England are World Cup Winners! Quiz

Answer: 2003 Rugby World Cup winners

The 2003 Rugby World Cup was the fifth tournament since its foundation in 1987, and the first since the inaugural tournament to return to Australasia. Originally intended as a tournament split between Australia and New Zealand, in 2002 the plan was altered, with Australia instead becoming the sole host for the tournament. A total of eleven venues across ten cities were selected, with the final planned to be held at Stadium Australia in Sydney, which had been built as the main stadium for the 2000 Summer Olympics.

In total, 20 teams qualified for the World Cup, with eight qualifying automatically as a result of reaching the quarter-finals of the previous tournament in 1999, and twelve having to go through qualifying. England were one of the automatic qualifiers, being ultimately drawn in Pool C alongside South Africa, Samoa, Georgia and Uruguay. With four victories out of four, including a tournament record 111-13 win over Uruguay, England finished top of their pool, and defeated their European rivals Wales and France in the knockout stages to reach their second World Cup final. In defeating defending champions and hosts Australia, England became only the second side (after Australia in 1991 and 1999) to win the World Cup away from home, and the first from the Northern Hemisphere to claim the title.

Answer: 2003 Rugby World Cup winners

Having won the 2003 World Cup, England were one of eight sides that qualified automatically for the 2007 tournament, held primarily in France, alongside the other seven quarter-finalists from 2003. The draw for the tournament saw the holders drawn in Pool A, alongside South Africa (who they had played in the Pool stage in 2003), Samoa, Tonga and the United States. Unlike four years previously however, England finished second in their pool having won three and lost one of their games. In the knockout stage, England came up against their opponents from the 2003 final, Australia, in the quarter-final, before facing hosts France in the semi-final in Paris, where they won 14-9 to reach a second successive final. However, playing South Africa for a second time led to England finishing runners-up following a 15-6 defeat.

Of the other two sets of World Cup winners, the 1966 football champions ultimately reached the quarter-final in the 1970 tournament, where, despite being 2-0 up with just over 20 minutes to play, they were beaten 3-2 by West Germany after extra time, while the 2019 cricket champions failed to get out of the group stage in 2023, having lost six and won just three of their nine games

Answer: 2003 Rugby World Cup winners

In 2003, the host nation, Australia, announced that a total of ten cities across the country would serve as venues for the Rugby World Cup. The vast majority of these were along the east and south-east coast, with the only cities not falling in that geographical strip being Launceston in Tasmania, Adelaide in South Australia, and Perth in Western Australia. It was at the Subiaco Oval in Perth that the first five games in Pool C, the pool that included England, were played. England ultimately played two games in Perth, beating both Georgia and South Africa, before all five teams decamped from the West Coast. England's final two pool games were against Samoa in Melbourne and their tournament record victory against Uruguay in Brisbane.

England remained at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane for their quarter-final against Wales, one of two played in the city, with the other two quarter-finals in Melbourne. Both semi-finals and the final were then scheduled to be played at Stadium Australia in Sydney, where England overcame France in the semi-final before beating hosts Australia in the final. This was in contrast to the other two World Cup winners - the 1966 FIFA World Cup winners played all of their games at Wembley Stadium in London, while the 2019 Cricket World Cup winners opened the tournament at The Oval, before playing the final at Lord's, with both venues in London.

Answer: 2003 Rugby World Cup winners

Martin Johnson was born in Solihull, near Birmingham, in 1970. At the age of 18, he made his senior debut for Leicester, although the same year he was approached by former New Zealand forward Colin Meads to try out for the King Country provincial team. He remained in New Zealand for two years, even being selected for the All Blacks under-21 side on a tour of Australia. However, he ultimately returned to Leicester at the end of 1990, and was selected for his full England debut in January 1993. The same year, he was also called into the British Lions squad for the tour to New Zealand, playing in two test matches. He was subsequently named as the Lions captain for the 1997 tour to South Africa.

In 1999, Johnson replace Lawrence Dallaglio as England captain, leading the team in the 1999 World Cup and in a total of four Six Nations championships, winning three, including a Grand Slam in 2003. By 2003, with Johnson as captain, England had become the number one ranked team in the world. Prior to the World Cup, the team toured the Southern Hemisphere, winning away in New Zealand for the first time since 1973 before also beating Australia. As the favourites, Johnson ultimately led England to their famous extra-time victory in the World Cup final, before announcing his retirement from international rugby in January 2004. Of his total of 92 international caps (84 for England and eight for the Lions), Johnson served as captain for 45 games (39 for England and six for the Lions).

Answer: 2019 Cricket World Cup winners

Eoin Morgan was born in Dublin in September 1986 to an Irish father and an English mother. During his childhood he played both cricket and hurling; during his time at Catholic University School in Rush, County Dublin, he played for the school cricket team, which won three Leinster Senior Schools Cups. He also spent time at Dulwich College in London, where he nurtured an ambition to play cricket internationally for England. At the time, although Ireland played internationally to a reasonable standard, they were not a Test Match nation, so the opportunity to play Test cricket lay primarily in qualifying for England.

Morgan made his international debut playing for Ireland in 2006, ultimately playing 23 One-Day Internationals for the nation of his birth. At the same time, he began to represent England's development teams, qualifying through his possession of a British passport. In 2009, he made his second international debut, this time for England in a One-Day International against the West Indies. Five years after this, he was appointed as captain of the England one-day and T20 sides, serving in this capacity for the next eight years, which included the 2019 World Cup where he became the first England captain to lift the trophy. Morgan retired in 2022 having played 16 Test matches, 225 One-Day Internationals and 102 T20 internationals for England, in addition to 23 ODIs for Ireland.

Answer: 2019 Cricket World Cup winners

New Zealand achieved Test Match status in 1930, the fifth team to do so. As a result, because full members of the ICC have always been granted automatic places at the World Cup, New Zealand have participated in every tournament since its establishment in 1975. However, for much of the tournament's history, the team's success was limited to being a losing semi-finalist, doing so in six of the first ten tournaments. It was not until the 2015 competition that New Zealand, co-hosting alongside Australia, beat South Africa to make it past the semi-final stage and reach their first World Cup final. In that year's final, against Australia, they ended up losing by seven wickets.

Four years later, the team just managed to qualify for the semi-finals by finishing fourth in the single preliminary group, only getting through on net run rate ahead of Pakistan. But, despite this, they ended up beating India by 18 runs to reach a second successive final, where they played England. New Zealand ultimately finished runners-up for a second successive tournament, thanks to England's victory on boundary count.

Answer: 2019 Cricket World Cup winners

Unlike other sports, cricket has two ways where the outcome of a game is inconclusive - a draw is where the team batting second is able to reach the end of the game without losing all of its wickets (whether they have reached the total of the team batting first or not), while a tie is where both teams finish with the same number of runs. In a one-day game, a draw would only happen if play is suspended for any reason, but a tie can be possible. However, in an elimination game, a tie is not possible, as there has to be a winner, and so a method was required. In 2008, the "Super Over" was devised - this is where each team plays a single additional over of six balls, with the team scoring the most runs winning the game.

The Super Over was introduced into One-Day Internationals at the 2011 World Cup. But, the method was not required until 2019, when the final between England and New Zealand ended in a tie, with both teams having scored a total of 241 runs in their 50 overs. As a result, each team faced a single Super Over. England batted first, with Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler sent out to bat, while Trent Boult was the bowler. The batsmen ended up with a total of 15 without loss, before their opponents came in; batsmen Martin Guptill and James Neesham knew they required 16 runs or more to win off the bowling of Jofra Archer. Needing two from the final delivery, they attempted to run them, but Guptill ended up being run out, leaving the Super Over also tied on 15 apiece. England ultimately won the game by virtue of having scored 26 boundaries to New Zealand's 17.

Answer: 2019 Cricket World Cup winners

The 2019 Cricket World Cup saw a change in the format of the group stage, which coincided with a reduction in the number of teams taking part. Four years previously, the fourteen participants were split into two groups of seven for the opening stage of the tournament, playing a total of six games, with the top four in each qualifying for the quarter-finals. In 2019, all ten participants were brought into a single group; with fewer teams taking part, the quarter-final stage was dropped, with only the top four qualifying for the semi-finals.

With a single group, each team played all the others once during the group stage. England opened the tournament with a 104 run victory over South Africa at The Oval, before touring the country playing each subsequent game at a different ground. Victories over Bangladesh, Afghanistan, the West Indies, India and New Zealand were balanced by defeats against Australia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, ultimately seeing the team finish the group stage with a record of six wins to three defeats, and a total of 12 points. This left them in third place in the table, three points behind group winners India and two short of second-placed Australia, who the schedule would see them play in the semi-final.

Answer: 1966 FIFA World Cup winners

Bobby Moore made his full international debut in May 1962 in England's final warm-up game prior to the World Cup in Chile. Alongside fellow debutant Maurice Norman, Moore's form against Peru was so impressive that the pair remained as the first choice defensive partnership for the whole tournament, which ended with defeat to Brazil in the quarter-finals. A year later, Moore captained the side for the first time in just his 12th cap, replacing the injured Jimmy Armfield. In the summer of 1964, Moore was named the permanent captain of the national team, eventually leading them to success in the 1966 World Cup, played at home.

Following England's victory in 1966, Moore retained the captaincy throughout the late 1960s, with the team reaching the 1968 European Championships, as well as winning the British Home Championship in successive seasons between 1968 and 1971. He led the team through the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, notably swapping shirts with Brazilian superstar Pele after the group game between England and Brazil, before being knocked out in the quarter-final against West Germany. Moore remained as England captain until November 1973, when he played his 108th and final international in a friendly against Italy. This saw him become England's most capped played, as well as equalling Billy Wright's record of 90 international appearances as captain.

Answer: 1966 FIFA World Cup winners

The format for the 1966 FIFA World Cup saw a total of eight venues used, with the plan seeing each of the four initial groups play their games in venues close to one another. This saw Group 1 based in London, Group 2 in the Midlands, Group 3 in the North-West and Group 4 in the North-East. The draw for the tournament, which was held in January 1966, placed the hosts England in Group 1, for which Wembley Stadium was the primary venue. Initially, all of the games for Group 1 were to be played at the venue, and so England kicked the tournament off with a 0-0 draw in front of 87,000 on 11 July. They subsequently beat both Mexico and France by the same scoreline of 2-0 in their following games to finish top of the group, which meant that they would remain at Wembley for the knockout stages.

In the quarter-final, England played Group 2 runners-up Argentina in a notably bad tempered game at Wembley on 23 July, which was won by a single goal scored by Geoff Hurst, before two goals from Bobby Charlton in the semi-final three days later saw off tournament debutants Portugal. The final was played at Wembley on 30 July 1966, and saw Hurst become the first player to score a hat-trick in the World Cup final as England ran out 4-2 winners to become only the third host nation to lift the trophy. Had England finished second in their group, they would instead have played a quarter-final at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, before travelling to Goodison Park in Liverpool for their semi-final.

Answer: 1966 FIFA World Cup winners

Geoff Hurst joined West Ham United as an apprentice at the age of 15, eventually turning professional in April 1959. Initially starting his career as a defender, he made his debut for the club in February 1960, but realised quickly that his contemporary, Bobby Moore, was making more progress in the position. Having considered focusing on cricket, in 1961 the appointment of Ron Greenwood as West Ham's manager saw a change in focus that ultimately led to a renaissance for Hurst. By September 1962, Greenwood had moved Hurst forward to play as a striker, forming a successful partnership with Johnny Byrne and scoring 13 goals in 27 league games. His prolific form for West Ham eventually brought him to the attention of England, and he made his international debut in February 1966.

Although Hurst's good form led to his being selected for the World Cup squad in 1966, he was regarded as a back-up for England's main forward, Jimmy Greaves. However, Greaves sustained an injury in the final group game that led to Hurst being selected for the quarter-final against Argentina, in which he scored the winner. He remained in the starting line-up and ultimately scored a hat-trick in the final against West Germany to give him a total of four goals for the tournament. While still at West Ham, Hurst was selected for the 1970 World Cup and scored his fifth goal overall at the finals in England's opening group win against Romania. His last international appearance came in April 1972 in a defeat to West Germany, while he eventually left West Ham to join Stoke City in August the same year.

Answer: 1966 FIFA World Cup winners

As with every FIFA World Cup tournament up to that point, the 1966 World Cup was planned to feature 16 teams. However, the tournament had only featured 16 entrants regularly since 1954, with two of the first four only featuring 13 sides. The basis of the tournament's format was laid down in its inaugural edition in 1930, with an initial group stage to establish the teams that would qualify for a subsequent knock-out stage. However, the subsequent three tournaments used different formats, and it was only from 1958 onwards that the traditional schedule of having the 16 teams drawn into four groups of four teams each, with each team playing all of the others; and the top two in each group qualifying for the quarter-finals, was firmly established.

With 16 teams qualified for the 1966 World Cup, this meant that, in order to win the tournament, a team would need to play a total of six games - in the group stage, playing each of the other three teams in their group once, then a quarter-final, a semi-final and the final itself. In England's case, they made their way through the tournament unbeaten across the six games they played, drawing their opening group game against Uruguay before winning the remaining five.

By contrast, the 2003 Rugby World Cup winners had to play seven games, as the 20 teams in the tournament were drawn into an initial four groups of five, meaning they had to play four games in the group stage, while the 2019 Cricket World Cup winners played 11 games, with a total of nine games in the single 10-team group before the semi-final and final.