European Championship Stories: 1980 – The Decline & Fall Of English Football
On the twelfth of June 1980, England played Belgium in the finals of the European Championships – their first match in the finals of a major tournament for ten years....
Posts Tagged: "England"
Fabio Capello Was The Least Of England’s Intractable Problems
Welcome to English football in 2012. The captain of the national team faces a criminal charge for the use of racially aggravated abuse during a Premier League match. Five months...
Capello Out – Enter The Barwick-O-Tron (Again)
So, Fabio Capello quits as the England national coach. This is, perhaps, unsurprising considering the dog’s abuse that he has taken while leading the national team through an almost flawless...
John Terry & The Fetishisation Of The England Captaincy
In that special, unique way that only they can, the FA managed to set a dozen hungry cats amongst the pigeons of the John Terry case this morning. Their announcement,...
A Brief History Of England False Dawns: Part 2
Last week, in the wake of England’s heroic (cough) win against Spain at Wembley in what can only be described as the friendly international to end all friendly internationals, we...
Lowered Expectations: Can England Reinvent Itself?
It was a process that took around six years from top to tail in total, and it came in three very distinct phases. I had been a supporter of the...
A Brief History Of England False Dawns: Part One
For those amongst you that hadn’t noticed, England beat Spain, the current World and European champions, by a single goal in an international friendly match at Wembley over the weekend....
The Rooney Storm In A Tea Cup
It was a display which fell quite firmly into the category of “Typical England”. What should – and can could easily have been – a comfortable win in Montenegro last...
England Totter Towards Euro 2012
For all the panic and soul-searching, then, England have qualified for next year’s European Championships in Poland and Ukraine, although their performance last night was again patchy and hinted at...
Ferguson Weeps, St. John Snarls, and Hutchison With The Header: BBC Sportsound Replay
Building up to this week’s final round of group qualifying fixtures for the 2012 European Championships, BBC Radio Scotland has produced short audio pastiches daily on their Sportsound programme featuring...
Match Of The Midweek: England 1-0 Wales
There are empty seats at Wembley this evening. The FA’s hyperbolic per-match ticket advertising for this match may have made inferences to this being the match that everybody wants to...
England Lose World Cup Match On Penalty Kicks
Perhaps, on a bookshelf in the offices of the Football Association at Wembley Stadium, there is a leather-bound book called “How To Get Knocked Out Of A Major Tournament”. It’s...
The 2011 Womens World Cup: England 2-0 Japan
Coming into form at the right time is a critical aspect of tournament football, but it is one that occasionally feels as if it is overlooked. This evening, against a...
England Start To Find Their Feet At The Womens World Cup
With thirty minutes left to play in Dresden last night, it looked as if the England team was heading out of the 2011 Womens World Cup. A goal down against...
It’s Official: England Are The Fourth Best National Team In The World
The middle of the summer always brings about the “silly season”, that time of year when, with parliament sunning itself on beaches or relaxing on their country estates, news editors...
Autonomy, Misrepresentation & That Most Peculiar Beast: Team GB
Rumbling along quietly along in the background, the ongoing argument over whether a Great Britain team should take part in the 2012 London Olympics has been one of the slow-burning...
England’s Under-21s And An Uninspiring Future
How quickly we – or at least some people – forget. When England were not so much knocked out of the World Cup last summer by Germany as blasted to...
Match Of The Week: England 2-2 Switzerland
If we suspend reality and assume the opinion that England playing Switzerland at Wembley this afternoon, just a few days after arguably their heaviest ever defeat in Zurich, was not...
Condescending Upon Ghana And Supporting England
Mark Critchley watched the friendly match between England and Ghana last night. Here they are. Our boys. No, not them I mean… Fine, alright then, not our boys – our...