On This Day – 4th June
Peter Beardsley scored four goals for England in one game on this day back in 1988. Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t in a competitive England game but a warm-up match against Aylesbury United!
A journalist call Frank McGhee suggested to the England manager Bobby Robson that England should have a warm-up game against a non-league side prior to Euro ’88. The idea came from the famous Magyars, the Hungarian side of the 1950’s. They would play small teams and it would boost the team’s confidence going into the crucial game.
McGhee was friends with the Aylesbury United Chairman and suggested that they be England’s opponents. Aylesbury had won promotion to the Conference at the end of the 1987/88, the highest that they had ever been in their 91-year history. The England match now doubled up as a celebration of their Southern League title win.
6,031 fans crammed into Aylesbury’s Buckingham Road ground to watch the game. The ground was used to crowds of around 600, and the non-league players weren’t daunted by the huge crowd.
Aylesbury striker Cliff Campbell later explained the problems that he and his team-mates faced:
“At the time, we were a hard-working team, we weren’t afraid to stick our foot in, but against these England players, we knew we couldn’t go steaming in…..But to be honest, even if we wanted to get physical, we couldn’t get near them.”
England won the game 7-0, with Beardsley netting four. The Liverpool ace stayed on the pitch after the game was over, signing autographs for 20 minutes. David Baddiel and Frank Skinner did a great recreation of the game with Beardsley for their cult TV show Fantasy Football League and I have included a video of it at the bottom of this article.
The idea that the comprehensive victory would give England an extra boost in the tournament in West Germany didn’t work. They lost all three of their games and finished bottom of their group!
Aylesbury United only spent one season in the Conference before being relegated back to the Southern League. They still stayed in the nation’s mind, winning several FA Cup ties against League sides.
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