Diego Maradona’s Hand of God goal in the 1986 World Cup is the stand-out incident in soccer clashes between Argentina and England but the one that sparked an intense rivalry was Antonio Rattin’s sending-off at Wembley 20 years earlier.

Rattin, the Argentina captain, was infamously dismissed by German referee Rudolf Kreitlein after half an hour of an ill-tempered 1966 World Cup quarter-final for protesting.

“I saw that all his decisions favoured England... corners, fouls, he even invented handballs,” said the 79-year-old, recalling the incident on its 50th anniversary yesterday.

“In view of that, I showed the referee my captain’s armband and for several minutes asked for an interpreter to ask for explanations,” Rattin told the Argentine daily La Nacion.

“I couldn’t believe it (when he sent me off),” Rattin added.

“The dismissal was so unfair that in anger I sat on the red carpet of the Queen’s royal box. She wasn’t in the stadium.”

Rattin eventually took the long walk round the touchline to the tunnel behind one of the goals and recalled he ate bits of chocolate bars thrown at him by fans before throwing them back, wringing a British corner flag with his hand in anger and dodging beer cans.

He watched the rest of the match which England won 1-0 on the way to the title through a small window in the changing rooms.

The incident led to the introduction of red and yellow cards and started a fierce, sometimes violent, rivalry between two of the world’s leading football nations.