Four great England performances

What with it being St George’s Day today, I thought that it’d be a good opportunity to share four England performances that were unexpected and humiliating for the opposition.

England 9 Scotland 3 (15th April 1961)
I first read about this game in a book as a young boy and it just didn’t seem possible. This may very well be because I was during the Graham Taylor era and anything more than a narrow victory was out of the question for our national team at that time!

This match was the concluding game of the 1960/61 Home Championships and was played in front of 97,350 fans at Wembley Stadium. Walter Winterbottom’s men had already put five goals past both Wales and Ireland the previous winter and a victory on that April afternoon would secure their 39th Home Championship.

England lead 3-0 at the break, with goals from Bobby Robson and two from Jimmy Greaves. Dave Mackay and Davie Wilson scored within ten minutes of the restart to give Scotland real hope of getting back in the game. A minute later, Bryan Douglas grabbed England’s fourth goal of the afternoon.
Bobby Smith made the score 5-2 in the 75th minute which started an avalanche of goals, with five scored in an unbelievable ten-minute spell.

Scotland’s Pat Quinn scored within 60 seconds of Smith to give the scoreline some respectability for the Scots, but England would go and score another four goals.
Fulham’s Johnny Haynes scored two in three minutes, Jimmy Greaves then completed his hat-trick a minute later before Bobby Smith added his second – and England’s ninth – in the 85th minute.

With the World Cup coming around the following summer, surely England’s name would be on the Jules Rimet Trophy after a performance like this?

England 5 Scotland 1 (24th May 1975)
Going into this final match of the Home Championships, Scotland were top of the table and only had to avoid defeat and they would win the competition. England were out to win the championships for the 50th time.

England hadn’t qualified for the World Cup in West Germany the previous summer. Scotland had qualified but had been knocked out in the group stages having not lost a game. They were the favourites to win the game at Wembley on the final showpiece of the 1974/75 season.

The hosts wanted to go out and prove a point and did just that in style. QPR’s Gerry Francis scored the opening goal of the game in the fifth minute, collecting a pass from Mick Channon a good 40 yards from goal. He took the ball past one Scotland defender and as the rest of the Scotland defence stood off him, struck the ball hard into the back of the net from nearly 30 yards out.

A minute later, England were two-up with a wonderfully worked breakaway goal involving Alan Ball, Gerry Francis and Kevin Keegan.
Keegan provided a cross to the far post which Kevin Beattie looped high over Scotland goalkeeper Stewart Kennedy and just under the crossbar. This was to be the Ipswich defender’s only goal for his country.

Colin Bell added a third for England in the 42nd minute before Bruce Rioch scored a penalty just before half-time after a handball in the England box.

England added two further goals after half-time, with Gerry Francis doubling his tally for the afternoon and debutant David Johnson scoring England’s fifth and final goal.

Poland 0 England 3 (11th June 1986)
This game was probably the most vital of the four games that I will cover today. Defeat would have sent England home and even a draw may not even have been enough to keep England in the World Cup.

People wax lyrical about Bobby Robson guiding England to the 1990 World Cup semi-final but don’t often acknowledge how hated he was during this part of his time as manager of the national team.
Robson’s England had failed to qualify for the European Championships in France two years earlier and had performed very badly in the first two games of this World Cup. They started the campaign with a 1-0 defeat to Portugal before following this up with a goalless draw against Morrocco.

A victory was needed and a comprehensive one was required to try and win back the fans both at the tournament and at home. Enter Gary Lineker, who had scored a hugely impressive 38 goals in the previous league season for Everton.
The striker netted a first-half hat-trick to secure England’s passage into the Second Round. His first came after a cross from the right by Gary Stevens in the eighth minute. Steve Hodge then provided a delightful cross from the left and Lineker drove the ball high into the roof of the net from just outside the six-yard box.

Lineker completed his hat-trick with yet another goal from close range after Poland’s goalkeeper Josef Mlynarczyk dropped a corner in the 35th minute. The ball fell to the feet of the Everton man who hit the ball between two Polish defenders on the line.

We all know what happened later on in the competition so we will leave it there.

Denmark 0 England 3 (15th June 2002)
This was ‘The Golden Generation’s’ first tournament and they had only just managed to qualify for the competition. A last-minute free kick from David Beckham against Greece in the final qualifier gave England the point that was needed to get the team on the plane to Japan and South Korea.

It was Beckham who provided the corner that England scored their first goal in this Second Round tie against the Danes, who had topped their group in the previous round.
The game was only five minutes old when the Manchester United midfielder whipped a corner to the far post, over Danish goalkeeper Thomas Sorensen. It fell right in front of Rio Ferdinand, who headed back at goal, Sorensen fumbled the ball over the line before clawing it back into play and England were in the lead.

Michael Owen made the score 2-0 halfway through the second half when he managed to control a loose ball that ricocheted off Nicky Butt in the penalty area. Owen slid the ball across Sorensen and into the far corner of the net.

Emile Heskey completed the scoring shortly before half-time with a first-time shot from just outside the box. David Beckham had control of the ball at the right-hand corner of the box and laid the ball into the path of Heskey, who thumped the ball under Sorensen and into the back of the net.

England would go out in the next round, losing 2-1 to Brazil after Michael Owen gave them the lead. I often think that this was England’s greatest chance of winning a World Cup since 1966 because if we had beaten Brazil, we would have faced Turkey and then a poor German side in the Final.

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