Friday, June 7
Gazza takes a rest
Summer has arrived early in England: a pounding 90-degree day and matching humidity has sent Londoners racing into their bathing suits and into the parks and onto the rooftops. The nation’s capital is full of white bodies turning scarlet in a matter of minutes.
Normally, the hot weather sends the tabloids racing with headlines of the “Phew! What a scorcher!” variety, but today the attention is on Euro `96.
Gazza, of course, features strongly. The porky midfielder had to sit out the last 15 minutes of training because he’d overdone it and had blisters on his feet.
“Gazza boils over! He’s sweating with the rest of us!” proclaims The Sun.
The inside pages prove it really is silly season, a time when news is thin on the ground. Juergen Klinsmann does the decent thing and dresses a London bobby, under the headline “Helmet Goal!” while England striker Les Ferdinand appears in his underwear (“His scoring gear!” slavers the Sun) under the heading “Euro Ninety-Sex.”
It’s a reassuring respite, of course.
The media has been outraged by the Cathay Pacific Airlines incident, in which England players caused $7,500 worth of damage to the airliner carrying them back from their tour of China and Hong Kong. The team admitted collective responsibility and turned up for training the following day wearing bags over their heads. Which would have been fine except for the fact that Steve McManaman and Robbie Fowler were named in a Sunday newspaper and promptly broke ranks to issue writs against the newspaper.
Around London, it’s hard to see much enthusiasm for Euro `96. Britain has taken a decidedly anti-European stance, using its European Union veto in protest against the embargo of British beef. The government has only committed $150,000 to promote the tournament, and local councils are miffed at footing the bill for extra policing.
Still, there’s always TV to hype up the tournament. This too, has been wracked by scandal. The BBC has received criticism for using Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” while patriotic ITV has gone with a jazzed up version of “Jerusalem.”
ITV has committed the coup of signing Manchester United’s Alex Ferguson and Kevin Keegan of Newcastle, who are apparently the best of pals again after the English League season.
But the Beeb has fired back with Ruud Gullit, who stuns the pre-tournament pundit panel by refusing to pick the teams most likely to emerge from Group B.
“This is too hard, I don’t see the point,” says the new boss of Chelsea. Quite.
Saturday, June 8
There’s hope from the English cricketers
It’s game day, and those of us in the know take the early subway to Wembley —
the emergency cord tends to get pulled with alarming regularity closer to game time.
Three hours before the game, the refurbished Wembley Way is swarming with fans. England fans sport free bowler hats, while the small but vocal Swiss contingent paint their faces and clang cowbells at all and sundry.
The pregame ceremony is entitled “Merrie Olde Englande” which causes most English members of the Fourth Estate to cringe with embarrassment. Hundreds of kids in Medieval Peasant dress swarm onto the field and proceed to frolic around a maypole (a jumbo Henri Delauney trophy lurks underneath) that’s slightly more mobile than Tony Adams proves to be. Then a dragon with all the menace of Mickey Mouse appears, sending the kids off screaming — the rest of us are too busy laughing — before St. George, the patron Saint of England, lopes on to the scene and slays it.
Then there’s “Football Through The Ages,” where actors pretend to be stars of the past, before Sir Stanley Matthews and the real ones make their entrance. Jimmy Greaves, Gary Lineker and England boss-in-waiting Glenn Hoddle gets the biggest cheers, while Emlyn Hughes (now a columnist on the Mirror) is booed.
There are parachutists, and Simply Red appears with the dirge-like Euro anthem “We’re all in this together!” Finally, the Red Arrows fly past, before the fruity voice of the Duke of Kent declares the tournament open.
It’s dismal stuff and the game’s not much better. Most of Europe behaves as if they’re on vacation at soccer games, doing the Wave and generally having a good time. The English eschew the Wave that the Swiss attempt to start and are models of surly insularity — not dissimilar to how they behave on vacation, in fact.
The game over, the English fans lope back to the subway, and the players to the locker room, presumably in search of those bags again. There’s a glimmer of hope, though. England has India on the ropes in the First Test match at cricket.
“Pity they’re not in our group,” muses the guy next to me.
Sunday, July 9
Hillsborough is awash with red-clad fans
England players awaken to the predictable backlash from the press. And there’s a definite Swiss motif.
“Cuckoo Clots!” says the News of the World.
“Lord Alp us Terry,” says Brian Clough on the inside page, before announcing that England’s performance left him “lost for words — now that’s something of a rarity.”
“Tel, your players are driving us cuckoo!” says the Mirror.
Stuart Pearce, who’s never really been forgiven for missing a penalty against Germany at Italia `90, shoulders the blame.
“We’re just so Stu-pid!” says the NOW, while the People leads with “Stu’ve blown it.
Braving road rage (a new phenomenon where other motorists are wont to stop their cars and beat you up), I head up the M1 to Sheffield to catch Denmark take on Portugal.
Sheffield is an industrial city comprised of a collection of small mining communities in the rolling hills of the Peak District. The mines have been defunct since the 1984 miners’ strike. British Steel has its headquarters in Sheffield, but survives with about a quarter of its former workforce.
Hillsborough is on the northwestern edge of the city, and the streets are filled with kids people in blue Sheffield Wednesday jerseys.
Basically, it’s not a good place to wear red, which is the color of crosstown rival Sheffield United. Except today, because the Danes and the Portuguese are in town. The parks surrounding the stadium are filled with tents and rival fans take each other on in friendly pickup games before the turnstiles open.
Near the entrance to the Leppings Lane end is a memorial to the 99 Liverpool fans who were crushed to death at the 1989 FA Cup semifinal.
The Hillsborough affair leaves a bad taste in the mouth of all concerned —
Liverpudlians are angry at the $2 million compensation junior police officers recently received for trauma suffered at the game. It was the police, they reason, who refused to open the gates and wrote the death sentences of their loved ones, and it was the police who promulgated stories that Liverpool fans urinated on and robbed the corpses of their fellow supporters.
And civilian compensation has been minimal, barely covering the cost of a funeral in most cases.
With a $75 million renovation grant, Hillsborough has been upgraded and is the home of titleholder Denmark for the first round.
The roligans are out in force, but it’s the Portuguese fans that make the most noise. Not surprising — they have the better team.
Denmark takes the lead after 21 minutes. The sight of both Laudrups running at a defenders is enough to drive most goalies crazy, and this time it’s Brian who does the damage, cracking in a terrific shot from the left flank.
The goal comes against the run of play, as Portugal looks the more enterprising of the two teams. Sa Pinto heads home an Antonio Folha cross in the 53rd minute to even the score and a highly entertaining match ends 1-1 to send everyone home happy.
Well, almost everyone.
“Ooh, he’s lovely,” cooed one of the tea ladies looking straight at me as I was buying a cup of coffee.
“And look at that hair,” says her colleague.
I’m puffing with pride, but then a hand proffering a piece of paper leans over me and gives it to the tea lady.
It’s not me at all. The hand belongs to gray-haired pin-up Gary Lineker, who picks up a cup of tea and waltzes off with one of those winning grins that are his trademark.
“I love him so much, he’s gorgeous, isn’t he?” the tea lady says to me.
“Uh-huh.” I swallow hard. It seems Brian Clough isn’t the only speechless guy in England today.
Duncan Irving is a Senior Editor of Soccer America.