Lost in France: The Story of England's 1998 World Cup Campaign. Mark Palmer
no question about it.’ And Jeff Powell agreed with him. I went down to what’s called the ‘mixed zone’, where you can talk to players as they emerge from the dressing room. Ince explained how the team doctor, John Crane, had given him six stitches and then smeared a blob of grease on his cut, like they do with boxers, but that the blood began to ooze out. The only answer had been a swathe of bandages. ‘But I don’t care,’ he said. ‘We played so hard and in the end we deserved it. The last ten minutes were a bit panicky, they had ten men and maybe we let go of it a bit, but we dug in there and we had enough chances to do it. I think over the campaign we haven’t conceded a goal away from home, and that says a lot. We were fully focused, nothing was going to take our attention away. The fans have been fantastic. This is a great day for the team, a great day for the fans and a great day for English football. There is a feeling now that we can go on and actually win something.’
Hoddle looked relieved. ‘We deserved it. We passed the ball well and we kept our heads. It’s great for the nation. It’s eight years since we qualified and now the hard work starts.’ Wright had to be restrained when he was interviewed in the tunnel. He was delirious. ‘We knew we had to dig in and we did. I’m going to the World Cup hopefully – please pick me Glenn Hoddle.’
Adams was one of the first out of the dressing room. He walked with his head down and boarded the bus without a word to anyone. There was no sign of Southgate or Sheringham. They had both been selected for a drugs test, but neither of them could produce a sample for two hours after the final whistle.
It was already 1 am, but the police were refusing to let many of the England supporters leave the stadium. Hundreds were going to miss their flights home. Those staying in Rome would have to walk back into town. Paul Shadbolt and his two friends were finally allowed to leave at 1.30 am.
‘Once we got out of the ground there was no one around. It was as if the police had done their shift and gone home. We didn’t know where to go, so we just started walking towards the centre. We had hoped to find a bar where we could get a drink but everything was either closed or chocker so we decided to go back to the hotel. Once we got close to the train station we knew where we were. We were walking along quite slowly and were just about to cross a road when I felt a burning sensation in my back, like a red-hot poker going into me. I fell face-down into the street. There were about eight or ten of them. As soon as I hit the floor I felt a knife go in me again and then a third time. I got it twice in the back and once in the side. The only thing I remember thinking was: I have got to get fucking out of here. I have got to get off the floor or I’m dead. I started running. There was a bus coming and I got round it just in time. I saw a Sky TV van coming round the corner. My breathing was getting worse and worse. I thought one of my lungs had been punctured. Andy stopped the van by standing in front of it and banging on the bonnet. We got in and quickly came across a police car, which took Andy and me to hospital. We had lost Paul by this stage. I knew I was dying because when I got to the hospital I had no blood pressure and my pulse was racing. I have learnt quite a lot about it all now. The thing was that my heart was pumping away like crazy but there wasn’t any blood to pump. One of the stabbings had gone through my spleen – and the one in my side had a rounded wound to it, as if they’d used some kind of screwdriver.
‘I came round on Sunday afternoon, and the first thing I saw was a great big cross with Jesus Christ on it. I thought, bloody hell, I’m in heaven. Then I saw Andy and realised I was still in this world.’
I left the stadium shortly before 2 am and met up with Helen Willis, from the FA, outside the main entrance. The coach had left without us. We tried to find a taxi or a bus going into the centre of Rome. We tried to think what we should do next. Suddenly, a police car came screeching round the corner, its blue light flashing, siren wailing. It stopped abruptly. Sitting in the back were Graham Kelly and Pat Smith. We explained our predicament. Helen suggested we both jump in, but the two policemen in the front said there was only room for one. Helen said I should go. I think she was looking forward to an extra night in Rome.
It was a record run. Once we got on the motorway the speedometer never dropped below 150 kph. ‘I don’t think the plane will leave without the chief executive and his deputy,’ said Smith.
‘You wouldn’t bet on it,’ said Kelly, who was sitting with a football on his lap.
‘Is that the match ball?’ I asked him.
‘No, it’s one the players signed for me after I scored a hat-trick this week,’ he said. I had never met Kelly before, and here we were squeezed into the back of a souped-up Fiat at 2.30 am on an Italian motorway being driven at breakneck speed by a policeman who looked fourteen.
‘It’s kind of you to give me a lift,’ I said. ‘How come you left so late?’
‘I wanted to watch exactly what they did to our supporters – and I am not best pleased. The only reason I was given for why they kept them in the stadium half the night was because they feared for their safety if they let them out any earlier. That’s a good one.’
‘What did you think of the organisation generally on the Italian side?’ I asked.
‘What organisation?’ said Kelly. ‘But it was a great night. I am so pleased for Glenn. I think when we look back on Saturday, 11 October 1997, we may just remember it as the night that changed English football forever.’
By the time we boarded Britannia flight 809B, most of the drink had been consumed. But there was not a party atmosphere, more a sense of mission accomplished. And overwhelming fatigue. Ince wandered down to the back of the plane. Everyone liked Ince and I could understand why. Gascoigne chatted away amiably. He was asked what it had been like in the dressing room.
‘The players came in one at a time and we enjoyed the moment. Even the lads who didn’t play got involved. It was great. Now we are just tired, just drained.’
There was a crowd of more than a hundred people to meet the plane when it landed at 4.40 am. As I collected my luggage I looked across at Hoddle. I assumed he was going back to his house in Ascot, where he would be greeted by his wife and children and bathe in the restorative powers of family life. He seemed a supremely fortunate man.
Three days later, Hoddle was on the front page of every newspaper. ‘Hod Divorce Shock’.
It was totally unexpected. The first the FA knew about it was when Hoddle walked into Davies’s office on Tuesday morning and said: ‘I have something to tell you.’ Not even John Gorman was aware of exactly what was going on inside the head and heart of his great friend as they went about their business in Rome – but he had his suspicions. On several occasions, Hoddle had said to Gorman, ‘I want to get something off my chest,’ and Gorman had said: ‘Go on, then, you will feel better for it.’ But he never did.
Davies put out an FA statement at 6 pm on Tuesday evening. ‘This is a personal and private matter. It is unconnected to his football responsibilities. Nobody else is involved. Both Anne and Glenn would request that the privacy of themselves and their three children is respected at this very difficult and painful time.’
The timing of the announcement was impressive, coming so soon after the Italy triumph but more than a month before England’s next game – a friendly against Cameroon. The beauty of Hoddle as a player was the way he would take a difficult ball on his chest and kill it dead, letting it drop quietly at his feet before moving effortlessly forward.
The Hoddles had been married for eighteen years, having met while they were both still at school. They had three children, Zoë, Zara and Jamie, who was only five when the separation was announced. In the current Shredded Wheat advertisement, the Hoddles were depicted as the happiest of happy families, sitting around the breakfast table wearing contented smiles. The ad was immediately pulled.
The next day, Hoddle’s R-reg BMW 735i was seen parked on the driveway of a house in Wokingham owned by Eileen Drewery, a fifty-seven-year-old faith-healer. It was to become his home for