World Cup stunning moments: Uruguay's 1950 triumph in Brazil

Britain’s newspapers buried the story but Uruguay’s victory in Rio was one of the most far-reaching and dramatic World Cup games ever played

Monday 17 July 1950, and the front page of the Manchester Guardian was still given over to classified advertising. Buy your new Bendix home laundry appliances at Fred Dawes, 90 London Road, Manchester; Miss Newgrosh of Princess Street, Blackburn is offering a German/Polish translation service at competitive rates; the Lancashire County Fire Brigade is selling off a 1930 Leyland fire engine, 55 hp, no guarantee attached, sold as seen, the County Council accepts no responsibility for any unexplained mechanical combustion.

Even taking the idiosyncrasies of old-school newspaper layout into account, one of the day’s biggest stories had been inexplicably squirreled away. The edition’s lead story on page five (just go with it) was fair enough: a report on the Battle of Taejon, the first big stramash of the Korean war which had begun a month beforehand. But here’s a few of the day’s other top tales: three yachts were caught in a squall near Bridlington; lightning struck a house in Wigan; the Yorkshire Winding Enginemen’s Association called a strike ballot in a pay dispute with the National Coal Board; 1.39 inches of rain fell in Hull.

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