Lost in France: The Story of England's 1998 World Cup Campaign. Mark Palmer
football, but the only question on my mind was how I could persuade him to pose for a photograph with me once our coffee break was over, and how I could do it privately and not in front of dozens of journalists who might regard it as unprofessional. We drained our coffee.
‘I wonder if you really know what it meant to a twelve-year-old boy when you scored those two goals against Portugal in the semifinals,’ I said. ‘And I wonder if you wouldn’t mind if I got someone to take a photograph of me with you outside.’
We went outside and I asked a swimming-pool attendant to take the picture. Charlton put an arm round me and said: ‘Say cheese, it’s getting hot out here. And, yes, I do understand what it meant.’
His speech at the Ambassador’s lunch was short and simple. Only when he got on to the 2006 bid did he begin to sound a little shaky. ‘We like a good fight, us English,’ he said, referring to the battle to stop Germany gaining the nod in our place. Police sirens sounded in the distance.
Then Davies got up and gave a fifteen-minute précis of his early life, highlighting the moment when he was arrested for nothing in particular in some foreign land and was thrown into jail. In his cell he had asked one of the guards if he had ever heard the name, Bobby Charlton, at which – hey presto – the guards let him out and they all ended up sharing a few tinnies while basking in the genius of Charlton. No one believed him.
I arrived at the stadium two hours before kick-off. The eternal wait in that city was nearly over. I could feel my pulse quickening as I climbed the stairs. The stadium was throbbing. England supporters were mainly behind one of the corner flags next to the Curva Sud to the left of the main stand as you looked out from it. A live band was on stage, while two huge screens showed footage of Italian and English past football triumphs.
A woman in a red suit who showed me to my seat said something, but I could not hear her above the music. I felt a surge of adrenalin race through me and would have tested positive if I had had a drugs test. I left the stand and made another entrance just for the sheer thrill of it.
The Italian team walked out to inspect the pitch at 7.30 pm, dressed in blue suits and ties. The screens showed the goals from their victory against Spain in the 1982 finals.
England spilled on to the field ten minutes later in their tracksuit bottoms and Umbro bomber jackets. There was no Paul Gascoigne. They walked off but reappeared shortly afterwards in their football kit. Le Saux waved to the crowd and clenched his fist. Then Gazza came out and the England supporters to my left erupted. The sound rose and reverberated back off the inside of the Bedouin-style roof like a clap of thunder.
The team was: Seaman, Campbell, Adams, Southgate, Le Saux, Beckham, Ince, Gascoigne, Batty, Sheringham, Wright – although that was not how the Italians spelt their names. England’s walking injured had either made miraculous recoveries or Hoddle had been telling porkies all week.
At 8.40 pm, as the players gathered under the running track before emerging like frogmen from the depths of the stadium, the Italians behind both goals suddenly flicked over square cards to display the colours of their national flag. Ince led his side out and both teams lined up in front of the main stand. Adams was on the end, staring into the ground. You couldn’t hear anything the announcer said, but presumably he ran through the two teams. No one knows if the national anthems were played or not. A banner next to the part of the ground where most of the England supporters were seated read: ‘Fuck Off England’. Another, ‘Good Evening Bastards’.
Italy kicked off and within a few seconds Wright gave the ball away. Italy broke down the left but their attack was snuffed out by Serenity Adams showing impeccable timing. After eleven minutes, Ince was involved in a clash with Albertini and reeled away holding his head in his hands. There was blood pouring from the wound and he had to go off. Cesare Maldini was on his feet, barking orders. A FIFA official told him to get back in his kennel. Gary Lewin, one of the physios, rushed up to the bench and told Hoddle something. I imagined he was saying that Ince could play no further part, but later it transpired that he was shouting: ‘Who’s got the key to the changing room?’
Then Sol Campbell went in hard, again, and was booked. If England qualified he would not be allowed to play in the opening game unless FIFA agreed to a general yellow card amnesty. Ince suddenly reappeared and went up to Albertini and gave him a pat. He had been out of the game for eight minutes. Wright wasn’t getting a look-in and his first touch had deserted him. He won nothing in the air until the thirty-fifth minute. Paolo Maldini collided with Ince and went down holding his calf. His dad strutted up and down the touchline. An electrically-powered stretcher buggy came on to the pitch and removed the Italian captain. A few seconds later, Ince fired in a low shot straight at Peruzzi’s body. Maldini came back but not for long. The Italians were in trouble. Di Livio fouled Le Saux and was booked. I hoped Gavarotti was enjoying it.
The English and Italian fans were throwing bottles of San Benedetto water at each other. On the pitch, the Italians were running out of space in midfield, where Beckham, Batty, Gascoigne, Ince and Le Saux formed a five-man barricade. Zola drifted further and further to the left to find a way round it. The tackling was hard. The police started wielding their batons. It was getting nasty. People were hurt. A policeman was rushed out of the stadium on the same stretcher as the one that had carried off Maldini. Gascoigne got himself booked, but England were in control. The Italians looked ragged, unimaginative, flustered. Wright began to come into it more. Batty was running himself into the ground. The three-man back line – Southgate, Adams and Campbell – was solid. The referee added on seven minutes.
Early in the second half Italy had England pinned down. It was going to be a long forty-five minutes. Zola was looking increasingly comfortable, and I assumed there was no way we could keep them out. And then Maldini took off Zola. On came Alessandro del Piero. For the next fifteen minutes England looked in danger, and Maldini seemed to take heart, waving his arms in the air and gesticulating at his players. The FIFA man tried to calm him down. Remember the pitiful sight of Graham Taylor in the dying minutes of that game in Rotterdam? It was Maldini’s turn to suffer now.
Blood was spilling from Ince’s face, and he left the field for a second time to have a bandanna wrapped round his head. There were twenty-five minutes to go. Del Piero went down in the England penalty area. It was a penalty. It couldn’t be a penalty. Del Piero was booked for diving.
It was still unpleasant in the stand to my right. On the pitch, Di Livio chopped down Campbell and was sent off. I remembered when Italy had ten men against Nigeria in the USA and came back from a goal down to win 2–1. Then Beckham took a corner. It came out to Ince who rifled a shot into the keeper’s body. Confidence soared.
Into the last ten minutes, and Italians on the far side began throwing debris on to the pitch. Small holes appeared in the crowd where Italians were leaving early. In the eighty-fourth minute, Nicky Butt came on for Gascoigne. Hoddle was being told to sit down by the FIFA official. John Gorman, Hoddle’s assistant, was looking at his watch every three seconds and the English fans let out a long shrill whistle. But the Dutch referee just would not blow. In my row, we were all on our feet. Some lads from Four Four Two magazine were standing on their seats. The Daily Star’s Lee Clayton had fleas in his pants. At one point he almost disappeared under his desk.
England were going to qualify for the World Cup, and yet I couldn’t prevent myself from thinking something terrible was about to happen. I looked at the referee and saw in him all the vindictive authority figures I had ever come across. He still wouldn’t blow the whistle. We were into extra-extra injury time when Wright was put through. He rounded the keeper. The goal was empty but the angle impossibly acute. When he hit the post the Italians were still in it. It was their turn for a final hurrah. Del Piero attacked down England’s right flank and crossed to Vieri. As Vieri rose it was like watching a cowboy slowly take his gun from his holster. Seaman just stood there and stared. Vieri missed. ‘I knew it was going wide as soon as he headed it,’ Seaman said afterwards. No one else did. The referee looked long and hard at his watch for the last time. When he finally blew, Wright went down on his knees and cried. Clemence embraced Hoddle, who embraced Gorman, who hugged Ince, who fell into the arms of each player in turn. Gascoigne went to the English fans and shook his fists and