Lost in France: The Story of England's 1998 World Cup Campaign

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 if you buy me a cup of coffee,’ he said. We talked about Japanese 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 they went crazy.

David Miller sat down in the press conference room and said: ‘It was a penalty, 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.’