While it was not a World Cup, Euro 96 in its entirety is my favourite England memories. Being born in 1985, I cannot really remember the World Cup in 1990 (although I watched the England games), we didn't do much in Euro 92 and failed to qualfiy for the World Cup in 1994.
The whole country had England fever, in large part due to the fact tht we were obviously hosting the finals. I have never felt such a sense of belief since. We had a near perfect squad mixing the realtive youth of Gary Neville, Southgate, Redknapp, McManaman, Anderton and even Shearer, with the experience of Seaman, Ince, Adams, Platt etc who had done it all before.
We even had a quality single too in Three Lions which I bought on both CD and tape for reasons I'm not quite sure of now!
Not the best of Starts; a 1-1 draw with the Swiss, a late pen preventing England from recording an opening day victory. Following that early disapointment however, everything else came together.
Shearer, who had been in one of the worst droughts of his International career prior to the tournament, was on fire and rattled in five goals to take the golden boot. His and Sherringham's link up play up front was superb; McManaman turned fullbacks inside out down the left and right with him and Anderton, the rare occasions the guy was actually fit, interchanging flanks at will. Gazza was back with a vengence following pre tournament reports and scandal and responded in the best way possible by scoring one of the greatest ever England goals against Scotland;
The group stage culminated in one of the greatest ever perofrmacnes by an England team and my favourite memory of the tournament. This was the day when I believed even more so that we could go all the way. England destroyed Holland at Wembley beating them with their own brand of 'Total Football'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3O0psZe-VE The only game in which you could argue England were a touch fortunate was against Spain in the quarter finals. Even then, it still had a memorable moment when Stuart Pearce banished the ghosts of 6 years earlier scoring from the spot.
Onwards to the semi finals where the Germans were waiting. An unbelievable start; Shearer nets his fifth of the tournament after all of trhee minutes. No-one could stop us. Well, sadly, someone could the Kuntz! Stefan Kuntz to be precise all of ten minutes later. I can still picture my Dad giggling like a school girl watching an earlier Germany match and being completely confused as to what was so funny. Soooo young,
Back to the semi final, it had it all; chances at both ends, England hit the post and Gazza will forever bemoan the fact that he wasn't an inch taller (or had gone for it with his right leg which physics would have prefered). Sadly, it was on to penalties but, wait, had Terry had them practising? We had knocked out Spain in the quarter finals having scored 4 from 4 and, against Germany, each penalty was converted with expert precision. In to sudden death and... well.... we all know the rest; the miss from Southgate, the goal (and,more memorably the bizare celebration) from Muller and another 14 years (and counting) of hurt awaits.
The team had put in performances which made the whole country proud. We had put England back on the international footballing map after a six years in the wilderness and we did it while playing some amazing football. sadly, I thought that all tournaments woukld be like that. Sadly, they weren't!
