It's coming home - but who with?

Will Sven make that illustrious quintet? Read on... and if you disagree than pen, fax or e-mail your choice to the Sportsdesk, 76-78 Walmgate YO1 4YN, or 01904 628239, or at sport@ycp.co.uk

WITH England having given football to the world, some might think that the national football coach is a long-standing position. Yet it did not truly come into being until five decades ago when the dourly-named Walter Winterbottom gave way to a then plain old Alf Ramsey.

And there can be no other choice at the pinnacle of England coaches than the only man to have steered the lions to international glory.

Alf, later rightly knighted for his endeavours, was at the helm of England during the peak of their powers, winning the World Cup in 1966. Could there have been a better time for England to have won the Jules Rimet Trophy - the country rocking and reeling to The Beatles, mini-skirts and West Ham's golden trio of Bobby Moore, Martin Peters and Geoff Hurst?

Critics carp that England had home advantage playing all their games at Wembley. But doesn't every host nation boast that benefit? Ramsey moulded an England team in his pragmatic image but laced with the flair of four genuine world-class players - Moore, Gordon Banks, Ray Wilson and Bobby Charlton.

And ultimate success over West Germany was attained by discarding the then capital media fave Jimmy Greaves, the nation's top goal predator.

Had goalkeeper Banks not been stricken with a suspicious bout of food poising four years later, I believe Ramsey would have led England to a second successive final in Mexico.

It was also in South America that Bobby Robson, my number two, alerted the nation to his motivational skill. Despite a wretched start to the 1986 finals, England advanced until stopped by Maradona's mesmeric trickery.

Four years later, progress was even more dynamic, England beaten only on penalties by nemesis Germany in the semi-finals.

Robson, who has just returned to the international scene with the Republic of Ireland at the age of 72, surely is England's pluckiest and unluckiest boss.

Happy-go-lucky applies to the next candidate - the late Joe Mercer. The man, who as a football pundit memorably re-christened Dutch maestro Johan Cruyff as Joe-han Crufts, had caretaker-command of England for a mere seven games between Ramsey and the rickety reign of Don Revie.

But what a seven-up. The legendary Man City manager plumped for panache, harnes-sing maverick talents such as Frank Worthington, Tony Currie, Alan Hudson and Keith Weller all in the same team. Mercer even brought Liverpool's pig-farming full-back Alec Lindsay into his squad. A smile was back on football's face.

Grins widened by Skinner and Baddiel's 'Three Lions on a Shirt' ditty were wide and frequent during the Euro 1996 reign of an England spearheaded by Terry Venables.

I've never fallen in with the belief that Venables was coaching acumen personified, but there was no denying that his mid-90s England played with a verve that suggested trophy success was lying in wait.

Unfortunately, the ambush was sprung yet again by the Germans, those penalty-meisters dumping England out in the semi-finals, with El Tel further bush-whacked by his off-field 'business interests'.

So on to the fifth and final choice. Not Hoddle, nor Keegan, nor Ron Greenwood. Sven himself inches into the top five but only just.

The Swede's record in qualifying England for the business end of competitions is near peerless. But when we get to the sharp end his reputation fades in tandem with England as evidenced against Brazil four years ago and Portugal in 2004.

Germany calls this summer and if Sven is to rise from his fifth position he has to deliver at a major finals, especially blessed by the collective talents of Rooney, Owen, Gerrard, Lampard and the two Coles. That is if some of them are still speaking to him in the wake of his Middle East revelations. Sir Alf would have never fallen for such a ruse.

Updated: 11:49 Tuesday, January 24, 2006