Secret of THAT ‘wally’ headline
EVEN now, 11 years on, n, the image leaves you u dumbfounded. There is s Steve McClaren, gazing g out on to Wembley’s s sodden turf. In one hand, he e has a cup of coffee. In the e other, he holds an umbrella.
McClaren may have thought he was protecting himself from the elements on November 21, 2007, when England played Croatia in a critical Euro 2008 qualifier, but he actually exposed himself to torrents of ridicule.
This is the story of how McClaren became known as the Wally with the Brolly, from the headline that appeared red on the back of Sportsmail the next morning. rnive To this day, if you hear those five words, you can only think of one game and one beleaguered manager.
His reign had been consistently unconvincing, but, going into the final round of Group E games, England still had a chance of reaching Switzerland and Austria the following summer. They just needed to avoid defeat at Wembley.
That was no formality, given John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen were absent, and McClaren put himself under more pressure when it became apparent 48 hours before kick-off that he planned to put 22-year-old novice Scott Carson in goal — and drop David Beckham.
It was clearly a huge gamble. McClaren needed everything to go right but he had confidence his new-look team would deliver and he strode out with expectation at Wembley — which had only been back in service for five months after a £757million rebuild.
The thing was, at first, nobody saw him. Up in the stands, the non-playing members of the squad were asking: ‘Where’s the gaffer?’ as the teams moved into formation. Soon realisation dawned.
‘**** me! There he is!’ said the man who spotted him. ‘ He’s under the umbrella!’ If there was disbelief among the squad, similar feelings were expressed around the country, as Croatia surged into a two-goal lead inside 14 minutes, the first coming after a horrible error from Carson.
As Slaven Bilic, Croatia’s manager, leapt around in the rain wearing a woolly hat, McClaren remained under his shelter. It was from here the inspiration for the headline came — and from the most unlikely source, as Andy Townsend, the former Chelsea and Aston Villa midfielder, explains. ‘I was watching the game and I could not believe what I was seeing,’ says Townsend, who is currently working as a presenter of South African TV channel SuperSport’s World Cup coverage.
‘My wife was in the kitchen. I called out to her, “Jackie, come and look at this”. She came into the room and said, “He looks a right wally with that brolly!” I laughed and later mentioned it in conversation with a good friend of mine on the Daily Mail sports desk.
‘He also thought it funny. Although I didn’t know he would put it on the back page and that everyone would pick it up! The Wally with the Brolly game is how that match became known.’
The thing is, it could have ended in salvation. For all the farce of the umbrella — which McClaren only used because Wembley had a crack in its roof that led to fans getting soaked and left the pitch resembling a paddy field, having hosted an NFL game three weeks earlier — England fought back.
Beckham came on at half-time and changed the game. Frank Lampard thundered in a penalty and Beckham set up Peter Crouch to put England on the verge of qualifying. But they threw it away, with Mladen Petric scoring Croatia’s killer third.
‘I do remember seeing the umbrella... but it was such a mad game,’ says Crouch. ‘It was so strange. I have never seen mud like it. For my goal, Becks put a cross in from the right and I took it on my chest then volleyed it in.
‘The elation of believing you have taken the nation to a major tournament is like nothing you will ever experience.
‘I have a picture in my house of it. Joe Cole and Frank Lampard are chasing after me but I’m running away, screaming. You go from elation to devastation.
‘When Croatia got their third, it’s not far off the worst I’ve felt on a pitch. You knew six months of hell were coming.’
That was true for the players but not for McClaren, whose sentence lasted far longer. He was visibly haunted as he shuffled around in the tunnel after the game. He was sacked the following morning and has never exorcised this ghost.
‘I felt so sorry for him,’ says Crouch. ‘We all did. It is amazing how these things stick with you.’