With the iconic images of red shirts and a golden trophy glinting in the sun it is easy to be fooled into thinking you have seen England's finest two hours in all its glorious colour when you haven't.

There is no complete footage of the 1966 World Cup final known to exist other than the black-and-white film broadcast to the nation at the time.

But now England’s World Cup heroics of 1966 are to be immortalised in glorious colour.


The black and white footage of the entire 90 minutes plus extra time will be restored and colourised by the team behind the acclaimed First World War film They Shall Not Grow Old.

There certainly was a full colour film before, because a talented and eclectic team of filmmakers captured the game against West Germany in glorious technicolour and created a BAFTA award-wining documentary.

Goal! navigates the thrills and spills of the tournament: the pain of Pele, Italy's demise at the hands of North Korea, the goals of Eusebio and its finale at Wembley Stadium.

It proved a hit in cinemas around the world and was produced by Octavio Senoret, an actor turned producer responsible for the official World Cup film in 1962 when his native Chile hosted the tournament.

He paid FIFA £15,000 for the rights to do it again four years later, inspired by Kon Ichikawa's acclaimed Tokyo Olympiad, a colour film made for cinema to document the Olympic Games of 1964.