of period women stare out from the walls. There is no furniture as such, just a room full of chairs and three tables with Formica tops. At one time, journalists could talk to whoever they pleased after training, but in the age of managed news in Blair’s New Britain it is Hoddle who decides which of his squad should speak, and when, and to whom.
Today was the turn of Steve McManaman, Gary Neville and Ray Clemence, the goalkeeping coach. Clemence was singled out for this ritualistic chore because he had experience of playing Italy in Rome in 1976. They were not happy memories. Under the caretaker boss Ron Greenwood, England lost 2–0, the game effectively ending any chance of qualification for the 1978 World Cup.
‘It could have been a lot worse than 2–0,’ said Clemence. ‘We had Stan Bowles making his début, and perhaps on reflection it was not the sort of game to have someone playing his first match. I think Glenn will go for experience, pure and simple.’ Which was not what he did against Italy at Wembley a few months earlier when he gave Matt Le Tissier his first full cap – and paid the price.
How much of an influence would Clemence have on Hoddle’s team choice? ‘We have a meeting every evening and Glenn asks us for our views, but he makes all the decisions.’
On these occasions, the players, accompanied by an FA official, sit behind a table, with journalists seated around them. Because most of the people asking the questions know the players well after dealing with them day in and day out while covering the Premier League, the mood is friendly: less confrontational, more informal than I had expected.
McManaman, a back-to-front baseball cap man who had annoyed Hoddle by not making himself available for Le Tournoi in France during the summer, was omitted from the squad for the Moldova game, but had been on sparkling form for Liverpool. He was back.
‘I don’t need any kick up the backside,’ said the twenty-five-year-old, who, with a little help, was writing a column in The Times. ‘Of course I want to be in the team on Saturday. But, there again, so does everyone else.’
At the other table, Gary Neville, who had smelt Italian blood five days previously when Manchester United gave Juventus a spanking in the Champions League, was showing a healthy contempt for the reputation of Italian football. ‘I don’t think they are any better than us. We match them man to man. It’s about time we went there and beat them. I don’t think it will be a nice game, but the country senses that the England team is better than it has been for some time. The boss has brought in a club team spirit.’
Neville has bright brown eyes that enliven an otherwise solemn, drawn face. He was asked how he would feel standing in the tunnel waiting to walk out into the Olympic Stadium, and it never crossed his mind that he might not actually be picked.
‘I love playing for England. There is no higher accolade. I play for Manchester United but there is nothing like walking out there for your country and standing for the National Anthem. To say you are an England international gives you so much confidence.’
Steve Double is Davies’s number two. He had worked for the FA for two years after being on the staff of various tabloids. His last job was investigations editor for the People.
‘I think we come from the same neck of the woods,’ he said. ‘We probably support the same team.’ Which is Reading. There was never a lot of choice. Never is. My father worked for Huntley & Palmers all his adult life, and Reading always used to be known as the Biscuit Men. The Huntley & Palmers name was painted on the roof of the century-old corrugated-iron main stand, and the firm used to provide the match ball most weeks. Huntley & Palmers weren’t a bad side themselves. They were in the Spartan League when I was playing for their under-18 team, which led to a trial for Berkshire schoolboys. That was the summit. I was taken off after half an hour because, frankly, I wasn’t good enough. And that was it. Now it’s the occasional five-a-side game behind the Arndale Centre in Wandsworth.
I told Double all this and wondered why I had burdened him with such a doleful tale. I think it was because when you are somewhere like Bisham Abbey for the first time, with people around you who either play or write about football professionally, you need to justify yourself. But I was pleased he supported Reading. Double, never the most pro-active of press officers, was sorting out applications for tickets from 250 journalists. His Italian counterparts were not making his task easy. ‘I won’t bore you with the details,’ he said. Which was a tactful way of saying what a hideous mess the Italians had got themselves into, and if they couldn’t sort out seats for a couple of hundred journalists God knows what hope there was for the paying punter ending up in the right section of the ground. Double said there had never been so many applications for press tickets to an overseas game. The biggest turn-out before this was 180 for the crucial qualifier against Holland in Rotterdam, 13 October 1993, where, as now, all England needed was a draw. I was one of those 180. It was a brutally depressing evening, made worse by my afternoon encounter with a group of English supporters in the town centre.
‘Are you following us?’ the spotty one had asked me. ‘You are, ain’t you, scumface?’
‘You’re either a plain-clothes copper or a journalist, ain’t yer?’ said Spotty’s mate, who had letters tattooed on his knuckles. I couldn’t read what the letters spelt, but I’m sure he couldn’t either.
Before I could answer, Knuckles screwed up his face and sneered: ‘You’re gonna have to wise up a bit, son. You don’t go following us around if you want to stay out of trouble.’
They closed in and formed a tight circle around me. The brute with the spots raised his hand in the air and slapped me across the face so hard that just for a second I thought I was going to hit him back.
‘Now get down and kneel, you bastard. And kiss the flag of England.’ Spotty had unfolded a Union Jack and down I went.
‘Kiss it, fuck-face.’ And so I did. It was more of a peck, but good enough to earn a reprieve, albeit with a suspended sentence.
‘Now get out of here before we do you some real damage,’ said Knuckles as I made my excuses and ran.
I wondered if anything had changed in four years. No one seemed to believe that the hard-core, hard-drinking football hooligan had disappeared. Trouble was expected in Rome. Then, on the day that the National Criminal Intelligence Service football unit identified 670 known hooligans, almost all of whom had criminal records for violence, David Mellor, head of the Football Task Force, urged the Italians not to treat the English like animals, which must have gone down a treat in the Carabinieri’s canteen. Of those 670, about 70 were thought to be category C, the worst of the worst.
The plan was to search all English fans three times at the stadium, and then inspect their tickets some 300 yards from the main entrance. No alcohol would be on sale anywhere near the ground. But none of this had impressed Pat Smith, the FA’s deputy Chief Executive, who wrote to all corporate hospitality firms warning that the only segregated part of the stadium would be taken up by members of the England Travel Club. Since most of these companies had bought tickets to the match in Rome it was assumed that their clients would be sitting in comfortable seats in neutral areas. But Smith knew that anyone looking like an English supporter would be thrown into an unofficial English pen. The hospitality companies were taking it all in their financial stride. ‘We realise the dangers of heavy drinking on an empty stomach,’ said a spokesman for Flight Options, which was taking out 800 fans on a £349 day-return package from Gatwick. ‘So we always ensure there is a hot breakfast on our flights.’ That would do the trick.
Behind the scenes, the position was far worse than anyone realised. The Italian Football Federation was refusing to answer letters from its English counterpart, the first of which was written by Smith on 26 September, after it
