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
