings of football’ were presented as certain to win, but what followed was calamitous

Roll back 70 years to a grey, austere postwar Britain, still in ruins, still enduring food rationing, queues and misery, a nation where football provided a scarce escape. It was also when, for the first time, England took part in the game’s major global tournament, the World Cup, which began on 19 June 1950 in Brazil.