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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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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