Tofiq Bahramov of Azerbaijan - hero of the 1966 World Cup Final

You decide! All eyes on Tofiq Bahramov in the most controversial moment in World Cup history

IT is the 10th minute of the first period of extra time in the 1966 World Cup final.  

A pass from Alan Ball falls slightly behind Geoff Hurst who checks, takes a couple of half-paces, then swivels and fires past the diving West Germany goalkeeper, Hans Tilkowski.

The ball hits the underside of the bar and, spinning ferociously, fizzes down towards the goalline.

 Cue: a controversy which has raged ever since. Goal or no goal?

 "Achtung! Achtung!"  West Germany TV commentator Rudi Michel told his viewers. "Nicht ein Tor. Kein Tor.  . . . oder noch?"

 "He’s hit the bar," exclaimed BBC radio commentator Alan Clarke. "It must be a goal. I would have thought that went in."

 The 46-year-old Swiss referee, Gottfried Dienst, was unsure. What was he to do in this moment of high drama? All 96,924 pairs of eyes at Wembley that famous afternoon fell on him.

From his position, there was no way Dienst, a postman from Basel, could judge. Inevitably, he hesitated.

Could his linesman rescue him? Yes, he could. And, yes, he did.

Step forward Tofiq Bahramov – subsequently dubbed the “Russian” linesman because his homeland of Azerbaijan was part of the Moscow-controlled Soviet Union

The moustachioed 41-year-old had the option of playing safe if only to spare himself from the controversy that would inevitably ensue.

He could have ‘bottled’ the moment by declining to provide an opinion. After all, his own vantage point, though better than that of anyone on the pitch except of Alan Ball, was less than ideal.

With the referee uncertain, his linesman would have left him well and truly holding the baby.

Instead, in one of the boldest and bravest moments in the history of the Word Cup, Bahramov refused to dither nervously on the touchline.

As the referee ran over towards him, he did not freeze, statue-like. He took at least three assertive strides on to the field of play while he waited for Dienst to arrive.

Bahramov knew that any sort of prolonged interaction would be asking for trouble. This was no time for deliberation.

Indecision would have risked both officials quickly having been surrounded by players, all gesticulating and blathering in separate languages.

In such a situation, making a decision would have been made 100 times more difficult. A fiasco could have ensued.

The two officials did not share the same language, so a conversation consisting of anything more than a few words or phrases would have been next to impossible.

It was not until the 1990s that the FIFA insisted that all officials appointed for international tournaments should speak a common language - English.

Yes, it was a goal, insisted Bahramov. Ja - definitiv! To emphasise the point, he pointed his furled up yellow flag to the halfway line and strode purposefully to his position for the restart of play with the centre circle kick-off.

Immediately the fateful decision had been made, three West German players raced to protest to the linesman - but in vain.

The linesman's authority again prevailed. He simply shooed the trio away as if they were troublesome insects.

His body language said it all. The decision had been made. And it was final!

Bahramov was all flamboyance and flourish - far removed from the shrinking subservience of today's breed of assistant referees.

By his show of assertiveness he had let himself become the lightning rod for the controversy. But in doing so, had he undermined the authority of the referee? Should he have been more subtle in how he communicated that he believed the goal should be given?

By now, probably mentally as physically exhausted, Dienst would not have minded in the slightest.

In the dressing room after the match, as far as they were able to overcome the barrier of not sharing a language, Dienst is said to have thanked the fellow official for "saving his reputation".

In the days and weeks following the match, the linesman was relentlessly  scorned  and ridiculed in the German media.

For instance, it was suggested firstly that he had secured his appointment for the final by inducing a member of FIFA's referees’ committee with the offer of two jars of Azerbaijan’s finest caviar and secondly that he had vengefully favoured an England win because West Germany had defeated the Soviet Union in the semi-final.

Another claim, one that proved to be more long-lasting, was that he had allowed his judgement to be coloured by his countrymen’s experiences in the Second World War - notably in the brutally savage fighting at Stalingrad.

In England, meanwhile, perhaps because the decision had been in the hosts' favour, the prevailing perspective was that the linesman had been correct.

In his own account of the match, Denis Howell, the Labour government's sports minister (and himself a former top-level referee), commended the officials.

"If any match is as superb as this undoubtedly was, then it must have been well controlled,”he wrote. “Controversial decisions there must be in every match.

"But no official should be judged by one or two decisions. It is overall control and contribution to the success of the match that count.

"Mr Dienst and his colleagues amply justified the confidence placed in them by FIFA."

Regardless of Howell’s generous verdit, time has not been kind to the memory of Bahramov.

In England, as in Germany, his star has fallen.

He has become almost a figure of fun - the “dodgy Russian linesman".

Former  Premier League and  international referee Graham Poll derided him - inaccurately and unfairly - for his "substantial belly",

"It wasn’t a goal. It was an injustice," said Poll in a book on great footballing controversies.

 "The more you look at it, the more difficult it becomes to work out why the linesman convinced himself that the ball had completely crossed the line."

The more you look at it?

But that was not an option open to Bahramov any more than it was to any referees and assistant referees in matches played pre-VAR.

In the wake of the 1966 final, the international refereeing authorities certainly had no qualms about  Bahramov and his performance at Wembley.

In the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, he refereed Peru’s 3-0 win against Morocco, and, in the same tournament, he ran the line for Bulgaria v Morocco  (1-1) and Brazil v Uruguay (3-1).

In between the two World Cup tournaments, he refereed other internationals and dozens of cup matches at European level - including the first leg of the 1968 European Cup semi-final in which Manchester United beat Real Madrid 1-0.

Two years after Mexico, he was in charge of the first leg (played at Molineux) of the UEFA Cup Final in which Tottenham Hotspur won 2-1 at Wolverhampton Wanderers.

In Azerbiajan, Bahramov and his memory have been celebrated ever since the famous Wembley final.

After he hung up boots, flag and whistle, he worked in sports administration. He died, aged 68, of heart failure, in March, 1993 - coincidentally just weeks after the death of England's World Cup captain, Bobby Moore.

On October 13, 2004, a statue was unveiled in his home city as a prelude to  the Azerbaijan-England World Cup qualifier of that date. The rebuilt sports stadium was also renamed in his honour.

Was it a goal? Perhaps not, but the jury is still out on that - and always will be.

But football should surely always have a debt of gratitude to the man from Baku.

Someone had to be bold. Someone had to make a decision and to stick to it.

Tofiq Bahramov was that man.

The 'Russian' Linesman is available as an ebook (£2) via Kindle/amazon