Exclusive: Unseen Pictures Of The 1966 World Cup Final

They were hidden among the millions of photographs in the archives, unseen snapshots of the day that made legends of 11 English heroes and the manager who made them masters of the world.

For more than 40 years, these pictures have been gathering dust, forgotten amid the wild delight of the occasion and the passage of time, hundreds of remarkable shots of a day that will always be remembered.

They might never have resurfaced, either, lost forever, had it not been for the launch of mirrorfootball.co.uk and the excuse to delve into the <I>Daily Mirror's</i> unique and astonishing catalogue, stored in a vast warehouse in Watford.

But now, for the first time, the whole collection, containing intimate shots of Sir Alf Ramsey and his players before, during and after the greatest day English sport has ever experienced, is available for fans who were there at Wembley, wish they had been, or who just want to see a repeat in South Africa next summer, to share and enjoy. 

The pictures include Jimmy Greaves - who was famously left out of the side and saw his replacement, Sir Geoff Hurst, saw the only hat-trick in World Cup final history - smoking a pipe while skipper Bobby Moore has a pre-match kip, and the crowds who gathered to see the players off to Wembley from their Hendon Hall hotel base.

Shots from the game include Martin Peters celebrating what looked like it would prove the match-winner before Germany's stoppage time equaliser, a crunching challenge by Jack Charlton on Siegfried Held and Sir Alf telling his players "you've beaten them once; now go out and do it again" as Alan Ball looks shattered.

Other pictures show "Russian linesman" Tofik Bakramov, with Swiss ref Gottfried Dienst and his Czech colleague, just a few minutes after the decision to award Hurst's controversial second goal, England's third, and the crowd invasion - which sparked commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme's immortal "some people are on the pitch" words before Hurst lashed home the clincher.

"Everyone knows that some people were on the pitch," says mirrorfootball editor Dan Silver. "But until now we've never seen who they were. Hopefully some of them are still alive and will contact us.

"We think we've covered just about every angle with these pictures, except whether or not Geoff's "goal" crossed the line. But, as we think they say in Germany, the referee is always right!"