For May 17th I'm going back 27 years to 1994 and England's International Friendly against Greece.
I suppose that this game should have been part of England's warm-ups schedule for the forthcoming USA World Cup. Except it wasn't. Horror of horrors England had failed to qualify, losing to Holland the previous year in Rotterdam in a game where, with the score at 0-0, we all felt that Ronald Koeman should have been sent off for a professional foul on David Platt. He wasn't and he proceeded to score the first goal on the night. Graham Taylor said "Do I not like that!" in the fly on the wall documentary that accompanied the agony and Phil Neal said "Yes boss". England's failure went alongside 1974 and 1978 as low points in the history of the national side but coming right after the glory of heroic World Cup Semi-Final penalty shoot out failure at the 1990 World Cup in Italy it just seemed to hurt more.
At times like that, with the benefit of hindsight, it's always worth a look at the team at England's disposal. There's always a correlation between the calibre of the players available to England and their results (who said "no shit Sherlock"?) For example, playing for England in Rotterdam were Carlton Palmer and Lee Sharpe (for both it was their last international) and Andy Sinton came off the bench. None of them were international class. Some would say that the FA should never have appointed Taylor and his right hand man Lawrie McMenemy since neither kicked a top flight ball and their first experience of International football came when they took over the running of the England team. I thoroughly disagree with that viewpoint and despise the "Show us yer medals" mind set that some arrogant professionals apparently have. Time and again managers who were little more than workmanlike players make outstanding managers e.g. Sir Alex Ferguson, Bob Paisley, Arsene Wenger or Jose Mourinho. I'm sure you can name more. In the end it's about talent and respect not medals. The FA's choice of Taylor was perfectly valid. It just didn't work that's all and that was partly down to the players at his disposal. England didn't have a good enough squad to go to USA 1994 and they got what they deserved. Nothing.
Beware of Greeks bearing gifts so they say. Well there wasn't much to beware of on this damp Wembley evening. This friendly was the second game of new manager Terry Venables' reign. He selected a few debutants who also illustrated England's lack of strength in depth: Darren Anderton, Steve Bould and Kevin Richardson. On the same evening Graeme le Saux, Matt le Tissier and Tim Flowers were making only their second England appearance and young full-back Rob Jones was making his third.
Venables did seem to have a galvanising effect on England however. Their first goal was also Darren Anderton's first International goal and followed something of a handling tragedy from the Greek goalkeeper. The recalled Peter Beardsley got England's second after 37 minutes: he looked like a class act all night. Captain David Platt grabbed the third from the penalty spot on the stroke of halftime and his second, England's fourth, came early in the second half. In all Platt scored 27 times for England in 62 appearances and, for a time, he was the highest scoring midfielder in England's history, a record since overtaken by Frank Lampard. The scoring for the night was rounded off by Alan Shearer. 5-0 and the forthcoming World Cup didn't know what it was missing! Nor did the English public. The attendance that night at Wembley was just 23,659.
The Greeks were amateurish and very poor. It was impossible to imagine that night that, of the two sides, it would be the Greeks who would next win an International tournament. England's 55 years of hurt goes on.
CRB Match No. 896
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