GP: In late 2019, as an unknowing world prepared for what it assumed would remain Euro 2020, FourFourTwo asked me to write a lengthy look back at Euro 96. I happily did so, providing about 6,000 words for the February 2020 cover story. The folks at FFT planned to reuse the sections online during the tournament – but a pandemic brought that plan forward, at the same time as pushing back Euro 2020 to Euro 2021. Maybe I’ll write about that tournament in 2045.

Footballing traditionalists will be pleased to note that the first game of Euro 96 kicked off at 3pm on a Saturday. They would probably be less thrilled that it was preceded by an opening ceremony featuring Mick Hucknall in a grey shirt and even greyer suit, shoehorning his Simply Red lift music into the easily (and eagerly) forgotten official Euro 96 dirge We’re In This Together. A better anthem would emerge.

It was a low point in the opening ceremony’s assortment of dancers, 40,000 balloons, Sir Stanley Matthews, medieval jousting, the Red Arrows and a 30-foot inflatable version of what everyone was theoretically here for: Henri Delaunay trophy. Also mooching about was leonine tournament mascot Goaliath, a sanitised version of 1966’s World Cup Willie. (For the record, the previous two Euros mascots had been rabbits, and before that the French whipped out their trusty cock.)

Meanwhile, England were preparing for their first competitive international in two and a half years, since a fruitless win over San Marino signalled the end of Graham Taylor. “I thought there was a little bit of nerves in the changing room, which you’d expect,” Paul Ince tells FFT. “You’re at home, it’s your home tournament, you haven’t won for 30 years.”

Onto the grass

Eventually, thankfully, the football started. For all Venables’ tactical fluidity, England lined up in essentially a 4-4-2; Ince anchored a midfield also including Darren Anderton, Paul Gascoigne and Steve McManaman, the latter later explaining “Terry kept it simple that day and we did think we’d win”. 

Such an outlook seemed probable when England scored in the 23rd minute, Gascoigne and Ince combining to create Alan Shearer’s first goal in 12 caps. “It was a case of ‘Thank God for that,’” laughs Shearer, but again Venables’ man-management had been crucial. 

Some in the press had been pushing for Liverpool’s mercurial Robbie Fowler, coming off two successive 30-goal seasons, to replace Shearer, but the Geordie had been assured of his place. “The best thing Terry did to me about a month before was take me aside and say ‘You’ll be starting, you’re my centre-forward.’ I thought ‘Wow, what a boost.’” Venables later told FFT “There was no doubt he would play. He was, quite simply, a goalscorer. You can never leave a player like that out.”

But the goal didn’t relax England as the Swiss refused to roll. Roy Hodgson had walked them to their first Euros then walked off himself to Inter, leaving the 50/1 outsiders under the Portuguese Artur Jorge and his phenomenal soup-strainer of a moustache. They should have levelled just before the break when Kubilay Turkyilmaz skinned Stuart Pearce and crossed for Marco Grassi to hit the bar from four yards out with David Seaman nowhere, the Swiss striker showing why he only scored three in 31 caps.

In the second half, England defied physics by managing to freeze in the heat. “It was so hot,” Ince tells FourFourTwo; Sheringham notes that after the pre-match parades, “the pitch was sticky and we couldn’t play flowing football.” But there were internal factors, too, as Ince explains. 

“It’s important you start the tournament well. We knew that if we lost the first game, they’d always revert back to the dentist’s chair and that we hadn’t prepared ourselves properly. So that gave us even more determination not to lose the game.”

The first Euros to award three points per win didn’t have the handbrake-removal effect enjoyed by USA 94. Half of Euro 96’s eight opening games were drawn, a higher ratio than any Euros or World Cup since. England set the tone by retreating in the second half as the Swiss grew in confidence. 

Retreat and refuelling

With 20 minutes to go Venables sacrificed Sheringham and McManaman for Steve Stone and Nick Barmby in a 4-5-1 intended to stifle the Swiss. It didn’t work: Johann Vogel whistled one just past the post before Spanish ref Manuel Diaz Vega whistled for a penalty after Grassi’s shot hit Pearce’s arm. Turkyilmaz tucked the spot-kick just inside the post and Barry Davies’s commentary on the BBC highlights summed up the mood: “Disappointing though it is for the home crowd and the England team, you have to say that Switzerland deserve to be all square.”

Disappointment wasn’t the mood among the press, who already had their scapegoat. On 77 minutes, the fourth official’s newfangled electronic board (as yet unsponsored) had gone up to signify England’s first-ever third substitute in competitive game – the rule had been changed in 1995. In the final two days of his twenties, David Platt trundled on to replace his fellow Italia 90 hero Gascoigne, and the press-box resounded to the sharpening of knives. 

Drawing a direct line from what Graham Taylor had called the Geordie’s “refuelling” issues, through the dentist’s chair and on to his early withdrawal, The Sun and the Daily Star headlines read “OUT OF GAZ”. Under the headline GAZZA MUST GO (subtitled “the Guzzler dries up to leave coach Venables no option”, the Daily Mail’s Jeff Powell insisted “England must sling out Paul Gascoigne on his earring. They must devise a way to play without this playboy relic of what once might have been a great playmaker.”

Too savvy to defend the performance, Venables instead threw forward to next Saturday’s little get-together. “We were dead on our feet in the second half,” he acknowledged. “We know we must improve on this, and our next game against Scotland is going to be absolutely vital.”

But would Gascoigne be part of that?

Originally published as part of the cover story of FourFourTwo’s February 2020 issue, then online.