How England’s north-east feast at Italia 90 turned into famine

The release of a film about the 1990 World Cup, One Night In Turin, was bound to bring with it a stab of regret, best place to buy a canada goose jacket and not just because those of us who recall the tournament vividly are now of an age when melancholy proliferates like the hair in our lugholes. And if you come from the north-east of England the pang of nostalgia James Erskine’s documentary provokes is likely to be all the more acute.

In one of the final friendlies leading up best price canada goose parka to Italia 90 England beat Czechoslovakia 4-2 at Wembley. It was the match in which Paul Gascoigne secured a place in the squad with a display so impish the opposition must have been tempted to check if he had a pointy tail. In the final minutes, having already set up two of England’s goals, Gazza scored one best mens canada goose jacket best place to buy a canada goose jacket in toronto of his own. Socks at half-mast, cheeks ruddy with effort, he soft-shoe-shuffled past two defenders and smacked the ball into the roof of the net with the explosive urgency of a schoolkid who has just heard the bell bringing break-time to an end. On the touchline, the England manager, Bobby Robson, wide-eyed and grinning fondly as a new dad, turned to his assistant Don Howe and cried: “That is fantastic!”

It remains my enduring image of Sir Bobby C a man who took such joy in football even the sight of a few workmen having a kickaround in the park was enough to distract him from his dinner. The thing I remember best about that game, though, is neither Gascoigne’s performance, nor his manager’s reaction to it, but a letter that appeared in this newspaper a few days later. It was written by a Tynesider and though the exact wording of it eludes me now, best mens canada goose jacket the message has stayed with me ever since. On Wednesday night, the writer said, England had defeated another of the World Cup finalists. The England team had featured three players buying canada goose jacket online C Gascoigne, Trevor Steven and Bryan Robson C from the north-east, three of the goals had been set up by best place buy canada goose jacket toronto players from the north-east, another had been scored by a player from the north-east, the team was captained by a man from the north-east and managed by one, too. “Tell me,” the letter concluded triumphantly, “what does the rest of the country do for a hobby?”

I read that line sitting in a flat in the Old Kent Road. I imagine I laughed with glee when I read it and punched the air. The letter, or at least the sentiment behind, would inspire me to write a book about north-east football. It would, it is fair to say, change my life.

Looking back today, I can buy canada goose jacket usa see that this missive represented a highwater mark for north-east football. England’s team for the first game of the 1990 finals, against the Republic of Ireland, featured four players from the region C Gazza, Robson, Chris Waddle and Peter Beardsley (Steven was also in the squad). At the time it didn’t seem like such a big deal. After all, hadn’t England’s legendary baggy-shorted forward line best ideas about canada goose outlet online on pinterest featured Wilf Mannion and Raich Carter as inside-forwards? Didn’t the Charlton brothers help England win in 1966? Hadn’t the squad Sir Alf Ramsey took to Mexico in 1970 C regarded by many buy a canada goose jacket as the best set of players we ever had C included the Charltons, Colin Bell and Norman Hunter?

I first went to a football match in 1967. By that stage no north-east team had won the league title for 30 years, the FA Cup for a dozen. Newcastle and Sunderland were struggling to stay in the top flight and Middlesbrough had dropped into the Third Division for the first time in their history. Yet our web page, that year’s News of the World football annual showed that 62 players from the region were employed in the First Division. There was at least one at every club, with the exception of West Ham. Howard Kendall, Jimmy Husband, Tommy Baldwin, George Armstrong, Ralph Coates, David Thomas, Mick McNeil, the Charltons, Bell, Hunter C for an area with a population hardly bigger than Birmingham’s it was quite a list.

Through the 70s and 80s the pits and the steelworks and the shipyards shut, but it seemed like the north-east would churn out footballers for ever. Now, however, it looks like Italia 90 was a last howay.

Since then the involvement of the region’s players in the national team C with the exception of Alan Shearer, and the fitfully fit Gascoigne C has been on the Green Party side of marginal. On Tuesday Fabio Capello’s provisional squad of 30 included just two men C Michael Carrick and Adam Johnson C born in the region. In 2006 Sven-Goran Eriksson’s final 23 mustered only Carrick and Stewart Downing C who managed 150 minutes of football between them. In 1998 Glenn Hoddle’s sole north-easterner was Super Al. In Korea/Japan there were none at all.

Much has been written about Scotland’s marked decline as a producer of talented footballers C whatever the causes of that slump might be they seem to have drifted south. Looking to raise my spirits, a friend comments that Waddle, Beardsley and Gascoigne emerged under a Conservative government. Another points to the emergence of Andy Carroll and Jordan Henderson, the return to form of David Wheater. It is a time for clutching at straws.