George Raynor

Ashley Hyne works as a legal representative. He previously wrote for the "South London Mercury" and for the Association of Football Statistics.

"The Guinness Book of Records" called him the most successful soccer coach in history, but English-born George Raynor is the great unknown of British soccer

George Raynor'sremarkable successes (coaching "amateur" Sweden to an Olympic Gold medal and a World Cup Final) were contrasted bizarrely by how he was treated by the English soccer community of the 1950s. Months after becoming the first Englishman to take a side to the World Cup final, Raynor was scratching a living coaching Skegness Town in the Midland League. His death went unrecorded by the local and national press, and even today references to him in soccer books offer little insight into his remarkable character: "a little known clogger" according to one, and in a history of soccer tactics reference to Raynor is fleeting and disparaging, andeven his name is misspelled. Yet, Raynor unquestionably holds his position as a leading light of coaching, and his impact is still relevant today."