Today I'm going back 36 years to the 1986 Mexico World Cup Group Stage game between England and Portugal played at the Tecnologico Stadium, Monterrey. Something different today too because the picture shown is my ticket from that match rather than the programme which I have shown on here before (both the Spanish and English versions!). Mexico were the first country to host a World Cup Finals for the second time after their first hosting in 1970. The fact that Mexico went ahead with the 1986 tournament was remarkable because the country suffered a devastating earthquake just eight months before the tournament got underway. I can distinctly remember walking along pavements where the concrete blocks were very up and down due to the earlier quake.
I travelled with my mate "Big" Stu Phillips to Mexico via New York City, St Louis, Houston and San Antonio before getting a Greyhound bus across the Rio Grande between Laredo (in the USA) and Nuevo Laredo (in Mexico) to Monterrey on my 23rd birthday. In San Antonio we visited The Alamo, a famous analogy for desperate defending and a place name often rolled out at York City away games. After the USA, Mexico was another (poorer) world. My understanding is that, in the 36 years since I was first in Mexico, the gap in living standards compared with the USA has narrowed somewhat and that's surely a good thing. We switched buses in Nuevo Laredo onto something a bit less comfortable and found ourselves in Monterrey some four hours later just as night was falling. We had neither match tickets nor a room for the night and I can't tell you how relieved we were to cross the street from the bus station and check ourselves into a decent and very cheap hotel room which became our base while we were in Monterrey.
The next day I took in my first match at a World Cup Finals and we easily secured tickets for all three of England's matches in Monterrey plus the game between Poland and Morocco. The cost? Less than one US Dollar each, a price that was, apparently, way beyond the reach of the average Mexican and probably explains the large number of empty seats at games not involving the Mexico national team. I understand that just the ticket stub can fetch around £20 these days which makes ticket collecting a more lucrative hobby than is the case for programmes. I suspect that most people don't bother to retain their ticket stubs whereas I have always slipped the ticket stub inside my programme and have kept them all. Perhaps one day I'll be rich eh?
On my way to the featured game I was lucky enough to get my photo taken with two knights of the realm who were out in Mexico working for television: Sir Trevor Brooking and Sir Bobby Charlton look a little bemused at me and my Waddle-esque mullet in the picture which I have treasured ever since. The game was England's 614th International fixture ever and was my first taste of England in tournament football. I've been hooked ever since. The game was, however, a huge disappointment. With just a quarter of an hour remaining, an uncharacteristic mistake by England left-back Kenny Sansom allowed Portugal's Diamantino to cross to an unmarked Carlos Manuel who could hardly miss from three yards out. England should have won the game comfortably but failed to convert any of their numerous chances leaving Bobby Robson to acknowledge that it had been "a shocking start". One sad footnote from the game was that it proved to be a final international cap for Portugal's goalkeeper and captain Manuel Bento who would break his leg in training before Portugal's next match.
After this result and, in particular, England's second game against Morocco (a desperate goalless draw), few would have guessed that England would progress to the Quarter-Finals and that game against Diego Maradona's Argentina, or that England would supply the tournament's Golden Boot thanks to six goals from Gary Lineker. In the end it was a disappointing but respectable showing by England that ensured that manager Bobby Robson kept his job for another tilt at the World Cup four years later where they would come even closer to winning it without doing so. But that's another story.
CRB Match No. 442
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