NO STOPPING RELENTLESS REDS
Ahead of England’s 1,000th match, Sportsmail’s Peter Crouch and Chris Sutton take a trip down memory lane at the cricket ground...
THE Premier League’s new rivalry resumes tomorrow: Liverpool v Manchester City has echoes of Liverpool v Chelsea from my playing days — but not on the pitch. The animosity between the two sets of fans and sniping between the managers has hallmarks of how it was between Rafa Benitez and Jose Mourinho from 2004 to 2007, but the difference for Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola is what happens when the action begins. We were used to cagey affairs and often games would be decided by a single goal. But I don’t exepct to see anything other than entertainment at Anfield — and, in all honesty, I don’t see anything other than Liverpool winning. Claudio Bravo is not a likefor-like replacement for Ederson in goal and I look at the issues they have at centre back and wonder how Nicolas Otamendi and John Stones will contain Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane. Norwich showed that if you apply enough pressure to City, they will wobble. Liverpool have not been at their peak lately, but they are relentless, and should they extend lead to nine points, it will be a long, long way back for the champions. It might only be the middle of November and 26 games to go, but I just don’t see Liverpool losing more than twice before the end of the season. They have a golden chance to put City under intolerable pressure.
looking at the names of the players involved. I’ve read accounts of the match. There was a VAR moment apparently... Scotland thought they’d scored but the striker was offside by half a millimetre!
CROUCH: (laughing) I bet England still got booed off!
SUTTON: (looking at an iPad) I’ve found a report of it online. The line-ups say the Scots played 2-2-6 — two full backs, two half backs, and six forwards. England played seven forwards and the referee was Scottish!
CROUCH: (incredulous) How on earth did this finish 0-0?!
SUTTON: When I told a friend I was coming here, he told me it was the only ground in the area that was surrounded by a fence. Scotland picked only Queen’s Park players. Just imagine if Scotland had picked players from other areas as well. They probably would have pumped England, wouldn’t they? Do you think it caught on after this? Bearing in mind it was a 0-0 draw, do you think the crowd went away happy?
CROUCH: What’s amazing is you come here, the home of the first international and you try to think about that day. But then you go to a game at Wembley, 90,000 fans and everything that entails. It’s unbelievable how football has evolved.
DREAMS
EVERY child who kicks a ball wants to play for their country one day. They have those aspirations because of what happened on this expanse on Peel Street, tucked in behind rows of georgian houses. The point is not lost on either of these two former England players.
SUTTON: International football is still the pinnacle. Winning the World Cup is the greatest achievement above anything else — above anything you can win with your club. Any young player aspires to play in a World Cup.
My first memory of England was the 1982 World Cup. Bryan Robson scored after 27 seconds against France, didn’t he? The kit... that tight red shirt. Terry Butcher played. He was always someone I really looked up to. He was like a god, so to meet and work with him subsequently was so special. What was your first memory?
CROUCH: The 1990 World Cup, all day long. That was what sold football for me, really. I remember it all. Mark Wright’s goal against
Egypt, David Platt against Belgium, Gary Lineker’s penalties against Cameroon. Italia ’ 90 was the best thing. I thought we were going to win it. That made me fall in love with football. Then there was the music. World in Motion — the greatest England song of all time, without doubt. We sing along to Three Lions but World in
Motion, with John Barnes rapping, is the one.
SUTTON: Growing up in a little village outside Norwich, as a youngster all I wanted was to play for Nottingham Forest and England. That was what I aspired to do. I never thought I would actually do it, mind. Then I stumbled on my career, got a lot of Under 21 caps, captained them. Then I got my full England cap... and I made a total a*** of it.
THREE LIONS
SUTTON was the 1,084th player to represent England when he went on as 79th minute substitute against Cameroon at Wembley (game 740) in november 1997. rio Ferdinand made his debut as a sub in the same game, replacing gareth Southgate. Crouch became no 1,139 when he faced Colombia (game 828) in May 2005. Their international careers took very different paths.
CROUCH: What happened for you to make an a*** of it?
SUTTON: I refused to play for the England B team. Glenn Hoddle was the manager at the time. I was playing for Blackburn under Roy Hodgson. I came on against Cameroon then in the subsequent two months before the next squad, I played well. I thought I’d be in the starting line-up. Glenn put me in the B squad, so I phoned him up and told him where to shove it. It wasn’t the smartest move, really. I was hot-headed and that was that.
I remember Robbie Fowler in my one game... had he squared the ball for me, as he should have, I would have scored and that might have changed everything! So let’s blame Robbie!
CROUCH: I grew up not far from Wembley. Me and one of my mates used to look at the Twin Towers — you could see it from his top bedroom. So to play there later for England, to see my dad in the crowd... my debut and winning the FA Cup in 2006 were the two proudest days of my career.
My debut was nuts. New York, playing in the Giants Stadium — quite apt for me, actually (bursts out laughing). I felt that was the best way in, away on an end- of- season tour. Making my debut in our country, in front of everyone, I might have been more nervous.
Out in America, an end-of season thing, there wasn’t a lot riding on it. It eased me in and that helped. I
felt comfortable. I played well. Then the next season I felt ready to go. I was an England player. Sven (Goran Eriksson) was manager. I remember there were two games on the tour. I said to myself: ‘If I can play in both of them, at least I won’t be a one-cap wonder!’ That was genuinely what I thought. Then I got injured for the first one against America! But I managed to play and thankfully went on to win 42 caps. It’s different to anything else, isn’t it?
SUTTON: There are nerves, pressure. I wanted to give Glenn something to think about. After the game, I thought: ‘That’s the start!’ But, as I said, I made a total a*** of it. I try to forget it but it’s a massive regret. I’m absolutely convinced I would have got more caps had I not been so stupid.
CROUCH: You know, I regret how everything finished with England for me, too. I had been in every squad for five years. The season leading up to Euro 2012 I’d done really well. It was my first year at Stoke and I’d scored 14 goals.
Then Roy Hodgson called me. ‘You’re not in the squad,’ he said. ‘I’m taking Andy Carroll but I want you to come to the friendlies because of all the lads in the Champions League final.’
Chelsea were facing Bayern
Munich so they had d players missing and Wayne Rooney was out, too. He wanted me to come to the friendlies then go home. I said: ‘ No. I’m not doing that. I told him to take someone else.’ So that was similar to you, Chris. I should not have said that.
SUTTON: Regardless of what happened, growing up, playing for England was what every kid wanted to do. I know ow kids now look at the Champions L League bt but the 1966 team is still the one everybody talks about. Nobody has done it since. That’s still the dream if you’re a young Englishman.
CROUCH: The scale of playing for England at a World Cup is insane, like in Germany in 2006. The whole world stops to watch. I think we felt that. I was sat there in the dressing room before our first group game, looking at all these household names, and I’m thinking, ‘I’m starting here — in a World Cup’. That’s possibly the most nervous I’ve been before a match but also the most excited. What a team we had — Gary Neville, Rio
F Ferdinand, John T Terry, Ashley Cole, D David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Wayne Rooney, Joe Cole, Michael Owen. We should have won a World Cup. C SUTTON: S Is that so something you talk ab about, when you get to together? The regret of not winning a to tournament? CROUCH: CR (noticeably qu quiet) Yeah. Going ou out on penalties to P Portugal in the quarter-finals in 2006, when Wayne got sent off. We were better than Portugal. We should have beaten them. There’s definite regret. At the 2010 World Cup, I was a spare part. The funny thing was I was given the No 9 shirt. I said to my dad: ‘ Dad, I’m No 9! I can’t believe it! I’m going to be playing.’ I was barely used. I felt like I got about 20 seconds in a group game against Algeria. To put it mildly, that was a blow.
THE MILLENNIUM
As England prepare for the next 1,000 games, the two former strikers are encouraged about the future but cannot forget the past...
CROUCH: There are some unbelievable youngsters coming through and I think it is a matter of time before we make an impact in a major tournament. We’re not far off. The FA need to take some credit for this. We were well behind in producing players for a long time.
SUTTON: We weren’t that far away in Russia. That was a great opportunity. The Under 21s were disappointing in the summer just gone.
You look at their line-up and they should have done better. In many ways, the disappointment is a good sign but we just need things to click.
CROUCH: Coming here, though, makes you think. It’s great having this as part of our history.
Other nations have developed international football — and got better at it than us over the years — but it’s a proud thing to be able to say we kicked off the greatest game in the world.
SUTTON: You’re right. All those World Cups, all those European Championships and other tournaments, it’s all because of what happened here with 22 players on a cricket ground in Scotland. They were pioneers.