On July 4, 1974, Don Revie accepted an invitation from the Football Association (FA) to succeed Sir Alf Ramsey as manager of the England national football team. At that stage, his appointment was a popular one but, while his tenure started well enough, things started to go wrong during a three-week period in late 1975. On October 30, England lost 2-1 to Czechoslovakia in Bratislava and, on November 19, could only draw 1-1 with Portugal in Lisbon, meaning they failed to qualify for the 1976 European Championships.
In World Cup Qualifying Group 2, England beat Finland 4-1 in Helsinki on June 13, 1976 and 2-1 at Wembley Stadium on October 13, 1976, but lost 2-0 to Italy in Rome on November 17, 1976 to make qualification for the 1978 World Cup unlikely from a group with just one qualification place. England did, indeed, fail to qualify for the 1978 World Cup, for the second tournament running but, by the time they beat Luxembourg 2-0 in Luxembourg in their penultimate qualifying match on October 12, 1977, Revie was long gone.
Three defeats in friendly matches at Wembley Stadium, including ritual humiliation by a Netherlands team featuring Johan Cruyff on February 9, 1977, sounded a death knell for Revie. Having discovered that FA chairman Sir Harold Thompson was seeking a replacement, Revie travelled to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where he agreed a lucrative four-year deal to manage the national team. He asked the FA to pay up his contract and, when they refused, broke the news of his decision to walk out via the front page of the ‘Daily Mail’ newspaper.
Thompson, with whom Revie had never seen eye to eye – in fact, they ‘genuinely hated each other’ – instigated disciplinary proceedings against him, resulting in a ten-year ban from football (later overturned by the High Court) for bringing the game into disrepute. After seven years in the UAE and a brief spell in Egypt, Revie returned to England, but never worked in football again. He was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 1987 and died two years later, aged 61.