For March 23rd I'm going back 33 years to 1988 and an International Friendly between England and Holland at Wembley.
This match formed part of Bobby Robson's preparations for the Euro'88 tournament to be held in West Germany. It was a surprising choice of friendly perhaps given that the two teams had been drawn to play each other in Dusseldorf that summer. Amusingly, for me at least, all the officials were all from East Germany with the referee being called Adolf. He managed to keep his hands off the Sudetenland for the entirety of the match!
The game was an opportunity to see the World's most expensive player Ruud Gullit who had moved from PSV (Philips Sport Vereniging) Eindhoven to AC Milan and had won the Ballon d'Or for the first and only time the previous year. Despite an attendance of only 74,590, the game was technically a sell-out to home supporters at least with the large gaps on the segregated terraces down to the Dutch fans who failed to arrive in their droves as envisaged.
England took an early lead through Gary Lineker but were soon overtaken by the Dutch scoring firstly due to a Tony Adams own goal and then taking the lead thanks to a diving header from Johannes Bosman (not Jean-Marc Bosman of Bosman Ruling fame). It ended 2-2 and honours even due to a second half equaliser, this time scored at the right end, from Tony Adams. Sadly this dress rehearsal did not prove to be anything like the real thing with England well beaten in Dusseldorf in June, victims of a Marco van Basten hattrick. Van Basten didn't play in this Friendly so perhaps wily old Rinus Michels was keeping his powder dry? 36 year old Arnold Muhren was winning only his 16th cap but he wasn't the oldest player on the park that night. England's ripe old keeper, Peter Shilton, aged 38 still had a couple more summers left in him.
CRB Match No. 553
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