June 2nd and I'm going back 37 years to 1984 and England's friendly international against the USSR at the old Wembley.
Okay. How many of you took one look at today's programme cover and in your heads said "ah Russia"? For those of us that are old enough to remember the USSR, the words Russia and USSR/Soviet Union were more or less interchangeable at the time. These days it's easier to understand that the USSR was, in effect, a United States (or United Soviets) of Eastern Europe which eventually fragmented into a series of separate independent nation states in 1991. The states included countries such as Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Armenia and others. The acronym USSR stood for Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and, in Russian, USSR translates to CCCP which you can see emblazoned on their national jersey on today's programme cover (how many of you thought it was a shirt sponsorship?). So the USSR was not simply "Russia" just as the United Kingdom is not "England".
It's difficult to remember a time when Bobby Robson was not regarded with huge affection by English football fans of all persuasions. But there was such a time back in the days when the mass circulation tabloid press were at war with each other and would go to great lengths to try to outdo each other. Peddling a line in insulting nicknames, successive England managers became fair game for the warring media and, as a result, Bobby Robson was disrespectfully referred to as "Plonker". Sadly, such trashy media isn't without influence and cries of "Robson out" rang around Wembley on this particular sunny Saturday afternoon as England crashed and burned against the Soviets.
At number 11 for the USSR was a star of world football. The iconic winner of FIFA's Ballon D'Or in 1975, the Oleg Blokhin, a stalwart at Dynamo Kiev for almost 20 years who earned 112 international caps for the Soviet Union (scoring 42 goals) between 1972 and 1988. He wasn't Russian either. He was Ukrainian.
It was goalless at half time but this was largely thanks to an outstanding performance from Peter Shilton in England's goal who pulled off several important saves to keep the Soviets at bay. The deadlock was broken after 53 minutes following an error by Manchester United's Mike Duxbury who literally fell over the ball leaving the path to goal free for Gotsmanov who slotted the ball into the net.
The result wasn't finally put to bed until stoppage time at the end of the match when Shilton could only parry Blokhin's long range shot and Protasov was on hand to knock the rebound into the net. The cries of "Robson out" didn't factor in the fact that England were without a host of senior players (19 according to John Motson!) and England's inexperience was countered by the USSR's deep reserves of experience. Three England players were making their final appearance for their country: Graham Roberts (6 caps), Luther Blissett (14 caps, 3 goals) and Steve Hunt (2 caps as substitute in an international career that lasted just 50 minutes). Also a substitute, Mark Hateley came off the bench to make his debut. With huge criticism ringing in their ears, England headed off on their South American tour. Who would have imagined that they would beat Brazil at the Maracana in their very next game?
CRB Match No. 316
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