Today I'm going back 37 years to 1984 and England's World Cup Qualifier against Finland at Wembley. In a five team Qualification Group the other three sides were Northern Ireland, Romania and Turkey with the top two qualifying for the Mexico World Cup in 1986.
The programme cover may confuse a few people I reckon. The photo is of Joe Royle playing against Finland in another World Cup Qualifier back in 1976. It reminds me of a good quiz question with which to trick your mates down the pub next time you're out talking football. "Who is the only member of the Royle family to have played football for England?"
AC Milan's Mark Hateley, making only his sixth appearance for his country opened the scoring after 29 minutes following a scramble in the Finnish box. England scored another before half time thanks to Tony Woodcock's tenacity. 2-0 at half time became 3-0 after 49 minutes with another for Hateley who powered through the centre of Finland's defence with the ball seemingly glued to his foot before slotting past the keeper. Bryan Robson added a fourth in the 71st minute before Kenny Sansom completed the scoring five minutes from time with his first and only international goal in a total of 86 appearances for England. Along with Peter Shilton, Sansom is England's most capped player of the 1980's with 84. The majority of the poor Wembley crowd of 47,234 that night would have gone home well satisfied although, with better finishing, England could have scored even more.
England ended up winning the Group somewhat comfortably which is a little surprising given their record of 4 wins and 4 draws in their 8 games. The other qualifier from the five team Group (this was in the days before Play-Offs remember) was Northern Ireland who pipped Romania for second place by a point.
CRB Match No. 330
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