GRAHAM Potter’s journey to leading Sweden at the 2026 World Cup is fairly remarkable – having made his name in club football there before being sacked by West Ham last year then qualifying the Scandinavians through the play-offs despite not winning a group match.
But it does not match the tale of the previous Englishman to lead Sweden into a World Cup – Barnsley man George Raynor.
A miner’s son, Rayner was born in Hoyland Common in 1907 and attended Barnsley Grammar School, where he was not allowed to play for the first team because he was considered too small.
He became a labourer then discovered that his wife’s church had a football team called Elsecar Bible Class for whom he scored 73 goals in a season, before moving on to Wombwell FC.
He had a career in the lower leagues with Sheffield United and Rotherham United among others.
Raynor served in the Second World War as a physical training instructor in Iraq, whose unofficial national team he briefly coached, and where he met Stanley Rous who would become president of FIFA.
Rous recommended Raynor to the Swedish FA for their national team job, which he took in 1946 having been in charge of Aldershot reserves.
The Swedes had a golden generation of players in the post-war era, with the likes of Gunnar Gren, Gunnar Nordahl, and Nils Liedholm starring for big Italian clubs.
Raynor’s team won the 1948 Olympics at Wembley Stadium then finished third at the 1950 World Cup.
Eight years later after stints at Lazio, Juventus and Coventry City, he took them to the World Cup final in 1958 on home soil where they lost to Brazil who had a teenage Pele playing for them.
Raynor returned to England but, such were the dismissive attitudes to overseas football at the time and his reputation after leaving Coventry due to ‘boardroom interference’, the only job he could get after a World Cup final was at non-league Skegness Town.
He returned to Sweden again and oversaw a friendly win over England.
After that game, Raynor was quoted as saying: “I got some sort of satisfaction out of the result but not enough.
“I would much rather have been doing the same sort of thing for the country of my birth.
“All I consider is that the people in England have had their chance.
“I want to work in England, for England.
“They want me in Ghana, in Israel, in Mexico and in Sweden.
“I am a knight in Sweden and have a huge gold medal of thanks from King Gustaf.
“I have a letter of thanks and commendation from the Prime Minister of Iraq.
“My record as a coach is the best in the world.
“I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. I live for football.”
Raynor retired after a brief stint in charge of Doncaster Rovers in the fourth division in 1967/68.
He suffered from Alzheimer’s and died in 1985 aged 78.
Austrian Ernst Happel, in 1978 with the Netherlands, is the only other man to reach a World Cup final with a country that he was not originally from.
Before Raynor, Bob Glendenning – one of Barnsley’s 1912 FA Cup winners – was the Netherlands manager for 16 years and took them to the 1934 and 1938 World Cups.
