Germany vs England – Euro ’96. 26 years to the day and I’m still hurting!
Today is the 26th anniversary of the Germany vs England semi final in the 1996 European Championships. It was one of the most tense and nerve-racking England game that I have seen. It was also one of the most exciting.
I was ten years old when Euro 96 started and watched every game. It was the first full tournament that I remembered, because the World Cup in America two years earlier was played late at night because of the time difference. My parents didn’t let me stay up and watch most of the tournament, although Dad gave me special permission to stay up for the final between Brazil and Italy.
It was probably the most boring World Cup Finals in the history of the competition as Italy were notorious for defensive football and Brazil were under enormous pressure to win the trophy for the first time in 24 years.
The game finally ended at just after 11:30pm and I proudly told anyone who would listen at school the next day that I had stayed up for the 90 minutes, extra time and penalty shootout!
The Road to the Semi Final
Back to Euro 96. The build-up to the tournament hadn’t been all that exciting as England automatically qualified as hosts. My earliest memories of watching my country was seeing the doomed qualification run for the 1994 World Cup under Graham Taylor. However, he had been replaced by Terry Venables and seeing England in a major competition was going to be great fun!
We were in Group A along with Switzerland, Scotland and one of the tournament favourites Holland. The opening game against the Swiss was also the first game of the tournament and a rather boring opening ceremony was played out on the pitch.
Comedians David Baddiel and Frank Skinner had joined up with the band The Lightning Seeds to release their own song for the tournament called ‘Three Lions’. Dad bought the cassette (remember them!) and I played it repeatedly over the coming months.
The match against Switzerland was as dull as the weather on the day. Grey clouds hung over Wembley in the way traditional underwhelming British summertime’s look.
Alan Shearer scored the first goal of the game, his first goal in nearly a year and a half for his country. Switzerland equalised with a penalty in the second half.
The following weekend, England played Scotland. I had gone to a cup camp the night before and was due back on the Sunday, meaning I would miss the game. One of the boys from our cub pack went to the game and another stayed back hoping to see his friend in the crowd on TV!
Dad was one of the cub leaders and borrowed a transistor radio from one of his work colleagues. I kept running over to him to ask him the score when I was supposed to be doing activities at the camp. Dad kept shooing me away, telling me to go back to what I was supposed to be doing!
England won 2-0, with goals from Alan Shearer and Paul Gascoigne. David Seaman saved a penalty from Gary McAllister shortly before Gazza’s wonder goal.
Holland were the third and final opponents in the group and we needed a win to be certain of reaching the quarter-finals. The Dutch were a tough side to beat and three years earlier had beaten us to all but end our qualifying dreams for the World Cup.
My Mum was adamant after school that I was going to get a haircut, but I kept refusing. In the end, she got me in the barbers when she left me with an ultimatum. “Get your haircut or you’re not watching the football tonight.” She knew my weakest point and pounced. Well played, Mum!
On that famous night though at Wembley, England tore the Dutch to shreds. They won 4-1, with two goals each for Alan Shearer and his strike partner Teddy Sheringham. The Dutch scored late in the game, with Patrick Kluivert sliding the ball past David Seaman and in doing so, put Holland through at the expense of Scotland.
On Saturday 22nd, we played our Quarter Final against Spain. It was a nervy game, with the Spanish scoring twice, but both were wrongly disallowed by the linesman.
The match went to a penalty shootout and David Seaman saved a penalty to win the game. However, every England fan will remember the shootout for Stuart Pearce’s successful spot kick and euphoric celebration. It made up for his miss against Germany six years earlier at the 1990 World Cup and he was ecstatic. The whole country celebrated with him too, delighted that he had put the miss behind him.
The Match
On to Germany four days later. Wednesday 26th June 1996. The evening is still etched in my mind. Dad and I had to go to a cubs meeting (much to my disappointment and anger!), so we would miss the opening ten minutes or so.
As soon as cubs was over, I wanted to sprint home and watch the game. Dad seemed to be walking a lot slower than normal (this probably wasn’t the case, I was more likely just trying desperately to rush back and get the telly on!).
We got into our house and I went straight into the front room and turned the telly on. Dad went into the kitchen to make us both as cup of tea and called out to ask what the score was. For some reason, I only half-looked at the score in the corner of the screen and shouted “nil-nil”. I was wrong though as Alan Shearer had nodded in his fifth goal of the competition just moments before to give England the lead.
Dad came back in with our cups of tea and saw the score and asked me why I said that the game was goalless. I took another look at the scoreline and it was 1-0! The joy wasn’t to last for long though as Stefan Kuntz (snigger, snigger!) snuck behind Stuart Pearce and hit the ball past David Seaman to make the score 1-1.
Teddy Sheringham was unlucky towards the end of the first half when he hit a low shot first time towards the near post from a corner. Alan Shearer headed just wide from a cross out on the right wing.
Thomas Helmer had the best chance the second half. He narrowly missed the target with a swooping shot that went just over the bar. Brian Moore remarked on the ITV commentary in the video below that it was “going to be one of those nights”. How right the great man would turn out to be!
Extra Time started frantically and England had two great chances to win the game. The Golden Goal rule was being played, meaning that whoever scored first would win the game.
It was a rule brought in to encourage attacking football in Extra Time, but actually made teams play a lot more negatively as they feared losing the game.
England’s first chance came to Darren Anderton, who hot the near post after a pull back by Steve McManaman. The Liverpool winger had played it just too far behind Anderton, who had to stretch backwards and couldn’t wrap his foot around the ball to get it into the back of the net.
Us England fans were feeling the strain. They then had another moment in the half to test their nerves to the very limit as they scored with a header from the left from Andreas Moller. It was disallowed though as the referee had spotted the German goalscorer had shoved an English counterpart before the ball went in the net. Watch the incident on the video below to hear the collective sigh around the famous old stadium!
Just 132 seconds later, Paul Gascoigne was an inch or two away from winning the game. In a now famous moment of English football, Alan Shearer volleyed a cross-shot across goal and Gazza stretched out but narrowly missed the ball. Any touch would have put the ball into the back of the net and we would have played Czech Republic at Wembley four days later.
Gascoigne later revealed that he slowed down a fraction of a second as he anticipated Andreas Kopke (the German goalkeeper) would get a touch on the ball. That shows just how talented he was as in that millisecond of time, he corrected his pace to allow for the deflection, but unwittingly put himself out of reach of the ball.
The game went to a penalty shootout. My Mum came and joined me and Dad to watch the shootout, something that she had never done before. We all know what happened next at Wembley. It’s almost too difficult to talk through even now. After both teams scored their first five penalties, Gareth Southgate hit a tame effort straight at Andreas Kopke.
I remember moving all my sister’s toys that she had left out on the floor as Southgate walked up to take his kick, ready to jump up in the air and celebrate. I kept telling myself for years after that it was me that made him miss!
Andreas Moller then broken our hearts when he thumped the ball high into the roof of the net past David Seaman to win the game for Germany.
I watched Germany beat the Czech Republic in the final four days later. It was a massive anti-climax to the tournament and everyone who had watched the semi-final agree that we would have beaten the Czechs in the final.
26 years have passed and football still hasn’t come home. But we came bloody close in that wonderful summer of 1996.
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