June 10th and I'm going back 25 years to Euro96 again. This time it's Holland against Scotland at Villa Park, Birmingham for me and Welsh Les in another match from England's Group.
The programme shown is the one that covers all the games in Group A that didn't involve England. England's games had an individual programme for each match. This one will set you back around £7.50 from a dealer. I'm not sure what the cover is supposed to be showing? The football equivalent of crop circles perhaps? Whatever it is, dedicated followers of these articles will know that there's been plenty worse covers than this one!
There's been plenty of excitement in my house this morning. You may remember that, originally, I successfully purchased tickets to eight matches for Euro2020 but that, due to the global pandemic, these either became impractical to travel to (Munich and Budapest) or became subject to a 25% capacity ballot process. As a result, my eight matches became one (the second Semi-final). Today however I received an email from UEFA advising that there were a few more tickets going on sale. Sadly the England v Croatia ones were snapped up but I did manage to get my hands on a pair of tickets for Croatia v Czech Republic on 18th June yay! I do know that England face Scotland on the same day and I don't much fancy watching it in a Scottish pub so it'll be Radio 5 Live for me and Welsh Les as we head south! But I'm overjoyed to get to another Euro game. in what will be my seventh European Championship Finals attended.
In the run up to Euro96 I was lucky enough to be able to get tickets to 14 matches including a chance to see the Scots against the Dutch. The orange shirted hordes against the ginger wigs in a colourful riot of orange. The game itself was more memorable for the atmosphere than for the football. The Scots dug in, rode their luck and proved to be stubborn opponents for the Netherlands who created a number of chances but failed to take any of them. Scotland were lucky when the ball struck John Collins on the arm on the goal line and both the referee and his assistant missed it. I'm sure that Scotland would have been content with a point against Holland at the time but ultimately Scotland failed to progress. A disappointing Holland just about scraped through to the knock-out phase by finishing second in the Group, level on points and goal difference with Scotland but ahead on goals scored. Scotland had found yet another way of failing to get through the Group Stage of a tournament. Maybe this year will be different?
CRB Match No. 1039
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4go9vh
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