George Sidney Raynor (13 January 1907 – 24 November 1985) was an English professional footballer and one of the most successful international football managers ever. One of his greatest achievements was taking the

Sweden men's national football team The Sweden men's national football team () represents Sweden in men's international Association football, football and it is controlled by the Swedish Football Association, the governing body of football in Sweden. Sweden's home ground is Strawb ...

to a

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final, and he also managed them to an Olympic gold medal. Before the

1966 FIFA World Cup The 1966 FIFA World Cup was the eighth FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial Association football, football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was played in England from 11 to 30 July 1966. England defeated West Germany 4–2 in the 1966 FI ...

, he was the only Englishman to take a national team to a final of a World Cup. His World Cup campaign with Sweden is the best result ever for a non-national manager in the history of the tournament, along with

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

n Ernst Happel's second place with

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

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, twenty years after Raynor's.

Playing career

Raynor first played football in the non-Leagues for Elsecar Bible Class, Mexborough Athletic and

Wombwell Wombwell () is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley in South Yorkshire, England. In the 2011 census, data for the town was split between the ward of Wombwell and small sections that fell into the wards of Darfield (specifically the a ...

. When he did sign professional forms, Raynor's career took him only on an uninspired jaunt around the

Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional association football, football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, it is the oldest football league in Association football around the world, the w ...

. His first professional club was Sheffield United whom he joined in 1930, making only one first team appearance in the two years he was with the club. Between 1932 and 1939, he played for four different League clubs, the last of these (

Aldershot Aldershot ( ) is a town in the Rushmoor district, Hampshire, England. It lies on heathland in the extreme north-east corner of the county, south-west of London. The town has a population of 37,131, while the Farnborough/Aldershot built-up are ...

) in the truncated season before the start of the War. He signed up as a physical training instructor (PTI) in 1939 in order to train soldiers in the British Army. The

Football Association A football association, also known as a football federation, soccer federation, or soccer association, is a governing body for association football. Many of them are members of the sport's regional bodies such as UEFA and CONMEBOL and the world gov ...

had requested that all professional footballers become PTIs if they were not inclined to see active service. Raynor was posted to Iraq and, whilst in the course of working as a training instructor in Baghdad, he helped a fellow teacher club together a group of students into a team which toured the neighbouring states as a representative of Iraq. His work in Iraq came to the notice of the Secretary of the FA

Stanley Rous Sir Stanley Ford Rous (25 April 1895 – 18 July 1986) was an English football referee and the List of Presidents of FIFA, 6th President of FIFA, serving from 1961 to 1974. He also served as secretary of the Football Association from 1934 to 196 ...

. Thereafter, as Brian Glanville notes (with some poetic licence) in his '' The Story of the World Cup'' for ''

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'' (1973), "the FA whisked him in 1946 from reserve team trainer at Aldershot to the team managership of

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

". During 1939, he was a 'guest' WW2 player with Aldershot, Bournemouth, Bury, Clapton Orient with one appearance, Crystal Palace and Hull City. Source: Neilson N. Kaufman, historian Leyton Orient.

Sweden manager

Raynor was an irascible, indefatigable figure, characteristics that possibly aligned him more to Sweden than they ever would in conservative England; accordingly, with his insights into club management coming to the fore, Sweden quickly developed into a force. Under his tutelage, Sweden gave England a scare before losing 4–2 at

Highbury Highbury is an area of North London, England, in the London Borough of Islington. Highbury Manor Highbury was once owned by Ranulf, brother of Ilger, and included all the areas north and east of Canonbury and Holloway Roads. The manor hou ...

in 1947.

1948 Olympic Games

The following year, Sweden won the 1948 Olympic Games title defeating

Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...

3–1 in the final, in front of 60,000 at

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. This was after having surpassed

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

and

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

in the earlier stages. At that stage, Raynor was assisted by Putte Kock. They had assessed the team and decided that

Nils Liedholm Nils Erik Liedholm (; 8 October 1922 – 5 November 2007) was a Swedish association football, football midfielder and coach. ''Il Barone'' (the Baron), as he is affectionately known in Italy, was renowned for being part of the Swedish "Gre-No-Li ...

and Kjell Rosén could work effectively as defensive midfielders. The team had a core of players who would go on to play in Italy's

Serie A The Serie A (), officially known as Serie A Enilive in Italy and Serie A Made in Italy abroad for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Italy and the highest tier of the Italian football league system. Establish ...

championship.

Gunnar Gren Johan Gunnar Gren (; 31 October 1920 – 10 November 1991) was a Swedish professional association football, football player and coach. He is best remembered for playing for IFK Göteborg and AC Milan. A second striker, creative forward, known f ...

, Gunnar Nordahl and Liedholm (later called Gre-No-Li) formed an inventive striking force and each was picked up by Italian scouts following the gold-medal victory. Raynor was the last English manager to lead a team to Olympic Gold until Bev Priestman did so for the Canada women's national soccer team at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

1950 World Cup

Divested of his best players, and belaboured by the constraints of domestic initiative, whereby professionals were barred from playing for the national side, Raynor was still able to qualify the side for the

1950 FIFA World Cup The 1950 FIFA World Cup was the 4th edition of the FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international Association football, football championship for senior men's national teams. It was held in Brazil from 24 June to 16 July 1950. It was the first Wo ...

in Brazil, where the team overcame

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

and finished in third place; losing 3–2 to the eventual champions,

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

, after they were beaten 7–1 by a brilliant Brazilian team.

1952 Olympic Games

Raynor was still in charge of the national side for their Bronze medal performance at the 1952 Olympic Games in

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

and coached the national side during a two-game tour in late Autumn 1953. One of those games included an international against

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

on 15 November. Raynor is reputed to have said: "If we win, I'll paint he Stalin statue'smoustache red." The game finished 2–2 ( Kurt Hamrin, the Swedish right-winger, hitting the cross-bar in the final minute), against the brilliant Hungarian Golden Team, who had remained undefeated for over four years. On the journey back to Sweden, Raynor met Walter Winterbottom in Vienna and explained to him how to play the Hungarians, using man-to-man marking to cut out the threat of

Nándor Hidegkuti Nándor Hidegkuti (3 March 1922 – 14 February 2002) was a Hungarian football player and manager. He played as a forward or attacking midfielder and spent the majority of his playing career at MTK Hungária FC. During the 1950s he was also a ...

. Winterbottom did not follow the advice and this, in part, led to England's losing their home record against Hungary at Wembley on 25 November 1953

1958 World Cup

By that stage, the Swedish FA had decided to allow professionalism in domestic football, but there was still the need to go cap in hand to the Italian clubs in order to confirm the selection of Kurt Hamrin (from

Padova Padua ( ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Veneto, northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Padua. The city lies on the banks of the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice and southeast of Vicenza, and has a population of ...

) and Liedholm (at

A.C. Milan (), commonly referred to as Milan or AC Milan () mainly outside of Italy, is an Italian professional Football club (association football), football club based in Milan, Lombardy. Founded in 1899, the club competes in the Serie A, the top tie ...

) and there was still a need to convince the Swedish public of the need to play 'foreigners' in the national side. Raynor said: "It would have been impossible for us to meet world-class opposition without such performers as Liedholm, Gren, Hamrin and Skoglund. Some people thought it wrong to play these '

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

; a 3–1 win against

1954 FIFA World Champions Germany national football team">West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

confirmed their quality. He famously said that if Sweden get the first goal in the Final 'Brazil would panic all over the show'. Up to that stage the Brazilians had yet to go a goal down and when they were held, particularly by the Wales national football team">Welsh in the quarter-final, they had struggled to unlock the defence. As it happened the Swedes did score first; Liedholm scoring after four minutes, but Brazil rode the set-back and both Pelé and Vavá scored a brace in a 5–2 victory for the South Americans. The 1958 FIFA World Cup final, runners-up place is still the greatest achievement ever for Sweden in a major Association football, football competition.

Club manager

Raynor drifted back and forth into club management throughout this time with AIK Fotboll, AIK in Stockholm (from 1948 to 1951),

Lazio Lazio ( , ; ) or Latium ( , ; from Latium, the original Latin name, ) is one of the 20 Regions of Italy, administrative regions of Italy. Situated in the Central Italy, central peninsular section of the country, it has 5,714,882 inhabitants an ...

in Rome (during the 1954–55 season) and Coventry City in England (for five months in 1956), but was back as national manager for the

1958 FIFA World Cup The 1958 FIFA World Cup was the 6th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was played in Sweden from 8 to 29 June 1958. It was the first and only FIFA World Cup to be played in a Nordic country. Br ...

held in

. During his time at Coventry, he was asked to be the trainer for the Third Division South representative team in 1956–57.

Later career

Nine years after these triumphs, Raynor was made redundant after a seven-month stint managing

Doncaster Rovers Doncaster Rovers Football Club is a professional association football club based in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England. The team currently competes in EFL League One, the third level of the English football league system after winning the 202 ...

in the English Fourth Division. But perhaps nothing illustrates the contrast between Raynor's international profile and his English one better than the fact that during his career he managed

and later found work as a manager with Skegness Town. He published a book in 1960 called ''Football Ambassador at Large''.

Honours

Manager

Sweden *

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often called the World Cup, is an international association football competition among the senior List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams of the members of the FIFA, Fédération Internatio ...

** Runners-up: 1958 ** Third-place:

1950 Events January * January 1 – The International Police Association (IPA) – the largest police organization in the world – is formed. * January 5 – 1950 Sverdlovsk plane crash, Sverdlovsk plane crash: ''Aeroflot'' Lisunov Li-2 ...

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a Multi-s ...

** Gold medal:

1948 Events January * January 1 ** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated. ** The current Constitutions of Constitution of Italy, Italy and of Constitution of New Jersey, New Jersey (both later subject to amendment) ...

** Bronze medal:

1952 Events January–February * January 26 – Cairo Fire, Black Saturday in Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses. * February 6 ** Princess Elizabeth, ...

AIK * Svenska Cupen:

1949 Events January * January 1 – A United Nations-sponsored ceasefire brings an end to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. The war results in a stalemate and the division of Kashmir, which still continues as of 2025 * January 2 – Luis ...

Individual * Swedish Football Hall of Fame: Inducted, 2006

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Raynor, George 1907 births 1985 deaths Footballers from Wombwell English men's footballers Men's association football forwards Mexborough Athletic F.C. players Wombwell F.C. players Sheffield United F.C. players Mansfield Town F.C. players Rotherham United F.C. players Bury F.C. players Aldershot F.C. players English Football League players English football managers GAIS managers AIK Fotboll managers Åtvidabergs FF managers Juventus FC managers SS Lazio managers Coventry City F.C. managers Sweden men's national football team managers Djurgårdens IF Fotboll managers Doncaster Rovers F.C. managers Allsvenskan managers English Football League managers Serie A managers 1950 FIFA World Cup managers 1958 FIFA World Cup managers English expatriate football managers English expatriate sportspeople in Sweden English expatriate sportspeople in Italy Expatriate football managers in Sweden Expatriate football managers in Italy Expatriate football managers in Iraq English expatriate sportspeople in Iraq Iraq national football team managers 20th-century English sportsmen