My Earliest World Cup Memories
The earliest World Cup I can remember is in a book I was given about football, which included a report of the 1954 World Cup in Switzerland. Looking at the pictures I remember I was puzzled as to why some players had numbers greater than eleven on their shirts.
But the first World Cup Finals I remember is Sweden in 1958. All four home nations qualified for the finals and it was the first World Cup to be properly televised. I think there was high sales figures for large nineteen inch black and white televisions. This fragment on Wikipedia says this about the coverage.
The 1958 tournament in Sweden saw a greater range of matches thanks to the new Eurovision Network; the BBC and ITV both screened matches, although the networks had to overcome opposition to the coverage from the Scottish FA, who were worried that attendances at Junior football matches might be hit.
Just imagine the uproar now, if the Scottish FA tried the same thing.
1962 in Chile wasn’t shown live, but I can remember the iconic pictures of Ken Aston, who refereed the infamous Battle of Santiago.
Reading his Wikipedia entry, there is this section, which describes how he invented the red and yellow cards, which referees in football and some other sports use today.
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The Anonymous Widower 
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