Everyone thought they could win it too –- bookies made them 3rd favourites, we had better players than everyone else according to the 2 Alan’s on MOTD. And this was the golden generation – how could they NOT win the cup??

So I thought I’d take a look at whether or not we’re actually likely to win based on past World Cup & European Championship performances.

I’d like to work out whether we’re likely to win a major championship in my lifetime and how long I have to wait until we play well (and win) in a meaningful match against good opposition. I’ll go back as far as the 1970 World Cup, because I was born in 1976, and we didn’t quality for 1974 or 1978.

Matches in bold are ones I am highlighting as games against top opposition, those rare ones in bold italic are ones we won!

1970 World Cup

1-0 v Romania
0-1 v Brazil
1-0 v Czechoslovakia
2-3 v West Germany

So we won 2 against mediocre opposition, and lost against the big boys. We are 0/2 so far

1980 European Championships

1-1 v Belgium
0-1 v Italy
2-1 v Spain

Yes! The first one, although I don’t know if we played well or not as I was too young. But we’ll have it. 1/4

1982 World Cup

3-1 v France
2-0 v Czechoslovakia
1-0 v Kuwait
0-0 v West Germany
0-0 v Spain

2/7 – Rock and Roll – 2 tournaments in a row that we beat a top team – this was clearly the golden age of English football

1986 World Cup

0-1 v Portugal
0-0 v Kuwait
3-0 v Poland
3-0 v Paraguay
1-2 v Argentina

2/9

1988 European Championships

0-1 v Republic of Ireland
1-3 v Netherlands
1-3 v Soviet Union

2/11

1990 World Cup

1-1 v Republic of Ireland
0-0 v Netherlands
1-0 v Egypt
1-0 v Belgium
3-2 v Cameroon
1-1 v West Germany

2/13 – 3 tournaments in a row without a decent win

1992 European Championships

0-0 v Denmark
0-0 v France
1-2 v Sweden

2/14 (Being kind to England here – Denmark won the cup, but you’d expect to beat them)

1996 European Championships

1-1 v Switzerland
2-0 v Scotland
4-1 v Netherlands
0-0 v Spain
1-1 v Germany

3/17 (Not counting Spain because we won on pens and they were better than us anyway)

1998 World Cup

2-0 v Tunisia
1-2 v Romania
2-0 v Colombia
2-2 v Argentina

3/18

2000 European Championships

2-3 v Portugal
1-0 v Germany
2-3 v Romania

3/20 (not counting the Germany victory because we were woeful, just less woeful than Germany)

2002 World Cup

1-1 v Sweden
1-0 v Argentina
0-0 v Nigeria
3-0 v Denmark
1-2 v Brazil

4/22

2004 European Championships

1-2 v France
3-0 v Switzerland
4-2 v Croatia
2-2 v Portugal

4/24

2006 World Cup

1-0 v Paraguay
2-0 v Trinidad & Tobago
2-2 v Sweden
1-0 v Ecuador
0-0 v Portugal

4/25

2010 World Cup

1-1 v USA
0-0 v Algeria
1-0 v Slovenia
1-4 v Germany

4/26

So there you have it – in 40 years of major football championships, we’ve won 4 games that count. Four!! That’s one every 10 years, or one every 2 and a half tournaments. And I’ve also been kind, because we didn’t beat Republic of Ireland twice in the early 1990′s and they were a good team.

If I live to 80, I’ve got around another 4 matches to look forward to and the next performance will be in the 2020 European Championships. Wonderful.

If you go back further, you’ve got the 1966 win which may skew the results – but it may not, because we didn’t win a single match of importance in ANYTHING prior to

So now I know why we’re so keen to get the World Cup hosted in England in 2018, because without it, we have zero chance of winning!

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The record had been slowly inching it’s way down from ever since Carl Lewis‘ 9.92 in Seoul in 1998. Second by second, slowly but surely, and scientists in white lab coats were telling everyone that the limit of human speed was on a curve that would slow down year on year.

But then Usain Bolt happened.

He’s lowered the mark by as much in three years that it took the rest of the sprinting world 40 years. Jim Hines was the first under 10 seconds in 1968 and Asafa Powell did 9.77 in 2006. I’ve just seen Bolt do 9.58. Incredible!

Who knows how fast or how far he can lower the mark. 9.4? 9.3?

I’m sure that there is a physical limit to how fast humans can run. It seems that the top speed for a cheetah can be defined as 68 mph and an emu at 31ph, but then cheetah’s don’t have the benefit of track spikes, coaches and a dietary plan designed for speed.

Maybe if they did, cheetah’s would be bombing around faster than the TGV, but until then we’re left to speculate as to how far Bolt can lower the world record!

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You can now add another one to that list as I read in the news today that David Haye will fight Nikolay Valuev on the 7th of November.

Now David Haye is no small man, he’s 6’3″ and is built like a brick outhouse. But even then he’s 11 inches shorter than the Russian and some 8 stone lighter. We all saw what Ivan Drago did to Apollo Creed in Rocky IV, heaven only knows how Rocky beat him but it’s got to be seriously off-putting when your opponent steps over the top of the ropes because he won’t fit underneath.

I’ve just loaded a picture of him on my computer and he’s filled the entire screen. Big doesn’t even come close. How do you punch someone who’s that tall? The best you can do is maybe get a rib shot in! Rugby tackle? Might be against the Queensbury Rules but at least it’d be effective.

I bet David Haye will feel like he’s fighting an end of level boss when he steps into the ring, I know I would – it’ll be a bit like fighting Dr. Robotnik or Liquid Snake.

But good luck to him anyway, I’m definitely going to buy it on pay-per-view just to see the match up. Only in heavyweight boxing can you get such a mismatch so it’s must-watch TV!

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That’s a question I tried to answer a few years back when I created a list of the most famous sporting stadia in the world and since then, I’ve been on a Tom Cruise-esqe mission impossible to visit them all.

Last time out I explained why I’d chosen 8 football venues and why a few others didn’t make it. The Millenium Stadium might feel a bit left out but it’s not my fault it wasn’t built when I created the list!

So without further ado, here’s what was selected to represent cricket on the list – there aren’t as many as football but that’s simply down to the fact there aren’t as many cricket grounds as football stadiums.

The Cricket List

Lords (London, England): The Wembley stadium of the sport and is known as “the home of cricket”. Named after it’s founder (Thomas Lord) and is also the home of the MCC. England are particularly rubbish here and usually lose, one of the reasons the first test of the Ashes 09 series has been moved to Cardiff.

Edgbaston (Birmingham, England): As bad as England are at Lords they are good at Edgbaston. When the list was created I lived 5 minutes walk away from it so it got put onto the list to get some easy points.

MCG (Melbourne, Australia): If I could pick one holiday destination it would be christmas in Melbourne to watch the boxing day test there. It’s also one of the 7 wonders of the sporting world so a no-brainer as to including it.

Antigua Recreation Ground (Antigua, West Indies): Brian Lara has scored a 375 and a 400 there. Viv Richards hit the fastest test hundred and Gravy used to be in residence there  so it’s on the list.

Newlands (Cape Town, South Africa): There aren’t many cricket grounds in the world like Newlands. Table Mountain stands watch over proceedings and was one of the first grounds I thought of when going through this whole process.

Eden Gardens (Kolkata, India): It’s a cauldron and the atmosphere is amazing. It was also where India came back from the brink to beat Australia in 2000/2001 and everyone loves watching the Aussies get beat.

Notable mentions

Headingley (Leeds, England): This one almost made it onto the list at the expense of Edgbaston down to Ian Botham’s heroics in 1981 (and Graham Dilley – everyone forgets Graham Dilley).

Wanderers Stadium (Johannesburg, South Africa): Hosted the greatest one day international of all time with South Africa chasing down 434 to thrash Australia.

The Oval (London, England): Devon Malcolm destroyed South Africa here in 1994. Legendary stuff from the man who said “You guys are history”. Love it.

That’s cricket done and dusted and I’d like to hear your thoughts on it – are there grounds that should be on it and have I included a few that shouldn’t?

If you can do better than my score of 4, and you should because 4 isn’t that impressive, let me know and I’ll create a leaderboard!

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Loads of sporting venues from all over the globe, plotted on a huge list in order to prove who’s more of a sports fan. There’s a multitude of power-ups, bonuses and extras that bump up your score – it’s so complicated it’d make Carol Vorderman wince.

Each sport has it’s own mini-list of venues – but instead of printing them all out as a big long undigestible list that would be about as exciting as reading through the Encyclopedia Britannica, I’ll go through each sport one by one.

This time it’s football and below is a breakdown of the 8 that made it onto the list plus a few others that didn’t – for those who missed it, you get a point if you’ve been to the venue and another one if you’ve seen a match there (max of 1 extra point). Oh, and if the stadium has been bulldozed you get an extra brucie bonus point.

The Football List

Wembley Stadium (England): The home of football. I’ve been there loads of times, had a guided tour and lifted the FA Cup in front of the royal box. (It was a replica and there was no royalty that day).

Hampden Park (Scotland): Not 100% sure why this made it. Either it’s a nod to our friends north of the border, or it’s hosted the biggest crowd on UK soil, it’s most likely be the latter.

The Camp Nou (Barcelona): It’s massive. And massive doesn’t cover the half of it. I only went half way up the stand and had vertigo – the seats just went up, and up, and up……

Azteca Stadium (Mexico): The World Cup in Mexico 86 was the first world cup I remember. I have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of that tournament and can tell you without hesitating the England starting lineup against Argentina (Shilton, Stevens, Sansom, Fenwick, Butcher, Hoddle, Reid, Hodge, Steven, Lineker, Beardsley with Waddle and Barnes off the bench). The game was one of the best ever and was played at the Azteca. As was the final. It’s on the list.

Maracana (Brazil): It once had a game there with nearly 200,000 people! That’s immense and a list of famous football venues wouldn’t be complete without it.

The Bernabeu (Real Madrid): This one is in mostly because of Real Madrid and the fact that when the list was being drawn up I was watching a lot of spanish football and was supporting Real. But it’s held the World Cup Final and that’s nothing to be sneezed at.

San Siro (Milan): Not on the list for being a famous sporting venue, but for being the background image when managing Internazionale or AC Milan in Championship Manager. And I spent a LOT of time managing AC Milan on championship manager.

Hidegkuti Nandor Stadium (The Allies): What’s the greatest football film of all time? Mike Bassett England Manager? Maybe? But not far behind (and possibly a little bit ahead) is Escape to Victory. Any film that has Sylvester Stallone playing in the same team as Pele, Ossie Ardiles, Bobby Moore and Michael Caine is genius. It was on all the time when I was younger (along with Swiss Family Robinson) and the final is played at the Hidegkuti Nandor Stadium. Sly saves a penalty in the last minute, he doesn’t escape at half time (who can forget Russell Osman telling him “but we can win this”) and Ardiles scores with a bicycle kick. Forget the greatest football film of all time, I’m upgrading it to the greatest film of all time!

The nearly list

Old Trafford (Man Yoo): The theatre of dreams? Pah, Man United play there so only likely to get onto the B list.

Millenium Stadium (Wales): Not built when the list was created – would definitely be on it if I was creating it today.

La Bombonera (Boca Juniors): Diego Maradona used to play there and has an amazing atmosphere. On the B list.

Molineux (Wolves): Would love to have this on the list, but I’d used up my 2 wildcards!

That’s the football list done and hopefully you’ll see why I picked some and not others. Feel free to leave comments with your football stadia recommendations,  I’ll collate them all and maybe create another list based on suggestions!

Also, if you can beat my score of 5 I’d love to hear what you’ve seen and where!

Next up, cricket with Lords, Edgbaston and the SCG. What made it and what didn’t?

Related posts:

1. Sporting venues from around the world
2. Cricket grounds and legendary tour guides