Remember When… We Had A Golden Generation

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1:28Brilliant! It was it now. And surely crossed the line. It's not been given. Surely that was it. The birthday of the golden generation is up for debate. Many point to England's 5-1 win over Germany in 2001, those halcyon early days as Sven-Goran Eriksson's reign. The 2002 World Cup ended with bitter regret. Euro 2004 with an even stronger sense of what might have been. So undoubtedly expectations were at fever pitch when England touched down in Germany in the summer of 2006. It's the whole part of this World Cup atmosphere to be here near the ground enjoying it. Just the feel of it, just being Nuremberg while they're playing the game, it's absolutely brilliant.

2:08And can they win now? Rooney's own? Definitely now. England had a virtually unprecedented crop of talent. Stephen Gerrard, Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard, John Terry, Ashley Cole, David Beckham and England's breakout star from Euro 2004, Wayne Rooney. Can't say anything else but gutted. Absolutely robbed. Completely robbed. But, spoiler alert, this team would win absolutely nothing. I mean, the midfield, Lampard and Gerrard were our star players supposed to be, but they just didn't perform, did they? All right through the tournament, really. Instead, what followed was a series of heartbreaks and disappointments that would leave the media baying for blood and England fans in despair.

2:47There is the final whistle, and Uruguay effectively have put England out of the World Cup. Luis Suarez is the hero. Today we're going to rake over it all with three fans who saw it all unfold, because this is Remember When We Had A Golden Generation. The FA just sit on the backsides and do nothing after tournament after tournament. Why don't they listen? Now it's time to introduce the three hardened England fans that are going to be speaking with us today. We've got Sharon, hello. Hello. Billy. Hello. And Gary. Hello. So, you are all very well-travelled England fans. You've seen a lot of England playing football.

3:27How optimistic were you going into the 2006 World Cup in Germany, Sharon? Yeah, I was pretty optimistic. I mean, I think we had a fantastic team at that time. You know, David Beckham, Rooney was kind of new to the team. Baller Central, I'd say. Yeah. I mean, the thing is that if you look back to 2004, in 2004, you know, there was that. You've got 2002 where, to be quite honest with you, you know, he came up against Brazil. A bit unlucky. Come out of that one. The 2004, down the road in Portugal, everyone's gone down there. Really good side. Rain Rooney. Rooney bursting in. Bang. Unlucky with the injury.

4:06Went out on penalties to Portugal. But everyone was really excited because we thought, actually, we're actually quite a good side here. You know what I'm saying? So, okay, we didn't win the Euros, but now we're going to take that side and add a few more players to go into the World Cup. And for me, I mean, I've gone into that World Cup thinking, right, here we go. This is the one. They're all in there. 100 % we've got a massive chance of winning this tournament. Because there's a sort of cliche that England fans always feel like they're going to go and win tournaments. But in 06, it genuinely felt like there was a good chance, Gary.

4:38Absolutely. A bit like Billy. I was over in Portugal 2004 as well. Rooney breaking onto the scene was incredible. And no one really talks about the goal that we scored. Sol Campbell scores a goal. Everybody's jumping around. and then 20 seconds later, Portugal at the other end. Obviously, Rooney gets injured there and what will be after that will be. Into 2006, I was certainly carried away by the same emotions from 2004, thinking we didn't really need much more to get there. And I remember playing France in 2004, thinking we had a really, really strong team to hopefully then build out as a platform.

5:17and then in Germany I just thought we were blessed with players but over the years of being an England fan the optimism grinds you down but at the same time the optimism you start a tournament optimistic we can do it every single time You were all out there in Germany you organised a kind of travelling party basically Sharon I did yeah we went out by coach for each match there and back no no hotel or anything just traveled over in and out wow yeah for every every match how long was the drive um a very long time um uh kind of over 24 hours some of them but to be honest with you by the end of the tournament it didn't seem like any further than just driving to london because you just got used to it but it was amazing what made you decide to do that because It's unusual.

6:10Yeah. What happened was, how I initially started doing the trips was when England played Argentina and Geneva. I've got three sons and I wanted to take them. Costs were astronomical by the time we decided to book. So I looked at alternative ways of getting there and I found a coach company that would do it. And within three weeks, I'd organised two coaches to go down to Geneva. And again, we did it there and back overnight, no hotel. and that was a very long trip but we've, you know, I've done several like that over the years and then that was going to be a one-off and then of course when it came to Germany everybody was saying Sharon, please do coach trips and that's what I did and we took two coaches just about to every match.

6:58And were you in charge? I was. Being a woman, I was in the minority on the trips but yeah, brilliant And the coach drivers, they told me that they'd rather take us halfway across Europe than take a group of women to Ascot because we were so well behaved. For non-travelling fans, they probably won't have that many good memories of this tournament. But what was it like as a fan in Germany, Billy? Absolutely brilliant. I'll tell you something. It was unbelievable. It's funny because that World Cup was coming up and I wasn't going to go The previous World Cup was Japan, which was like the best World Cup ever Never ever will be beaten, will never be beaten Such a fantastic World Cup But then we got to Germany and I was a little bit nervous I had been a black England fan as well And Germany, what's going on there?

7:50So I was like, I think I'm going to give this one a miss But of course you get nearer to the tournament You think actually I cannot give it a miss So I did, so I went there a bit of trepidation But then, like I said to you, the first thing I did, and also this goes to show you what I thought about England because I was so sure that England were going to get so far. I had tickets all the way through to the final, as we always do, like literally every tournament I beat to. It's the ninth tournament coming up, and you've got tickets all the way through to the finals. You do for England fans. And I actually sold my first ticket, the England-Paraguay game, because I thought, I don't need to do that because we're going to get through the group anyway.

8:21I'll see plenty of games. And I went to Sweden versus Trinidad the first game, which is brilliant. So I went to Dortmund, had a brilliant laugh there. You know, you're in New England gear, but World Cups, if you know, that everyone just becomes a family and a friend, so you're wearing your different gear. I walked out of Dortmund station with my mate King Tut. Both of us went there. We walked out of Dortmund station, and again, you've got that nerve thinking what's going to happen. They're going to be skid-hands, going to chase us. And all of a sudden, this German fan was there in his Liederhosen, and he had his flag because he supported some sort of third division team.

8:50I can't remember who it was at the time. And he went, welcome to Germany, and then whack, and he just put a beer in my hand. And then literally he was just giving out free beer, to everybody who was coming out the station. I thought, oh, it's quite good here in Germany, actually. I've got it. I've come. And that was the atmosphere all the way through. So where did you end up staying before the Trinidad-Sweden game? Okay, so me and my mate King Tut, we've turned up in Dortmund. And again, if you've ever been to Dortmund, it hasn't actually got very many hotels. So it's one of these cities where it's like, you know, oh no.

9:18But because it's in an area where you can get trains out, normally fans stay anywhere. But I was determined. I thought, I really want to stay in Dortmund. So I'd worked really hard trying to find a hotel. Couldn't find a hotel. All of a sudden, I saw this advert pop up somewhere, and it says, football fans, you can stay with us. We're an art gallery, and we're turning ourselves into a hotel. And I thought, that's brilliant. Sounds cool. Yeah. So we've walked to the art gallery, and we're the first people there. And we go, oh, hello. Okay, you're the first people here. She goes, so we have 12 bedrooms today.

9:46So where do we sleep? She goes, well, because no one else is here, you could choose wherever you want to stay. So we got this little tour of the bedrooms, right? So she says, all right, this is the first one. this is the Caravan of Love. And basically there are all these sort of kind of art installations. So it's a caravan with a bed inside it. Did you, King Tuck, choose the Caravan of Love? Me and Tuck did not choose the Caravan of Love. You know what I'm saying? Then we went to another one. It was like a tree house. We said, oh, no, because every night you're going to have to, after a few beers, you have to climb up the ladder.

10:13I said, no, it's all right. I don't think that's the one. Then we had another one, which is almost like a space capsule as well. Oh, this is a bit strange. So she took us through all these different rooms. Eventually we found one which is like a relatively normal room. And we thought, okay, yeah, we'll take this one. So I had my bed, Tut had his bed, you know, closed the door and it's fine. So that night we went out, probably went to one of the sort of Calypso parties that was put on for the Trinidadians, one extra and everything like that, DJ Woody and that. And then I've come back in. Me and Tut's come back in.

10:43We've got, let's go to bed. So we've got inside our room, shut the door, gone to bed, flat out. And I remember it being really hot because it's turning and twisting and everything like that. But anyway, eventually you woke up in the morning probably about 11, 12 o 'clock, 11, 12 o 'clock, and you opened your eyes, you pulled over the curtain, and I looked up, and I saw all these people were peering over the sides of our bedroom. And I thought, what the hell is going on? What are all these people doing? And what we realised is that we were part of the art installation. So it wasn't just bedrooms.

11:12They were like, come and watch the sleeping football fans. Every night we had people coming up, peering, just watching us sleep. It was so bizarre. so hold on so hold on once you've realised this you've thought yeah well yeah we'll still stay here well we had nowhere else to go so we just we just stuck with it to be quite honest for you you know if you've gone out quite late at night you just pass out and then you just fine I can have a look so it was a great tournament you know so the Germans are very friendly you know they even gave us our art galleries England's mass support may not have enjoyed the game but they're enjoying this these are the ticketless fans those who gathered in Stuttgart Central Square to watch the match on big screens.

11:56No trouble here, just an enormous crowd that turned into an enormous celebration. Utterly chuffed, utterly chuffed. Beckham's goal was quality, absolutely quality. All right, it might be ropey, aren't we? Yes, we've gone free. Rio said earlier on, if we do every game 1-0, we win the World Cup. So in the end, England, yes, have ground their way through. They topped their group and then got through to Portugal in the quarterfinals. Rooney gets sent off. There's the Cristiano Ronaldo wink, which still haunts me. It's an iconic image. Can you remember your... Well, I suppose, do you remember anything about the wink at the time if you were at the game?

12:44Presumably not. You wouldn't have known it happened. Absolutely no idea. No idea. it was only afterwards when you started seeing it and you thought that was all prearranged and you know let's try and wind England's best player up but I never forget the England fans that day they galvanised as a unit and they got behind that team as one and they roared England on to get into the extra time and eventually get to penalties and you thought this is going to now be our best chance we're going to get there we're going to get over the line you're thinking you know we've stayed alive we kept going we kept going not going to go out to Portugal on penalties again not getting yeah yeah Yeah, and obviously having seen them do that in Lisbon as well, having absolutely played them off the pitch in that court final against them before, and they targeted Rooney that day as well.

13:26He obviously got injured, so it was in the back of my mind. But unfortunately for us, the flight that we were on, just as the penalty was about to start, we had to go in the taxi, watch it on their screen by there. Oh, man. So we had to get our flight home that particular evening. I just remember we were behind the goal where the penalties were taken and the atmosphere was absolutely incredible. Electric, it was just amazing. But, you know, sadly it wasn't to be. This evening there was just the gloom of defeat and of course the post-match analysis. Can't say anything else but gutted. Absolutely robbed, completely robbed.

14:08I mean, the midfield, Lampard and Gerrard were our star players, supposed to be, but they just didn't perform, did they? Or right through the tournament, really. I remember Iwin Hargreaves that particular day was played out of the skin. What a player. Absolutely brilliant. Yeah, he kept the whole side together that day. And all our top players are falling like dominoes. But actually, it's almost like the team got better and they started to play better football and they started to play for themselves. And we were actually, I thought, really unlucky in that game. We played really, really good football.

14:35It was great. You mentioned Iwin Hargreaves. Is there another player from the golden generation who you loved to watch but was maybe underappreciated because of all the other big stars. And anyone for you, Gary? Ledley King. Yes, yeah. He would have been fantastic for England had he stayed clear of injury. I'll never forget him. He was fantastic for England, I thought. And he didn't play enough because of his injury. But I'll never forget when he played against France, he took down all their best players and he just oozed class. Sharon? I always loved washing Heskey. I don't know why, he always seemed to get a lot of stick.

15:18He was great with Owen. Yeah, I think he was a great player and I did. I thought it was great when we used to sing even Heskey scores. In fact, the 5-1 in Germany was the thing that actually got me wanting to actually go and watch England live. I didn't start following England until 2002. That was my first home match against Portugal at Villa Park. And then it all spiralled from there. But the 5-1 in Germany, watching it on TV, I wanted to be there. How about you, Billy? You've got your list there. I know. At the time, I liked Crouch as a person. And I remember at the time as a player, like I said to you, I never went to the very first England game.

16:05but I remember being at a fan park in Dortmund and I was there in the England shirt and all these Germans were coming up to me and going, oh, England, England are going to win the World Cup. They have Peter Crouch and they start doing the old robot dance. And I was like, and at that time I thought, oh, yeah, okay, yeah, we're going to Crouch, you know. And I remember he played, Jamaica did he score a load of goals pre-season, you know, just before the tournament. And there was a big hype about him. I think that's when he did the robot dance and I think there was a big hype about him. But, you know, you like him as a player that you bring off the bench maybe and do what you have to do.

16:38Like I said, Jermaine Genis, when he first, I thought, I'm not sure about Jermaine Genis, but there's a couple of games actually. He actually had a real, he had a real impact actually. And he was doing, yeah. He's unlucky to have been around at a time when we had that strength of midfield actually. You know, so yeah, but he came in and he did some things where you sort of think, oh, okay, that's quite interesting. So Jermaine Genis for me actually kind of was a little bit of a, a little bit of a little jewel that came in there at the time when England needed and they did start to spark. Did it feel like England blew a really big opportunity to you, Sharon?

17:12I think so. And I think we've done it many times since as well. This is the one for me, this is the one that hurts the most when I just think of those players that we had available that we didn't get further. However, we didn't win something with those players. I just do not know. We've always had an injury though, haven't we? We've always had a big injury. It was Beckham in 2002, and everybody's praying about him with his metatarsal, and Sun newspaper coming out and praying that his metatarsal was going to be okay. Then it's 2004 with Rooney. Then it's Owen. Owen is coming back from a metatarsal and came back too quickly.

17:50Too quickly. So we've always had that.

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19:46Right, let's move on to 2010 and South Africa. Sharon, you were a glutton for punishment. You went back for more. Did you tap your coach driver again? I did. Well, to be honest with you, obviously not. We didn't drive to South Africa, but I actually did. Funny if you had that. But we did arrange coach trips over there. Unfortunately, Johannesburg isn't very, the people don't seem to be very reliable. They're very laid back. and our coach company actually cancelled on us two days before the match in Blomfontein. This trip sounds really stressful. It's very stressful. But we did our best. Actually, we got school buses to take us from Johannesburg to Blomfontein.

20:33But we got there. You're going to have to walk today. Yeah. And I stayed there right till the final. I was really, really looking forward to getting to South Africa. And I went down to Cape Town for the Algeria match. which I'm, of course, very excited for that game. Oh, my God. And that was about it. Oh, my God. Nil-nil left. I was like, oh, God. I had a good pre-match by the waterfront, which is great, but the game itself was a little bit like, oh, my God, is this what it's going to be like? Well, the England team got booed. Yeah. Yeah. And I can't really – that doesn't happen very often. I mean, more so these days, but back then it didn't happen very often.

21:05And that's when Rooney came out and obviously said what he said. Nice to see your own fans booing you. I'm sorry to single out Wayne because he's such an important member of this England team, but it smacked of arrogance what he said. You know, I've got to say, it's easy for us to say, but if I'd been coming off after such a terrible display, I might have said, yeah, the fans boot us and maybe we deserved it. Because they did deserve to be booted. When you're out there watching your team, they probably would imagine that the people that have made the effort to go would just get behind their team regardless.

21:39but the manner of the performance and the way that Capello had set the team up I think probably there was a justification in it and I think he's come out and apologised afterwards because I think both the England manager and the players could see that we probably weren't at our best and didn't put on the performances that the players, you know most fans expected the players to achieve really so you know I think there is something to that really It did again feel like the first time for me that the relationship between the players, the team and the fans kind of fractured a bit? Because Rooney coming out and saying that about the fans booing, they were obviously upset about it.

22:21The fans were obviously upset because they're not seeing the football they want to see. How did you feel in the ground, Sharon? Well... I mean, I suppose I've got to ask, did you boo? No, I didn't. I must admit, I never boo. I understand why people may get frustrated, you know what I'm saying? but especially if you're out there and you've always got a chance, you should get behind the team. At the final whistle, I think that fans are entitled to do what they want to do and some fans may decide to boo or say what they'll do and other fans won't. Again, we had that at recent Euros as well with the England's performances and I don't boo myself, but if somebody else wanted to at full time because it's actually sort of telling people something, I think that's fair enough.

23:00We've given a bit of live feedback to the manager basically. That's right. But I think, tell you something though, I think that moment was, I know that you say it's the first fractured moment, but it's probably been coming for a while because there was always a bit of a kind of us and them. We play the football. We make a lot of money. We know what we're doing. We're the big boys. You just turn up and see us. We're a bit of a flash. You just turn up and just watch us. And don't complain because at the end of the day, we're the footballers. And there was all that. And you kind of accepted that.

23:30Did you feel a lack of connection with this team? this team I felt yes I definitely felt a lack of connection there was the John Terry thing that was going down you know there was all sorts of the fact that we didn't qualify 2008 as well has probably rolled into the next tournament yeah and I think that has a big thing so when you think about the frustration of the supporters we hadn't we had done so well 2004-06 you think 2008 we didn't qualify and you think that that was a golden generation still and then you come into 2010 and they haven't started particularly well and the performance was well you know so I think there was frustration probably from both sides, you know, fans and players, because they couldn't understand what was going wrong probably.

24:07And, you know, I think it did affect certain things back then. And I think Rooney coming out like that to the fans... Kicking the teeth, wasn't it, really? Yeah, there was a bit of kind of like, hold on a second. I don't think the players appreciate what some of the fans do. I mean, for instance, after the trip I did to Geneva, I'm a yoga supporter. And at the time, Paul Terry was in our team. and John Terry went to watch Yeovil the following Saturday and I spoke to him and I told him what we'd done, which was to go to Geneva, there and back by coach. And he was absolutely gobsmacked. I think he thought I was absolutely crazy.