Euro 96: England’s nearly men

For England football fans of a certain age, Euro 96 remains the pinnacle, when, for a summer at least, the Three Lions seemed invincible.

Twenty years on and with Euro 2016 kick-off 10 days away, we spoke to four members of Terry Venables’ Euro 96 squad – Darren Anderton, Stuart Pearce, Jamie Redknapp and Steve Howey – to get their memories from one of England’s finest tournament performances.

Euro 96 brought a major championship to English stadia for the first time since 1966, and with it the pressure to live up to past glory, but a pre-tournament trip to the Far East got preparations off to a rocky start.

Paul Gascoigne’s 29th birthday celebrations went on well into the Hong Kong night as Redknapp, then aged 22, remembers: “Our issues before the football started with the ‘Dentist’s Chair’ and all that – it was a night that got out of hand.”

The papers predictably had a field day and the headlines in the build-up to their opening group game against Switzerland were brutal.

“A bunch of has-beens show up a bunch of wannabes” was the Daily Mail’s verdict after Venables’ side scraped a 1-0 friendly win over a Hong Kong XI. “Sporting morons” was another slightly more succinct put-down.

“We got quite a bit of criticism because of that Hong Kong trip, but the connection between the lads was excellent,” Howey, a substitute in all five tournament matches, told Sky Sports.

A 1-1 draw at Wembley against the Swiss, led by former PSG and Porto boss Artur Jorge, opened the door to further cynicism.

“There was so much optimism as the host nation, and it did seem to change after that first game,” Anderton added.

“We didn’t get off to a fantastic start but we knew we had fantastic players. We had tough games to come against Holland and Scotland, but we thought one good performance could send us on our way.”

A meeting with Craig Brown’s Scotland was always likely to be a nervy affair, and the game ultimately turned on the introduction of Redknapp with the score goalless.

The Sky Sports pundit recalls: “We weren’t great and Terry made a superb tactical substitution at the break! We started to play a little bit – Scotland were a very good side – but we just had the edge, Gazza was immense and his goal was so good.”

Gascoigne’s flick over Colin Hendry and volley past Andy Goram remains one of the defining moments of the tournament, but while England showed signs of quality in the 2-0 victory over Scotland, it was not until the 4-1 thrashing of Holland in their final Group A match that the whole nation seemed to unite behind them.

Twenty years ago last week, Baddiel and Skinner’s ‘Three Lions (Football’s Coming …

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