Week 22: No Club Or Country Dilemma For Old Man
I was once told, rather patronisingly I thought, that my putting my national team ahead (or at least equal) to my club side when it came to being a fan was because ‘I didn’t see the bigger names as much at my club side.’
In other words, they thought I was compensating for the crap I was being forced to watch – this coming from a Newcastle United fan too , no less – as a fan of a lower league club by getting a fix of the superstars, that I could only dream of watching live in club football, when they played for their countries.
I wasn’t. I just happen to think that ‘club or country’ is not really a question that fans need ask and I’ve never understood the fuss about it. It’s not even an issue for players these days in the way it was when Alex Ferguson was habitually withdrawing his players from international squads. International ‘windows’ and FIFA rules mean that having both is perfectly acceptable. Anyway, the fixtures rarely, if ever, clash and if they do, the protocol is clear. For fans, you can have an equivocal stance on it. Love your club and love your country? In football, surely that’s an open goal. If nothing else, it gives you two bites at the cherry when it comes to success and memorable moments.
So, in the week that Euro 2020 should have started, and a year out from when it actually will after it’s postponement because of the COVID-19 pandemic, what better time to compare club versus country? From my forty-odd years of watching both, I’ve picked six categories of games and only one qualifying criteria; I have to have seen the whole match at the time it was played (even if that was live on TV at the very least).
Best Final
Club: Walsall 4 Bristol City 0, Football League Play-off Final 1988 | Fellows Park
Play-off finals count, right? Although some lower league clubs seem to make it to finals all the time, mine doesn’t and therefore the options were very narrow on this one. I immediately discounted our only Wembley final as it a no-show, but this one – against the same opposition – was altogether different. I’ve detailed in other articles the rather contrived process in the pre-Wembley final days but suffice to say, after two legs (3-3 on aggregate) and a penalty shoot-out to decide home advantage, the teams met for a third time in less than a week to determine who went into Division 2, as it was then. And whereas the other option I had, the play-off final in 2001 in Cardiff, was a nail-biting, tense affair, this was an absolute breeze. Three early goals meant that any anxiety and doubt were removed and a party atmosphere had set in long before the fourth and final goal.
Country: None
If club finals produced slim pickings, then that’s nothing compared to country. Born after 1966 and all that, it’s been heartache all the way since then when it comes to falling at the final hurdle. But more on that next.
Winner: Club
Best Semi-Final
Club: Preston North End 0 Walsall 2, Football League Trophy 2015 | Deepdale
If the final of this competition was a massive disappointment, the semi-final first leg was an unexpected bonus. With PNE riding high in the league, all thoughts were of avoiding a big defeat and keeping the two-legged tie alive for the second leg at home. On a drizzly January evening, we clung on at times but as the clock ticked down, an unlikely draw started to look possible. Then, a direct free kick put us in dreamland and a last-minute second after a poor back pass gave us a result beyond our wildest dreams and made a first-ever trip to Wembley feel very probable all of a sudden and it’s that feeling that helps it edge out a draw at Liverpool in the 1984 Milk Cup semi-final first leg.
Country: West Germany 1 England 1, World Cup 1990 | Stadio delle Alpi
By definition, if I haven’t seen a final involving my country, then there cannot have been a successful semi-final either. That’s not to say there haven’t been some memorable and exciting ones; just that they tend to end in glorious failure and usually on penalties. Although the best chance to win one was probably against Croatia in 2018, the two that stand out are the defeats to the Germans in 1990 and 1996, and the one I’ll choose is the former, when West Germany were probably fortunate to go through to the final on the night. The late equaliser from Lineker and Gazza’s tears set it apart, and, even in defeat, instilled a new-found love for the national team in people and changed the course of English football at the same time.
Winner: Club
Best League / Group Game
Club: Walsall 6 Reading 0, Division 3 1986 | Fellows Park
In this season, Manchester United won their first ten Division 1 games and had a massive lead in November, but eventually fell away. In the third tier, Reading did the same but never let up and won the title by seven points. But we were pretty special too (at home anyway) that season, losing just once and this game was one of three occasions when we scored six and definitely the most significant. To hammer the top team so comprehensively, with some absolute belters too, was great to watch even if it ultimately came to nothing as a sixth-placed final finish was academic in the pre-playoff era.
Country: Germany 1 England 5, World Cup Qualifying Group 2001 | Olympic Stadium
In a group that had unravelled quickly, Sven Goran-Eriksson was already the third England manager to try to qualify from it after Keegan’s public resignation and Peter Taylor’s caretaking. Wins in Albania and Greece had given England a sniff, but only another in Munich would be enough to have any hope of avoiding the play-offs. When they scored early through Janker, those hopes already looked to have gone but an inspired comeback before half-time, then Owen completing a hat-trick afterwards was almost surreal. When Heskey added a fifth, with twenty minutes still to play if you included added-time, it felt like a once-in-a-lifetime moment – given the catalogue of unlucky defeats in the past – and I remember calling my Dad and telling him ‘we’d better enjoy this now, because we might never see anything like it again.’
Winner: Country
Best Knock-Out Game
Club: Nottingham Forest 3 Walsall 4, Football League Cup, August 2015 | City Ground
Two of Walsall’s best cup wins were against Arsenal. One in 1933, so well outside the criteria for this and the other at Highbury in 1983 that I heard via radio commentary but didn’t see. But for sheer excitement and enjoyment, this League Cup First-Round match takes some beating. Living in Nottingham, we made it a family affair as my son went to support the home team and I took my 8-year-old daughter in the away end with me. Racing into a 2-0 early on, we were on top form but Forest introduced Michael Antonio after 78 minutes with the score at 2-1. Within a minute, we’d extended our lead but Antonio went on a one-man mission to save the tie, scoring after 81 and 90 minutes. I’ve no doubt that had the game gone into extra-time, he’d have scored another five goals in a 3-8 defeat, but remarkably, we won a penalty with seconds to go and Super Tom Bradshaw scored his third of the night from the spot in front of the delirious away section. ‘This is brilliant, can I come to every match?’ my daughter asked as she jumped up and down on her seat. Which just shows how little I’d taught her about lower-league football
Country: England 1 Colombia 1, World Cup 2018 | Otkrytie Arena
After years of penalty kick despair (even the win against Spain in 96 was followed by a loss) it seemed that it was destined to be the way all major tournaments ended. But in Russia, there was more hope, not least because we had a young squad unphased by the ghosts of shoot-outs past and Harry Kane, who was putting spot-kicks away for fun. He’d done that already as yet another team had found the only way to stop England players from corner kicks was to drag them to the ground. A narrow but straight-forward win seemed on the cards as we reached stoppage-time a goal up, only for Yerri Mina to head home dramatically and after a tense extra period, we faced our nemesis again. But for once, we had the goalie who made the saves and also the cool heads under pressure. When Eric Dier put the final kick away to exorcise all that had gone before, the roar and the relief could be heard across the nation in equal measures.
Winner: Country
Best Comeback
Club: Walsall 3 Northampton 2, League Two, Feb 2020 | Banks’s Stadium
The perfect comeback has to have very specific ingredients. Being 0-2 down is ideally one of them and if that’s at half-time, all the better. The crowd have to be disgruntled and see no signs of what’s about to happen during the interval. Then there should be an early spark; a sense that the impossible could happen, with a goal early in the second-half, followed by a siege on the opponent’s goal and an equaliser near to the end followed by a dramatic – but almost inevitable – injury time winner, all right in front of the home fans. That’s what this game had earlier in the year, although it seems like a million years ago given what’s happened.
Country: Argentina 2 England 3, International Friendly, Nov 2005 | Stade de Geneve
Although mid-season international games can be meaningless at times, some never are and that includes any where Scotland, Germany or Argentina are involved. Although the 3-2 from 0-2 down comeback against Germany (2016) in Berlin is fresher in the memory, the same winning score-line against Argentina in 2005 was arguably better because it happened so late. 2-1 down with three minutes to go, a still-near-the-top-of his-powers, Michael Owen equalised then won it in added time. It’s not often that a game with nothing but pride riding on it gets you off your seat and punching the air, but that night, watching the action beamed from neutral Switzerland, it did for me.
Winner: Club
Best Friendly
Club: Walsall 2 Ajax Amsterdam 0, July 2018 | Banks’s Stadium
Thanks to on-line streaming I can choose Walsall v Ajax from 2018. The game, played on a weekday afternoon, came in the build-up to a season that saw the Dutch team – who didn’t play their strongest XI by any means here – crowned Eredivisie champions (again) while Walsall got relegated after a great start. Which goes to show that friendlies mean absolutely nothing.
Country: Brazil 0 England 2, June 1984 | Maracana
I say nothing, but sometimes they mean can everything. In this end of season game in Rio de Janeiro, a far from vintage England team (who had failed to reach the Euros in France) travelled to play a far from vintage Brazilian team. But it was still Brazil and in the famous Maracana Stadium, something incredible happened. Firstly, John Barnes, whose talent was obvious but who was still learning his trade at this level, picked up the ball just before half-time and danced through a sea of yellow and blue to score one of the finest goals ever by an Englishman, and then Mark Hateley, another relative newbie, rose to head a cross by Barnes and the home team were defeated in the stadium for the first time in 27 years; one of only four England victories against Brazil and the only time away from Wembley.
Winner: Country
Final Score: Club 3 Country 3
See? Told you it was easy to have both.
words Darren Young, D3D4 columnist