at locals, especially women, and in some cases throwing bottles and other implements at mopeds, cars, police and in one case smashing the window of a bar. All this in the capital city of the country which was the main victim of the Heysel disaster in 1985.
I have never seen anything like this behaviour in Rome, even though many European teams play here on a regular basis. When will the FA learn that the root of the problem still lies with their fans and not the authorities of the other countries? I believe that the French authorities will react in the same way at the World Cup finals next year unless the English fans can prove that they can act in a civilised manner.
Yours etc,
Ronan Donoghue
For the next two weeks you could hardly turn on the television without seeing a clip of English fans being bashed by Italian riot police. It was either that or the trial of teenager Louise Woodward, both cases in which objectivity got lost in the swelter of debate. The FA’s hastily drafted report returned a guilty verdict on all counts, concluding that the police had been variously inefficient, provocative and brutal.
The Italians struck back – none more so than dear old, roly-poly Giancarlo Gavarotti who, in a Gazetta dello Sport editorial, described English supporters as ‘vomit on the beautiful face of Rome’. Verbal warfare continued until FIFA eventually came out with its own inconclusive but predictable conclusion: both sides were to blame. As a result, England and Italy would each be fined for contributing to what FIFA described as the ‘deplorable’ events in Rome. It was a vintage example of fence-sitting, complete with the tamest of warnings that a repeat of such behaviour, either by England fans or Italian police, would result in ‘a lot stiffer punishments’.
Sepp Blatter, the FIFA General Secretary, who did not wish to fall out with England or Italy since he was hoping to win their vote as successor to Joao Havelange, the FIFA President, made things charmingly clear. ‘While FIFA did not have authority over the police forces, the methods used by the police should be better adapted to the specific requirements of football,’ he said, scrubbing the whitewash from his suit as he spoke.
Woodward was freed on the day Hoddle’s England players voluntarily put themselves under lock and key at the team hotel in Berkshire in preparation for the Cameroon game, the first of a series of friendlies during which the players would strut their stuff in front of the coach in the hope of securing a place in the final squad of twenty-two, to be announced on 2 June. It was to be a long and tense and at times tedious beauty contest, with some contestants dropping out of the reckoning and one refusing to take part altogether. Others were to claw their way on to the catwalk at the last minute.
This is what Phil Neville had to say about it: ‘There are only four players that you can look at and safely say that only injuries could keep them out of the final squad, and they are David Seaman, Paul Gascoigne, Paul Ince and Alan Shearer. For the rest of us, the fight is on. We’ve qualified for the finals but this is where the pressure really starts. I think we’re all worried about whether we will make it to France. I’m thinking about it every time I go on to the training field with England and it’s going to get worse.
‘You look at every training session as a step nearer the World Cup, and if you play and perform well you think of that as another step forward. At the moment I’d say my main rivals for the wing-back places are Graeme Le Saux and Andy Hinchcliffe. Then there’s David Beckham if I’m pushing for a place on the right.’
The last time Cameroon came to London, in 1991, the so-called Lions of Africa refused to leave their hotel until they were paid £2,000 each in cash. On this occasion, the FA guaranteed around £150,000 to the Cameroon FA, plus a share of the TV rights. The lions were tamed in an instant.
Hoddle’s squad included the rehabilitated Rio Ferdinand and Chris Sutton, Blackburn’s top scorer. Both had been called up for the first time. A seventeen-year-old called Michael Owen was also there – on work experience from Liverpool FC, where he was taking the Kop by storm. I had seen him on the first day of the season when Liverpool played Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park, and I noticed before the kick-off that Hoddle was sitting a couple of rows behind me. Halfway through the second half, Owen was fouled in the penalty area and the referee pointed to the spot. Owen didn’t bother to look across to the bench or consult his captain. He simply picked up the ball, placed it on the small white circle and whacked it past the goalkeeper.
After the first day’s training session at Bisham Abbey, someone thoughtfully passed Rio Ferdinand a glass of orange juice, and he managed a knowing smile. ‘You can’t call me an alcoholic. I don’t need counselling or anything,’ said Ferdinand, who had just turned nineteen. ‘Glenn told me I would get another chance. He stood by me. He’s an honest person and I have to be honest with him now. Everything he has said to me has made a difference. He has told me how to conduct myself off the pitch and what he’s told me has stayed in. What happened with Tony Adams was more of a conversation really. I just found that I was sitting next to him on the bus and we started talking. He simply told me what had happened to him. The truth is that I don’t really drink.’
I asked him if he had ever seen a video of Bobby Moore, and how it felt to be compared, however obliquely, to such a master craftsman. ‘He was probably the greatest centre-back in the world, so it’s a bit over the top to compare me with him. I try to do my own thing. I like to pass the ball and I like to have it at my feet. It’s flattering the things people have been saying, but I have to make sure I don’t get big-headed.’
Hoddle already had the spine of a team in his mind, and was looking at about thirty or thirty-five players who had a chance of making it by June. Rio Ferdinand’s recall raised the question of whether Hoddle still hoped to play a sweeper system or if he would stick to his three central defenders and two wing-back formation. Much to Adams’s displeasure, England had abandoned the flat back four. ‘If I had fourteen games in which to experiment it might be different, but I don’t,’ Hoddle said. ‘You can play with a sweeper in training and think to yourself, this is fine, but then you try doing it at Wembley in front of 75,000 people or during a World Cup and it can all go horribly wrong. I don’t think we’ve got the players at the moment to do it – although Rio might do it in the future.’
Not one question was asked about Hoddle’s personal life, and how the break-up of his marriage might affect his work.
It was an uninspiring game on a damp, uninspiring North London evening. The lions failed to roar. England won 2–0, with well-taken goals shortly before the end of the first half by Paul Scholes and Robbie Fowler. For Fowler it was particularly important to make an impression and move up a notch in the striker’s stakes, especially with Shearer still injured and Wright suddenly finding it impossible to score for Arsenal.
But it’s all so unfair. Chris Sutton came on with just over ten minutes of the match left, and could so easily have walked into the departure lounge for France if a cross from Fowler had been a few inches more accurate.
Hoddle gave Nigel Martyn an outing in goal, but he hardly got a touch. As it happened, his only real contribution was when he went down on one knee to stop an innocuous shot and let the ball roll out of his arms. He grabbed it again and managed a rueful grin.
There was one significant moment in the thirty-ninth minute when Rio Ferdinand trotted on to replace the injured Southgate. Suddenly there was a buzz about the place. Hinchcliffe shook his hand and then immediately passed him the ball. Ferdinand’s international career was effortlessly into its stride.
England were now ranked sixth in the world – 100 places higher than Italy – and FIFA said they would take that into consideration when deciding which countries would be given one of the eight seeded places. Past World Cup performances were going to come into the equation, which meant England’s failure to qualify last time round could cost
