Remember the Pizza Hut advert after? "This time he's hit the post!".
I remember still being very angry about it at the time, and thinking it most definitely was not a laughing matter.
Remember the Pizza Hut advert after? "This time he's hit the post!".
I remember still being very angry about it at the time, and thinking it most definitely was not a laughing matter.
When you consider what Andy Cole was playing in front of his United numbers look a bit [below] average these days, so it's not that surprising that he never got a crack at international level.
As someone of a certain age I remember it all vividly regarding Cole. He had a reputation at international level for taking 6 chances to score a goal, which he backed up every time he appeared for England.
Alan Shearer was our only top, top forward. The rest of them are like people who score thirty a season in Holland or Portugal; crap until they prove otherwise, which Teddy Sheringham probably did the best job of during his United spell.
Very true.
As successful as Cole was at Man Utd, he was only ever a costco Inzaghi.
Bang average players like Chris Sutton were made to look good in the 90s, as the league was so bad during most of it.
Last edited by Yevrah; 01-05-2020 at 01:55 PM.
What was the turning point for the league going from crap to decent?
I would argue some time around Marcel Desailly's arrival in summer 1998. A case could be made for Wenger's arrival about 18 months before that - or, if you favour a later switch, the point in 2001 when van Nistelrooy replaced Cole and Yorke at United.
Last edited by Jimmy Floyd; 01-05-2020 at 01:41 PM.
Modern Southampton would have drummed Matt Le Tissier out at twenty and he'd be putting the Adel Taarabt shift in at Swansea.
You say that about Cole but he did still manage 60 goals in 4 and a half seasons after turning 30 and leaving United. He was pretty good for Fulham, even at the age of 33.
It all falls into place around - you guessed it - 1997. Gianfranco Zola and Arsene Wenger (and Fabrizio Ravanelli) arrive in 1996; the new broadcasting deal gets negotiated for twice the size of the old one ready for 1997/98; Euro 96 lets ponces and non-racists into the scene; Eric Cantona clears off so David Beckham can be the franchise player; United make a decent run in Europe to shake of the final remnants of the previous ban[s]; and a new dawn breaks allowing foreigners to move over here and enjoy wine and pasta.Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
How could I have been so naive. Wenger in the wine and pasta vanguard, I suppose.
I was going to say he's Jermain Defoe, but I am surprised to learn that Defoe won fifty-seven England caps.
Was watching a whole run through of it the other night. Had forgot that Gascoigne chance, a few mm's from winning the tournament.
As Lewis has nailed, Euro 96 was the catalyst for everything and it took a year or two after that for the shit to begin being binned off.
When I can be arsed I'll post my thoughts about Euro 96, which coincided with having finished my GCSE's and the fake birth certificate (that I made) really being put to work. It was a glorious time.
Or being embarrassed by the Czechs in the final...
Gordon Brown coming in also reflected his psychotic tendencies in the new divide between the clunking fist (Alex Ferguson) and statistical wank-driven tractor statsball (everyone else). Tony Blair going took out Jose Mourinho in his first high-profile MELTDOWN, and Wenger basically shadowed Blair from then on in being largely useless, save for amusing interventions, yet still revered by a certain type of tosser.
The coalition is the big, open and comprehensive 'Pep' Ascendancy. The post-AV tensions shadow his 2012 shitter with Barcelona, and his timewaste in Germany, notable for its successive embarrassments on the European stage, is the long run-up to the surprise 2015 majority and referendum result. We've also moved away from pointless possession and process since then, so maybe - and this is straining it now - pressing and counter-attacks should be filed under Brexitball.
Gareth Southgate is Jermey Corbyn in all of this.
Cole and Inzaghi is a bizarre comparison, Yev.
Quite aside from obviously having more to his game than Inzaghi did Wikipedia tells me had had goal record not significantly worse over a similar number of games too.
289 from 646 to Inzaghi's 288 from 623.
The gegenpress is Remoaners still claiming cultural dominance in spite of popular opinion. Brexitball is Chris Wilder, Frank Lampard and perhaps Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's no-nonsense, lower league-bred 'breath of fresh air' coaching, often using the rhetoric of harking back to times gone by, ultimate success yet to be determined.
What?
If this story's been told on here before I've missed it.
Yes, and Zinedine Zidane as manager is Donald Trump bumbling his way to leadership of the Free World.
Not a chance they'd have lost to the Czechs.
We would have lost to the Czechs, just as we lost to Croatia in 2018, and just as Portugal lost to Greece in 2004.
Don't think I've ever told it.What?
If this story's been told on here before I've missed it.
So when I was a kid I looked about 3/4 years younger than I actually was. Some of my mates at 15 could blag being 18 (now I look back, buying booze from people who didn't give a shit), but there was no chance for me to do similar. In 1995 I went to the cinema to watch Speed and somehow got in unchecked, even though I think I was old enough. I loved it.
Some months on it was released on VHS so off I trotted to Smiths to buy a copy. The Woman behind the counter didn't believe I was 15 so wouldn't sell it to me. I explained I was but she wouldn't budge, citing that she would need proof of age. Apparently a birth certificate would suffice. So got home, asked my Mum where mine was, she wanted to know why and I told her. No issue, so she gave it to me. Went back to Smiths and the woman apologised profusely and said she had to check these things while finally selling me a copy.
While I was at home enjoying all the Hotshot Pop Quizzes it dawned on me, if she accepted it, why wouldn't a bouncer or barman? Only problem was it clearly states I'm 15.
However, it was just a bit of paper, with nothing to tie me to it. So I went into school on Monday and proceeded to type out all the details I needed to make me 18. Printed them off, stuck them over the actual details and then photocopied it.
That weekend I said to my two best mates, "I think I can come with you this time" (to the local finger fest nightclub, where I'd always been turned away before). So the night comes and nervous as fuck I walk up to the bouncer who looks at me as if to say you're having a fucking laugh, before asking my age. I say 18 and when he asks for proof show him the magic piece of paper. I'd folded and refolded it to give the impression of having to use it a lot due to my child like appearance, but it worked. Like a charm. A charm that was a gateway to never being turned away from a drinking establishment again.
It's funny to think it ever worked now I look back, but it was a more innocent time in those days and pre-Blair's surveillance state with all its ID based trappings. Some bouncers thought they were being clever by asking for another form of ID (I showed them a bank card) or asking me what my Mother's maiden name was, or where I was born (which wasn't where I then lived), but all the details were genuinely mine apart from the one that mattered.
It was so ludicrous, that I'd even sometimes get ID'd at a bar where the only way in was past two bouncers checking people on the door. But no one sussed it, ever. And not once did anyone accuse me of making it with a printer, selotape and a photocopier.
Last edited by Yevrah; 01-05-2020 at 02:29 PM.
If we'd put Germany out the hype would have been too much for us to not bottle it.
Excellent stuff, @Yevrah.
We never needed to resort to anything like that in our cinema or pubs in the shitty Lincolnshire town we were in as literally not one person had a solitary fuck to give. Me and my mate were going to see Blade 2 when we'd have been about three years too young. He was all excited about his master plan of just giving the woman a different DOB if she asked for it. However, because he was an idiot, he insisted on a WHOLE new date rather than just changing the year. I questioned this and he said it was "too late" now as he'd nearly memorised the new date.
We get into the cinema and the woman doesn't even ask for a DOB or ID, all she says is "Are you 18?" He'd built this up in his head as a much bigger deal and said "Yes! My date of birth is the 1st, er, 3rd of, er, July-" and she just rolled her eyes and waved him in.
That's brilliant
When we were in 6th form, we were in a pub and all got IDed by the manager as a group. We were all 18, so weren't bothered.
Me and my friend coincidentally have the same birthday, which was "suspicious" enough for the manager to kick us out and ban us for life. You can imagine how outraged we were.
Yeah, cinemas never really gave a shit. Well, apart from when my Dad tried to get me into Terminator 2 having begged him for days. I looked about 8 at the time.
Got all the way to my seat then an usher with a conscience confronted us and it never happened.
I'm going slightly earlier with Bergkamp arriving at Arsenal, that was the first big foreign signing.
Should've explained the Birthday Paradox to him. Would've sorted the whole thing out, I'm sure.That's brilliant
When we were in 6th form, we were in a pub and all got IDed by the manager as a group. We were all 18, so weren't bothered.
Me and my friend coincidentally have the same birthday, which was "suspicious" enough for the manager to kick us out and ban us for life. You can imagine how outraged we were
That grey England kit is still the best one we've had.
Inzaghi was doing it in a much better league. It's like claiming someone knocking in 30 goals a season in the Dutch league now is as good as Aguero.
Fuck faking a birth certificate, all you needed was the ability to laminate something to give it the necessary gravitas back then. I had a good line in 'UCAS' ID cards which never failed.
My mum found one years later and was all confused as it had the wrong birthday on it.
Nothing funnier than seeing a bouncer peel apart some amatuer fake job ahead of you in the queue.
The student cards only lasted so long before everyone was doing it and the scam was rumbled, at least where I lived. Mine worked for 3 years, right up until I didn't need it anymore.
Joy of life on a backwater island. What is this strange plastic witchcraft?
That is an exaggeration but I'm happy to take the point and disregard the numbers and it's still a weird comparison.
I love a filthy perma-offside goalhanger like Inzaghi but that's not even remotely what Cole was.
That said even if he'd been an Inzaghi-level Inzaghi he'd still probably have been shit for England because being a goalhanger relies on your team-mates creating chances against anybody half decent.
Who was Cole's main strike partner when he was doing well at Newcastle? Given Cole seems like a moody bugger and comfortably his best period was when Dwight Yorke was both his strike- and orgy-partner maybe we should have got some lothario up front with him for England.
Peter Beardsley, who also had his most prolific season that year.
Point was that Cole was a very limited footballer who offered little else than goals. Which is fine, as they're the most important thing, but that's where the comparison with Inzaghi came from.
Euro 96 was the first tournament I properly got into. I watched some of the 94 world cup, but the late matches and my young age mean I only really remember the final. Euro 96 though, I loved. Can't wait to watch it again.
I grew up in a small town and as you said, it was a much more innocent time and bars/clubs weren't worried about being fined (or jailed, lol) if they had someone in under age.
I was a young looking 17 year old and used to bop around with my photocopy of a passport that I changed the 6 to a 5 to make me 18. Every time I was asked I told them my Mum wouldn't let me go out with my actual passport as I'd lose it. The crappy ID worked every time and the more worn it was the more they believed it.
Nowadays you've got absolutely no chance even in the very same small town. Passport or Driving Licence only.
Limitless access to filth though, so I guess it's swings and roundabouts in the young man's world.
Absolutely no memories of 96 so this is a result. 98 is where my memory kicks in.
Sainsbury's had that coin collection going. I managed to put together two sets and ... I really hope they're still lying somewhere in my parents' place.
EDIT: Wait. That was 1998. Euro 96 were these little hologram cards you got in packs of Frosties.
Looks like potential June restart using 8-10 grounds as neutral grounds.
The whole thing is bonkers but it seems they have decided they need to start ASAP or they might not be able to start for a year or more.
That's it isn't it? There's no 'aiming for next season' as that is no more viable than playing now so they have to go for it all behind closed doors and send a big non merci to M Biscuit et al.
What the fuck is the logic behind neutral venues and how on earth are you going to stop Liverpool fans congregating outside one when they're about to win the league?
A heavy police presence and a big fence.
It also doesn't work from the perspective of the entire campaign being fair.
I think they've decided to chuck all normal concepts out of the window as the alternative is not restarting until there's a vaccine.
Surely St. George's Park makes most sense especially if you want to keep idiot fans at bay.
http://www.360imagery.co.uk/portfolio/st-georges-park/
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