Unseen Jimmy Armfield tape: '˜My career started by accident and I don't blame Alf Ramsey for dropping me'

But it was his have-a-go attitude that launched his record breaking career – something which he said started ‘by accident’ – and later helped him cope with the disappointment of not playing at the World Cup in 1966.

In a never-before-seen interview, Mr Armfield sat in the conservatory at his South Shore home and told of his modest upbringing, underpinned by his hard work in the classroom.

Young Jimmy had been evacuated to the resort from Denton, five miles east of Manchester city centre, and lived with his mother Doris in one room of a three-storey guest house. When his father Christopher came home from the war, he rented a grocer’s shop, and the family stayed.

“It was a humble background,” Jimmy said in the interview, with the Sporting Memories Foundation and only released following Mr Armfield’s death on Monday.

“I was fortunate in that I passed my eleven-plus and I went to Arnold, which was a good school.

“There I played rugby. I was the school’s athletics champion. That’s where I got interested in sport.”

Jimmy played in the same rugby team as George Eastham, who went on to play football for Newcastle, Arsenal, Stoke, and England, and Malcolm Phillips, who went on to play rugby for England.

“I used to play football on the beach with my friends, and I had the habit of carrying a little tennis ball with me and playing with that. But I only became a footballer by accident because I did O levels and A levels and I got accepted at Liverpool University to read economics.”

Out of the blue, Jimmy was asked to take part in a trial at Bloomfield Road. Wowed by the prospect of playing with Stanley Matthews and Stan Mortensen, he agreed.

But when he arrived at the ground, his name wasn’t down to play. Seasiders coach Alex Munro was supervising the trial, asked if Jimmy had brought his boots, and told him to sit down.

“He came up to me and said, ‘You play for the whites. Can you play on the wing?’, and I said yes.

“To cut a long story short, the team I played for won 4-1, and I scored all four, which was rather strange really in a way. I think it was due to the inefficiency of the defence rather than my ability.

“But nonetheless, that’s how it began. They asked me if I’d go back for training and it sort of went on from there.”

He continued: “When I left school to go in the Army, because we all had to go in the Army for two years, I started to play football and I got a very quick promotion in Blackpool’s team. I was in the Army team and the regimental team ... it was then my career took off.”

Jimmy said he ‘blossomed’ playing alongside people like Sir Bobby Charlton and Duncan Edwards – who were in the Army side with him and went to be world-class footballers – and quickly developed into the best right back in the world and captain of both club and country.

Tony Jameson-Allen, the co-founder and director of the foundation, who interviewed Jimmy, said: “We have a very positive relationship with the PFA (Professional Footballers’ Association) who have previously funded some of our work. It was through Jimmy’s association with the PFA that were introduced, but the focus was around a project we ran capturing the memories of 1966 [when England, with Jimmy in the squad, won the World Cup].

“I presumed I would go in an office for 10 minutes, but Jimmy got in touch and invited us to his house. He was not well that day but devoted over an hour talking of his whole life.

“It was totally unscripted. I don’t pretend to be a professional reporter – I’m a former psychiatric nurse, so I’m good at listening. The questions wrote themselves.

“It was fascinating. I was just welcomed in, and immediately offered a cuppa. Jimmy was so generous with his time.

“He was a footballing man through and through, and a gent. I could have spent a day listening to him.”

Some of the interview, conducted in the conservatory of Jimmy’s home in South Shore, was used for a project called Memories of ‘66, but most has remained out of the public domain until this week.

Jimmy didn’t play in the World Cup, and wasn’t honoured properly for his contributions until 2009 when he was finally given a winners’ medal for being part of the squad – and he spoke of the disappointment of losing his place in the team.

“The worst thing was, in ‘64, the last day of the season, I had my case with me and Alf Ramsey [England manager] was in the stand,” he said. “Blackpool were playing in Ipswich, and then we were going down to London and flying to play in Rio.

“Right at the end of the game I got a pain in the groin, and most players will tell you it’s one of the worst injuries.

“Instead of going to Heathrow after the game, the doctor said, ‘You need to have that seen to’.”

Jimmy ended up at the Victoria Hospital.

“These days they would probably repair it in three or four weeks with an operation. It took me three or four months to get back,” he said.

“By that time, England had played and I lost my place in the team. I had to get myself back in motion again and I started to do okay.

“Then, come the end of 1965, I was playing in London and Alf came to the match and asked how I was doing.

“I said,‘I’m okay now, I’m doing quite good’.

He said, ‘Yeah, I’ve been watching. You’re looking quite good. I’d like you to be fit for the World Cup.’

But Jimmy was injured again, this time against Finland, fracturing a toe in his left foot after being stood on by an opposition player, and faced another spell on the sidelines.

“By the time the first game came round in the World Cup, I think I could have played,” he said.

“But by then [Sir Alf] stuck to the back four he had gone with. And quite right because they had done well I thought.

“I didn’t play again. It was the injury that did me.”

Jimmy won 43 England caps, 15 as captain, and played a record 627 league and cup games for Blackpool, whom he also skippered from 1961 to 1971.

His final game, which came before a career in management and as a treasured broadcaster, was against Manchester United on May 1, 1971.