I think only a very small part of your opening post was a direct quote (the Nigel Pearsonish bit). The rest is probably your interpretation of the background leading to that quote.
I think, having had a read up on the 66 Argentina game, it seems that most of the match reports were pretty sympathetic towards Argentina, taking the view that the ref had lost control and sending off Rattin was wrong.
Sunday Times Brian Glanville described “a small man, strutting portentously about the field, bald, brown head gleaming in the sunshine, [as he] put name after Argentinian name into his notebook.”
The Italian newspaper Il Messaggero wrote an article headlined “Scandal in London – too much favouritism for the England team”, which described Rattín’s dismissal as “a colossal injustice which offended against the very essence of sport”.
Bobby Moore, insisted the Argentinians “did do nasty things. They did tug your hair, spit at you, poke you in the eyes and kick you when the ball was miles away and nobody was looking.”
Eusébio, whose Portugal team would play the winners, said: “The referee always seemed to see only the worst faults of the Argentina players. He could not see the faults of the England players.”
Rattín later said, of referee Kreitlein, “the referee played with an England shirt on”.
The ref himself said “I just want to forget the whole dreadful experience,” and “The match was the roughest I have ever refereed. It was terrible. A disgrace. I sent Rattín off because he was following me and shouting at me. I had no option. He was trying to be the referee.”
After the game an Argentinian player urinated in the tunnel and a chair was thrown into the England dressing room. The Argentinian squad then attacked the England bus and, when someone tried to stop them, he had half an orange squeezed in his face.
The Mirror and some others then paraphrased what Ramsey had said after the game, and what was chanted from the stands, add to that the huge post match incident and the nasty label Animals stuck.
