Cruyff and Me: A 40-Year Love Affair
When you’re 12 or 13 years old, you have heroes. You have infatuations. You want to emulate and imitate. In 1972, that might have meant sticking platform shoes on or glitter in your hair. Or pretending to be Dutch. To most people, Holland was a flat country with windmills and people wearing clogs. But in […]
Read more
Name the stadium
Retro Football Manager: The Newcastle Odyssey Part 4
Sid Lambert is a 43-year-old man playing Retro Football Manager on his iPhone. He’s gone back to 1995/96 to take over Newcastle United and put right what once went wrong: beat Manchester United to the title. And he’d love it if he beat them. Love it. It’s been a sluggish start to my new era […]
Read more
A Brucie Barrage
Liverpool keeper Bruce Grobbelaar gives the Wembley pitch invader a warm welcome after the reds beat local rivals Everton in the 1989 FA Cup final.
Read more
The Vulture
Emilio Butragueno is first and foremost a gentleman footballer. Known as El Buitre (The Vulture) he was like a throwback to the golden age of the 50s and 60s when he burst on to the scene at Real Madrid as an elegant and highly skilled centre forward, and watching him felt like witnessing the last […]
Read more
Goals Galore
The first season of English football’s Premier League kicked off on Saturday 15 August 1992, with two amazing games, the first Norwich City beating Arsenal 4-2 away at Highbury, with Mark Robins scoring two goals after trailing two-nil at half-time. Then at Selhurst Park, when Crystal Palace grabbed a last-minute equaliser from Simon Osborn to […]
Read more
When Football Almost Came Home
Southgate’s penalty, Gascoigne’s miss and German ruthlessness – let’s take a look back at the EURO 96 Semi-Final that brought the nation to its knees. After an epic judgement night in this years European Championship’s ‘group of death’ containing giants of the international footballing scene in France, Germany and Portugal, a pair of 2-2 draws […]
Read more
Italy 3 Brazil 2
In the second round of the Espana 1982 World Cup, the Italians and Brazilians served up a classic match which the Azzurri won courtesy of a Paolo Rossi hat trick. The Italians guided by Enzo Bearzot went onto lift the World Cup for a third time after beating West Germany in the final.
Read more
England 3 Denmark 0
England beat Denmark 3-0 in the second round of the World Cup back in 2002. Rio Ferdinand, Michael Owen and Emile Heskey grabbed the goals for the Three Lions.
Read more
England 4 West Germany 2
Host nation England faced West Germany in the final of the 1966 World Cup final at Wembley. A Geoff Hurst hat-trick was enough to give the Three Lions victory and England lifted the Jules Rimet for the first and only time in their history.
Read more