On This Day – 27th March
at the final whistle
England beat Poland 3-1 at Wembley on this day back in 1999 in Kevin Keegan’s first game in charge.
Paul Scholes grabbed a hat-trick in this qualifier for the European Championships the following year to give Kevin Keegan the perfect start to his England career.
Glenn Hoddle was the coach for the first three matches but had lost his job in February. Hoddle following controversial comments made in an interview about his beliefs that people with disabilities were being punished for sins in a past life.
Before Hoddle had lost his job as England coach, the team had earned four points from their first three Euro 2000 qualifiers.
They lost their first game 2-1 away to Sweden on 5th September before playing out a goalless draw at home to Bulgaria the following month.
Four days after the Bulgaria game, England won 3-0 in Luxembourg.
The match was the fourth in England’s qualifying campaign and started well, with Paul Scholes opening the scoring on 12 minutes.
Alan Shearer hit a through-ball and Scholes flicked the ball over Poland keeper Adam Matysek from 8 yards out.
The Manchester United midfielder header home a second on 22 minutes from close range. Jerzy Brzeczek then got one back for the visitor six minutes later.
Paul Scholes completed his hat-trick with just under 20 minutes to go. A long throw-in from Gary Neville on the right was nodded on by Alan Shearer. Scholes ran in and headed powerfully into the bottom corner of the net past a hapless Matysek.
England won one and drew three of their remaining four games. The victory was a 6-0 demolition of Luxembourg.
Despite only losing one of their eight games, England finished second in the group, nine points behind Sweden. This meant that they had to go through a two-legged play-off against Scotland to reach Euro 2000.
Paul Scholes was Kevin Keegan’s saviour with both goals in a 2-0 win at Hampden Park. The goals were all the more crucial as Scotland won 1-0 in the return leg. They were through to the Championships with a 2-1 aggregate win.
England were drawn in a group with Germany, Portugal and Romania. They raced into an early 2-0 lead against Portugal but contrived to lose 3-2.
An Alan Shearer header was enough for England to beat Germany in the second game. They were knocked out in the final game after Phil Neville gave away a last-minute penalty against Romania.
Ionel Ganea scored the resulting penalty to give Romania a 3-2 win and they qualified at England’s expense.
Keegan’s reign as England manager started and ended at the same stadium just over a year and a half later.
Sadly, it was in bad circumstances as Germany beat England 1-0 in the last match played before the old Wembley Stadium closed for good.
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