On This Day – 9th June
It seems a rather relevant ‘On This Day’ today given all of the recent news surrounding the ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests in the last few weeks.
Paul Ince became the first black player to England on this day back in 1993 in a hugely disappointing defeat to USA.
The game will go down as one of the worst in Graham Taylor’s three years in charge of the England national team. Despite Tony Adams and David Platt missing from the line-up, England were expected to beat the hosts. This wasn’t to be the case as the US won the game quite easily 2-0 at the Foxboro Stadium in Massachusetts.
The game was part of a mini tournament at the end of the 1992/93 season as a warm-up to the World Cup that was to take place in the States the following year.
England, Germany and Brazil travelled to the States to play in a group of four. Germany won the tournament, finishing on 7 points and England finished rock bottom, only picking up a single point in a 1-1 draw with Brazil.
Tom Dooley and Alexei Lalas scored the goals that beat a despondent England side and The Sun ran with the headline ‘Yanks 2 Planks 0’ for their match report of the game.
The England line-up that day was:
Chris Woods, Lee Dixon, Gary Pallister, Carlton Palmer (Des Walker 61), Tony Dorigo, David Batty, Paul Ince, Nigel Clough, Lee Sharpe, Les Ferdinand (Ian Wright 35), John Barnes.
About Author
