Things changed shortly after the 1970 World Cup when newspapers began signing up footballers to write columns. The footballer talked on the telephone to a journalist and the journalist produced a few words consistent with the player’s general train of thought. Tabloid circulation battles didn’t help retain much trust, and then along came the agents, 15-percenters who rammed a wedge between the players and press. So who could really blame Hoddle for his obsessive secrecy and slavish cosseting of his team?
‘Look,’ said Davies later that day as England arrived at the stadium for a final kick-about, ‘I know what people are saying. I know there are complaints about the way we have gone about this, and, who knows, we may do it differently in France if we qualify, but this was our plan all along. We just wanted the team to be completely shielded. Call it control if you like. We think it’s what is needed at this particular time.’
By this stage, Jeff Powell was desperate to unburden himself. He had been grumbling all week. That morning he wrote in the Daily Mail: ‘Get behind the lads, is the order of the day, issued by everyone from the national coach and the team captain to the sanitation consultant operative responsible for the lavatories at Lancaster Gate … Getting behind the lads obliges constant repetition of this mantra: We are the greatest. Never mind that Italy won at Wembley earlier this year. Never mind that their World Cup record makes “Football’s Coming Home” sound more like a cracked old satire than the new anthem of our national game. Never mind that the last time England won in Italy the Sixties had only just started swinging. This is triumphalism gone mad.’
I didn’t get it. I couldn’t detect an abundance of triumphalism in the England camp, and there seemed to be a healthy dose of scepticism simmering through the press corps.
There was an intensity about England’s training that made the Italian session look casual, complacent even. It was a muggy evening. And a muddled one, too. But that, it later transpired, had been the big idea all along. Hoddle had told his squad before leaving London what his team would be – but with twenty-four hours to go he was determined to keep the world guessing. You couldn’t help thinking he was doing this more for his own sake than anyone else’s. Would it really make a huge difference to the Italians if McManaman was to play instead of Beckham or if Gary Neville would play at the back instead of Southgate? Hoddle must have believed so, because as the rest of the squad divided up into teams to play a game of one-touch, Southgate sat forlornly by a corner flag with the physio doing some stretching exercises, and Beckham was asked to impersonate that man on the bus with a blocked-up nose who is in desperate need of a packet of Tunes.
The Number Ones were not sure what to make of it. Their respective sports desks were waiting for their copy to drop, in which they would announce the ‘probable’ team. At least they would get the name of the captain right. Hoddle had announced in the morning that contrary to what he had led everyone to believe, Adams – thirty-one that day – would not be in charge after all. Paul Ince was to have the job. ‘Paul is coming back to Italy and that will give him a lift’, said Hoddle. ‘He’s in the hub of the side and vital to the team. The Italians respect him and slightly fear him, so that was an important consideration in my decision. Tony’s been out for a long time. He’s done a lot of good work in a short period but I just don’t want to put that extra responsibility on his shoulders. It simply comes down to the fact that I don’t think Tony is quite mentally prepared to be captain on such an occasion.’
Beckham suddenly bent double and called out: ‘I can’t breathe.’ He was escorted off.
The streets of Rome were filling up. I took an evening stroll to the main train station, where groups of English fans were gathering in bars and on street corners. The police looked nervous. They moved swiftly into a bar to break up a group of Englishmen who looked more menacing than they were. There was a scuffle. A few chairs were thrown across the bar and about six of them were marched off into police vans waiting outside. The huge crowd that had gathered on the opposite pavement to watch this showdown gave it an importance it never warranted, and the sight of police vans with their lights flashing added to the drama. But when I came across Ben Fenton, a Daily Telegraph news man who had been sent out on what the papers call ‘hooli-watch’, he had just got off the telephone to his news desk stressing that there had been nothing so far to warrant an ‘English Hooligans Go On Rampage’ headline.
Back in the media’s billet, the hotel manager was pacing up and down. He was upset about an incident the previous night when someone urinated in the lift. John Warren, who was handling the media’s travel arrangements on behalf of the FA, had been summoned to explain how such a thing could happen. A former policeman, Warren had his suspicions about the identity of the culprit but could never prove it. It might have been one of the Japanese tourists in the hotel, but somehow they didn’t look the type to have come all the way to Rome to relieve themselves in a hotel lift.
By noon on the day of the match, there were estimated to be 12,000 English fans in Rome. Paul Shadbolt was there with his friends Andy and another Paul, all from Barnet and all members of the England Travel Club for nearly ten years. They had done St Peter’s Square, Piazza Navona and the Colosseum. An Italian hospital was never on their itinerary. They were getting three nights in Rome, return flights and tickets to the game for £335. Paul had been in Italy with England during the 1990 World Cup for six weeks and in Sweden for the 1992 European Championships. He had travelled to Poland a couple of times, and Norway and Holland. He even followed England in the United States after they had failed to qualify for the last World Cup.
Bobby Robson was in town. He was reading a newspaper in a corner of the hotel foyer when I interrupted him to ask the question I had wanted to ask for seven years.
‘Had you ever thought of taking off Peter Shilton and bringing on Chris Woods shortly before the end of extra time in the 1990 semi-final?’
Robson looked me up and down and stood up. He began pointing his finger. ‘Now look here. I don’t know who you are or what you are doing here but I want to tell you that if I had done that and Chris Woods had made a mistake – say he let a penalty roll under his body – people would have crucified me for taking Peter off. So there’s your answer thank you very much.’
‘But did you ever seriously consider it? Woods was taller than Shilton. He would have been fresh. He would have relished coming on with the chance of becoming an instant hero, glory at the eleventh hour. And the Germans would not have known what to make of it. They might have panicked. Wouldn’t it have been worth a try?’
‘Maybe,’ said Robson, ‘but Chris Woods would have been cold. He might not have been able to read the pace of the ball. But, yes, I did think about it – for a fraction of a second. It was an option that went through my mind but I was not prepared to risk it. Is that good enough for you?’
Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Italy, Thomas Richardson, hosted a large lunch party at his residence off the Via Conte Rosso to celebrate the sixtieth birthday of Sir Bobby Charlton, although the main object of the exercise was to drum up support for England’s bid to stage the 2006 World Cup finals. What a house. It sits on a hill, surrounded by palm trees and lime bushes. An ancient ruin runs through the garden.
Tony Banks was there, presumably to support the rival German bid, and Alex Ferguson showed up too. On arrival, the ambassador introduced his guests to Sir Bobby while someone took a photograph. I was twelve years old in 1966. Roger Hunt was my favourite player because he played up front like me. At school, we always pretended we were various players. Some boys imagined they were Alan Ball or Geoff Hurst or Nobby Stiles. A few even called themselves Bobby Charlton. No one ever dared to be Bobby Moore.
I had met Bobby Charlton once before – in Qatar of all places, during the Asian group qualifying competition for the 1994 World Cup. At that time he was a paid-up member of the Japanese Football Association as they battled with South Korea to stage the 2002 finals. I had asked him if he would spare ten minutes for a piece I was doing about Japanese football.
‘Only