England’s terrible 2010s: wallies, WAGs and webcams

0:00Legally, we can't say drinking Storm makes you smarter and more focused. But with zero sugar, 200 milligrams of caffeine, and immunity support, you're smarter and more focused for drinking, Storm. Storm, good energy in, good energy out. Energy for life. Miami, 2014. Frazzled England gaffer Roy Hodgson throws on Ricky Lambert in a desperate bid to break the deadlock against 10-man Honduras. The match finishes 0-0, and England's darkest decade rolls on. But for all the misery on the pitch, England's stars did have fun off it. They stripped on webcams, spiked each other with Viagra, and shoplifted from B &Q.

0:38From strip club bonks to managers leaking team news on the tube, this is the story of England, the banter years. Welcome back to The Upshot, sponsored by Injury Lawyers for you. My name is Jack. Hello, Zach. Hi, Jack. And we are joined by George Cooper. Hey. Hey, Jack. How's it going? What a sponsor. Is there a code? Code Upshot. And there's no discount, I'm afraid. it's no win no fee but I don't think you have to use code Upshot use code Upshot at the old Bailey 10 % off your sentence alright should we get into it where are we starting this we are going to pick up the story on a sopping wet night at Wembley in November 2007 England they're taking on Croatia a place at Euro 2008 is on the line it's been a it's been a pretty horrific qualification campaign for England this this far the remnants of England's 2006 golden generation.

1:33They'd lost to Russia, once to Croatia already. There'd been a miserable nil-nil draw with Macedonia, another one with Israel. But despite that, a win against Croatia at Wembley would see them scrape through. In the build-up to the game, Steve McLaren, the manager, makes a pretty surprising decision to drop keeper Paul Robinson and replace him with once capped 22-year-old Scott Carson, which does backfire quite quickly. So with eight minutes on the clock, Nico Crancia lets fly from a pretty ridiculous distance out and Scott Carson lets it bounce over him and into the back of the net. I remember this so well.

2:15How's Crancia? How's space, yeah. Good job, man. So bad. That's how I let goals in in five or six. Anyway, back at Wembley, Croatia, they score again seven minutes later. England are 2-0 down. They do manage to claw it back to 2-2 in the second half, but as the rain pours down at Wembley, Mladen Petric scores the winner to condemn England to a summer watching Euro 2008 from the sofa. obviously the defining image of that nadir for english football and that sort of that era really was steve mclaren standing bleakly on the touchline cowering from the elements under his fa branded umbrella produced the infamous headline a wally with a brolly i mean is it not fair enough to use an umbrella in the rain that's what i kind of think but i feel like managers are held to a different standard because like they don't normally have an umbrella and then that's become such a sort of iconic image.

3:12I always also remember when Hodgson was in charge of, I think, Crystal Palace. It was like last day of the season and he's on the bench and I think Palace might already be relegated or they've just had a shocker of a season. I can't exactly remember. But he's just there wearing sunglasses. He doesn't make a substitution. He doesn't make a substitution. He's there with his studies and everyone's like, oh, this is great. What I forgot about this picture of Steve McLaren is that he's also got a plastic paper cup of Bovril as well. drinking his coffee yeah just like soup just warming himself up in the rain yeah he slightly has the air of like sort of like cab driver waiting for an airport pickup yeah or thinking like sort of city worker on Threadneedle Street having a who's nipped out for a fag anyway Steve was was sacked following day by England to be fair to Steve though England players weren't exactly on their best behaviour during that Euros campaign so months before that game against Croatia England had lost to Russia in Moscow.

4:12And the night before the game, you probably hope that the players are up in their rooms revising tactics, getting a good night's sleep. That is not what was going on in Ashley Young's bedroom at the hotel, where he fired up his new MacBook and logged onto Webcamo, a webcam dating site, where he got chatting to the lovely Bristolian beauty therapist, Sarah Taylor, who later told the tabloids, I was shocked. I'd gone on for some flirty chat. What I got was a randy sex addict. This guy messaged me and he said he was in Moscow on business. At first he seemed so charming and nice. It didn't say that way though because Ashley stripped off and treated himself to a handy Murray while writing her some pretty saucy messages.

5:08which were asterisks out, you know, the way the newspapers do. I thought maybe we could try and work out what. It's quite a fun, fun game. So I'd love to lick blank, blank, making them nice and blank. Yeah, babe, teasing blank, blank. I want to have my blank between blank, blank, and you blanking the top of my blank. The top of my. All right. I'll have a vowel, please, Carol. One from the bottom. So the first one's only two stars. It's only two. So I'd love to lick. I think it's your. Could be my. It could be my. I'd love to lick my. No, it can't be my. I think you'd love to lick my. The top of my.

5:50It's a six letter one. I'd love to lick your. I reckon it's your. Your. It's boobies. Boobies. Bristols. That would be fitting. Your bristols. Nipples. Making them nice. No, it's making them nice and hard. Yeah, I'd love to lick your nipples. Making them nice and hard. I prefer boobies, but we'll take nipples. Thruppies, yeah. I think it's Thruppies too many letters. It's a six letter word. I think it's got to be boobies spelled with a Y. I think it's nipples spelled wrong. Yeah. Yeah, nipples. What, without the E? One P. I think it's got to be love to lick your nipples and make them nice and hard.

6:23Yeah, babe. Teasing your your clit. Teasing my cock, maybe? Oh, yeah. Teasing my yeah, yeah, that works. Boob. And then I want to have my dick between your legs tits I think tits there yeah and you blanking the top of my cock that's gotta be it could be willing if you'd like to reveal please we've actually got Ashley on the line he's gonna reveal what the hell he was on about that's it I think we've cracked it it's like the Enigma code obviously has Bletchley Park in the Upshot Studios this is a family podcast so we'll be censoring the word nipple boobie also the fact that she's Bristolian I love people from Bristol but if you log on to a sex webcam chat and they're like oh you're right Randy bugger aren't you what do you expect if you log on there apparently she hadn't even switched her camera on during this so Ashley Young ended up leaving the call because she refused to switch her camera on but he'd already got naked to just the sound of her voice I guess or maybe I don't know if she had some pictures with those quotes in like a chat.

7:38A profile pic. Yeah. Right. So he's typing with one hand. Yeah. He's, he's the guy on chat roulette with his cock out. Yeah. I always found on chat roulette. It's like you, you, it loads and it's hairy stomach with a flaccid penis rocked back onto it. Like it might as well have fucking sunglasses on and a pina colada in its hand. Come on, mate. Stand up. Why do people do, I guess because they're there for hours just cruising for, yeah. You can't be hard for the entire browsing. It's probably, it's a bit of a turn off when you reach another one of them as well. are I imagine oh what when they yeah when they meet it's like a Spiderman meme where they're just pointing at each other but I actually had a look on webcam-o and the site does still exist if anyone's interested actually it looks like it hasn't been updated since Ashley was on it the website but it does include the line which clarifies sort of what you can expect from it it says ladies let yourself be approached by courteous and well-mannered men on our cam chat so you know that's what Sarah was expecting was you know just a charming gentleman nothing says Curtis like saying lick the top of my knob surely if you're a Premier League footballer you'd know you'd better and so he's like you know this is obviously going to end up on wasn't there an EastEnders actor who did another thing Leslie Grantham and one of them he was dressed in his Captain Hook outfit from the pantomime he was doing he was still in the dressing room which is George can we get up the picture of Leslie Grantham at Panto.

9:07That is ridiculous. If you see the picture. With the hook, moustache and beard they're like going for. And did he have the hook on? Is the big question. I'd love him and Ashley Young to meet each other and just accidentally match. That is so good. Speaking of hooks, Abu Hamza. He had two. Hook handed hate cleric Abu Hamza. He had two hooks, didn't he? I think so. Yeah, he literally had hooks hands. Do you reckon you're trying to wank? Oh, surely not. Could you unscrew them and put like a... What, a flashlight? Quite hard to get the angle either way, I think. Yeah, it'd be horrible to walk in on that.

9:43At the Finsbury Park Mosque. Sorry, sorry, sorry, happy. I'll leave you to it. I should have knocked. You're busy. Could be quite useful if you could attach different utensils. Yeah. I don't think you get the angle with a flashlight, but maybe a hand. Could you just get like a Swiss army knife one? Yeah. Surely a hook's not that useful. That's what I think. You can open doors with it. Yeah. And you can like, you can probably like pick up food. I'm actually starting to think, what would you choose as one utility device? Obviously, flashlights. That's my only chance. Two flashlights. I think I would go for a fake hand.

10:22Yeah. That's what 99 % of people go for. It's quite a flex having a hook, I think. It's quite, yeah, it fits hate cleric. I was at a wedding last summer and a guy, I guess there had bionic hands that attack yeah it's absolutely incredible but it's really new technology and he did tell me because he was just wearing a suit so i didn't i couldn't really tell it so lifelike and he grabbed my wrist and then pinged it off but because it's attached to the tendons in your in your forearm he could still like control the grip on it so i had this like hand gripping my arm i was like oh my god yeah it was so cool yeah but it's a great party trick that also feels like he can use that as a justification for some quite bad behavior.

11:04Oh, sorry. It's the hand. I'm not used to. It's gone for your ass again. I'm sorry about that. Surely that happens to the other thing I think of. You know, the peep show thing where the Nazis are like, sorry, the Mitchell and Webb sketch where the Nazis are like, are we the baddies? Have you got two hooks? Has he got like an eye patch as well? Yeah, I think he's got boss. Yeah, he's boss-eyed. Boss-eyed. He's boss-eyed, hook-handed. Back to Ashley Young. Yeah, back to Ashley Young. because I think he was pretty much a regular on Webcam-O because Sarah said she ran into him not long after. Again, cock out.

11:37As always. And then I think after she must have gone to the papers with this story and a News of the World journalist set up a fake account on Webcam-O and snared Ashley again. It's a regular. That's a stitch up. Because they probably got like someone really hot and are they pretending to have webcams? I think at News of the World, that's the like 19-year-old intern at News of the World in their first week. Do you mind setting up a web camo? Have you heard of the term honey trap? I also read in that tabloid article that Ashley Young gave his name as Lewis in it. And you know, he was childhood mates with Lewis Hamilton.

12:16They were at the same school together, same year. So is that what he's thinking? The slums of Stevenage. Is he, yeah, first name that came into his head or is he trying to... I'm thinking it's actually quite thought out and it's like, she might recognize me but not know exactly who I am. And it's like, oh, you're a famous sports star. And I say, I'm Lewis. And she might think, oh, you're the F1 driver. It's a bit like when Jermaine Pennant gave his name as Ashley Cole. Yeah. When he got done for drink driving. Just come up with a completely random... Or is that his fetish? And I'm Lewis. Pretending to be Lewis Hamilton.

12:47I have to ask Sarah. Poor old Ashley. But actually, to be fair to him, it turns out the rest of the England squad were up to far worse the week after this game. So a few weeks before the Croatia game at Wembley, Sean Wright Phillips celebrated his birthday party. And naturally, he went for a lap dancing club in Soho. And a lot of his, a lot of his England and Chelsea teammates were there. All the big names. John Terry was there. Frank Lampard. Joe Cole. Didier Drogba. And of course, you know, Sean's birthday. You've got to invite your dad. So Ian Wright's there at his son's birthday at a lap dancing club.

13:25And apparently... Supplying the party bags. Yeah. Yeah. Apparently it's absolutely, yeah. Guys, do you mind if I do a quick speech? I'm just going to read out Sean's school report from when he was eight. So apparently it was absolute chaos. John Terry is battered and he ends up getting up on the, you know, there's like a platform with the pole, gets up on the pole and starts gyrating with the dancers, basically doing a bit of pole dancing himself. And then according to reports from the time in front of everyone, John Terry gets his knob out and tries to piss in a plastic cup. But spills it all over the floor.

13:58Which, by the way, that's his party trick, isn't it? Because there's another story of him doing it in a pint glass in a nightclub. Yeah, MV nightclub in Romford. Yeah. Which there was CCTV footage of, but it's sadly been lost. Well, and then trying to get people to drink it. No, he puts it on the ground. I don't know what his problem is. He just... It's his party trick. It's his party trick, I guess. Or he just can't be asked to go for a piss. Some people can, like, turn their hand all the way round on a table. John Terry can... Also, it's always standing on a bar. it's always standing on a bar it's not a good party trick it's not that hard yeah it's just horrible also he's not even very good at it he spilled it all over the floor I've got another England international who's got a piss related party trick and I've heard this from two different unrelated sources who've witnessed it so I think there's credence to it where they were at a pub in Isha and they saw oh it's such and such she was like oh you're right and he was at the urinal taking a piss she was like yeah lads get a load of this and then proceeded to piss into his own mouth and they were like oh the fuck and then yeah apparently it's this thing and then I've got another friend who said he witnessed them doing exactly the same thing in a different pub and these two people don't know each other so it's like it's just it's party trick but yeah surely that is causing the right mess because even if even if you're able to get it directly it must have been a lot of splash on the front either his aim is so good that he's not got he doesn't spill a drop of piss on him and that's the party trick or he's just going back into the pub covered in his own piss I love he's doing it to random blokes watch this oh you what's this there was is he swallowing I think I assume so yeah what's weirder if he then just goes into the urinal it is quite impressive I think yeah I mean I'll try it later and let you know if I think it's impressive or not alright so John Terry's tried to piss in a glass on the stage staff have had to clean up the mess and then it keeps getting worse so at least two other guests throw up on the floor don't know them another big name a senior England player who annoyingly is not named in this article, apparently had full sex with a girl on a chair in the basement.

16:02And people, all the other players are just going down to have a look, just like popping down to the basement. She's like, whoa! Is Ian Wright popping down? I don't think so. I think he's looking very... That's my boy. Yeah. I'm not suggesting he was Sean. Was he sure I feel this is such a sweet... Yeah. I can't imagine Ian Wright getting two national... I'm sort of picturing Ian Wright, you know that famous video where they get his old school teacher out. It's Mr. Gilbert. Yeah, Mr. Sidney Pidgeon. And he's like, Mr. Pidgeon, they told me you was dead. Just going down to the basement in there and like David Beckham's just absolutely going to town.

16:36And he's like, they told me you was married.

16:41I just like to clarify it was not David Beckham. Why is it, yeah. Inviting your dad to the strip club is quite weird. Yeah, it's weird. With all your mates. Yeah. National treasurer Ian Wright I choose to believe he looked away or like you know we did that story about the Liverpool party at the strip club and there was an article a line in the article saying Michael Owen stood there like shell-shocked in horror that's how I like to think Ian Wright was do you think Ian Wright was heading downstairs and Sean was at the top not downstairs not in the basement dad well he missed out because according to one witness they were grunting and bonking right in front of me and then apparently another teammate was openly begging two lap dancers for a threesome.

17:24He's always begging. Hands and knees. Please, I'll do anything. I am begging you. But yeah, quite a nice detail for this story. So the story breaks after England had knocked out at Wembley, the Wally with the Broly game. But it actually happened before. And the source tells the News of the World that they were compelled to come forward after watching England's pathetic performance at Wembley. They simply cannot stand. Sorry, I can't keep quiet any longer. it's the right thing. Yeah, that and the 40 grand that the New Zealand World paid me in cash. I imagine that's something to do with it. They also do Alan Smith spins.

18:01So there's this like run of tabloid stories where they're just absolutely going for anyone who's in that squad. And Alan Smith's crime is that he shagged a girl in the toilet at the team hotel the night before the Croatia game. It's not great, but in fairness, he wasn't even on the bench. Right. So it was just a squad, squad player. Yeah. Good around the camp. Yeah, he's doing card tricks. Yeah, I mean, I guess even the vibes merchants shouldn't be sneaking girls into the team hotel the night before. I think that's exactly what they should be doing, though. You want a bit of gossip in the morning, team morale, all that kind of stuff.

18:34Yeah, and distract people from the task at hand. Exactly. In a good way, relax them. Yeah. Is that why they're bringing Jordan Henderson to the World Cup? Distraction. They also do Michael Richards. We've talked about this on the Michael Richards episode, so we're not going to go into detail, but it's when they accuse him of having a vile roasting orgy. They get really obsessed with roasting as this like national, you know, a bit like how they were with happy slapping. Right. Where it was this like moral panic. They say roasting. I think they mean like group sex would be the cleanest way of putting it.

19:06Right. Like is that a spirit? Yeah. If we're going to spell it out. Someone said it. And it has the famous line about Michael Richards where they describe him grinning broadly with debauched pleasure. there is a video i think anyway so there's england have been knocked out qualifying for the euros and then they've been rocked by this series of sex scandals uh where you know all this lap dancing stuff all these roasting orgies are like every week in the tabloids there's something else and you know in the aftermath of that defeat and all the tabloid scandals that come with it there's a bit of soul searching among england fans why are our players such sex crazed reprobates and you know is that why we keep fucking it or is it because our ratio of youth coaches is lower than Germany and Italy we don't have a centre of excellence like the French anyway it quickly this view forms that what England need is a hard tough manager who can you know put them on the straight and narrow and they decide the media kind of decide along with the FA that there's only one man for the job he doesn't speak a word of the Queen's but he sure as hell knows how to keep his players in line it is arch disciplinarian Fabio Capello possibly the most bum-out England manager ever yeah it would have to be that it goes down so many he didn't allow players to have like any their wives unsighted very everyone had to eat together banned ketchup from the trading ground blocked web camo from the team computer yeah he's put parental lock on the wifi definitely has with the really overzealous setting where you can't even watch like 15 movies and stuff.

20:47Here's how the news of the world welcome Capello. They write a letter warning him about what's to come. Welcome to England, Mr. Capello. A world that gave new meaning to the word roasting. A world in which wealth is obscenely flaunted. A world where normal standards of decency are discarded. So yeah, it's that vibe. So dramatic. Because there's a bit of, I forgot, there's a bit of a panic about like footballers earning loads of money about like, is this Asbo era? It's probably a bit early for Asbos. I'd say it's, yeah, it's that era. Yeah. When we had basically no real problems to worry about, so we just invented them.

21:23Anyway, it doesn't take long until the tabloids decide to uncover some dirt on Fabio himself. Quite the welcome. There's not much to find, but that doesn't stop the News of the World and Daily Mail publishing pictures of Cappello and his wife doing a mud bath in Italy under the headline, England coach gets mucky with the missus. That is so dumb. He gets really angry about this, right? He sues, yeah. He gets 10 grand payout, which he donates to charity for each of them. What's the basis of the payout? Why did he win? Invasion of Privacy, I think. Right, because his wife's not a public figure and she's suddenly having her mud bath broadcast to like Middle England.

22:03Four million readers. It's mad because there was like calls, maybe it was a bit later, but everyone was desperate for Harry Redknapp to get the England job. And then the reason that he didn't get the job was because of the skeletons that were like supposedly in his closet. There's a later bid for Harry to come in, which we're going to cover, where there's a possible other slightly spooky reason why he might not have got it. I look forward to that. A bit more paranormal, you might say. But yeah, what I love about the Capello one is they go, welcome to England where normal standards of decency are flaunted and then flouted.

22:36And then immediately they're just like, Capello gets mucky with the missus. Yeah, flouted by you. Long lens pictures of his wife in a bikini You just try to have a nice day at the spa. I also read their apology and they said that it was published by accident. Did you send the photographers there by accident? That's the most ridiculous excuse I've ever heard. When Capella comes in, he quickly implements these new rules at England HQ. We mentioned he bans ketchup. There's a strict 10pm curfew at the team hotel. and after all the scars of the previous campaigns, he decides it's time to bring some fresh blood into the squad.

23:17Among the new players is Portsmouth's Glenn Johnson, who had played for England before, but not since 2005. And to be honest, I'm not sure if he quite fit the bill for Capello's new upstanding citizens because the previous year, Glenn had been fined by police after being caught trying to steal a toilet seat from being cured.

23:41so he was at B &Q with the Millwall striker Ben May how many caps did he get? two caps for Ben May in that period actually no no I don't think he did Ben May was in the middle of renovating his bathroom and they pop in to take a look at some of the bathroom fittings and they find this really nice quite expensive toilet seat and decide to slip it out of his box and put it into the box of a much cheaper toilet seat

24:13anyway unbeknownst to them the security guard is watching all this on CCTV and calls them in and calls the police on them apparently they offer they're like alright fine we'll just pay for the we'll pay for the more expensive one but he's having none of it calls the police and they both end up getting 80 pound fines oh so they're arrested they get yeah I don't know if they does he like lock them in the room for ages with the CCTV while he calls their mum I bet he cannot believe his luck that he's got two footballers I'm picturing one of those loose seats that's like see-through with like little fake fish in it and bubbles very popular at the time apparently it closed slowly that's worth I mean he would have been on what at least at that time 30 grand a week he's doing it for the thrill at that point apparently they tried to nick a few like taps and stuff as well slid them underneath the urge.

25:07It goes all the way to the top. Yeah, I think this is the last era where England footballers go to be in queue as well. Yeah. It's a shame. It's what they took from us. Yeah. Wasn't John Terry's mum caught shoplifting something? she was. And she often gets attributed to the Lucy, but I don't actually think that's what she was. No, Big Sam got caught stealing the adapter for a tap, wasn't it? It was something like that from a hardware shop. That was it, yeah. He screwed the two bits together and tried to pay for one. anyway joining glenn johnson in capello's early squads was a man who no doubt found his toilet seat stealing cape absolutely hilarious and that is mr jimmy bullard obviously jimmy's famous for his for his bants with a z that's his vibe bants with a z uh which you can imagine doesn't really go down too well with with fabio capello he's not famous very different vibe um at his first squad meeting Jimmy decides to start a new nickname for Fabio Postman Pat which apparently he's just going around openly calling it to his face which he's just baffled by it he does look a lot like him he's got a point he's got quite a lot of Postman Pat is he just like singing it to him yeah so him and David Bentley David Bentley is the only one apparently who's really on board with this and him and Jimmy have a game of who could sing the Postman Pat theme tune loudest in front of Fabio.

26:37Presumably he has no idea. I don't know if Postman Pat's big enough. No, apparently because Fabio doesn't really speak much English at all. So they just openly call him Postman Pat to his face. He had no clue what was going on, singing the theme tune. David Bentley, Bantzman. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jimmy said that he came into the England squad and he was like, these guys look a bit miserable. I'm going to try to inject a bit of fun here which Postman Pat nickname and didn't really go down well with most of the senior players but David Bentley was well up for it Diet Beckham, wasn't he? Did either of them play for England much?

27:18Jimmy never gets on the field David Bentley, I don't know Could have done Did Jimmy never get one cap? No, he gets called up twice to two squads but never gets on the pitch He keeps singing Postman Pat at the manager when he tries to talk to him David Bentley got seven caps Yeah, I remember David Bentley playing football. You do sort of need people in the squad who are fun. I mean, obviously I know nothing about managing a football team, but like in a tournament environment, I think it probably does. Yeah, I think in South Africa, Jimmy Bullard, squad man. Yeah, that would have sorted England right out.

27:48Actually, speaking of practice, in 2009, Colton Cole gets called up for the England squad. And, you know, he's probably hoping that the more senior strikers, your Wayne Rooney, Jermaine Defoe, or take him under their wing, show him the ropes. Instead, they decide it would be very funny to spike him with Viagra. So he recorded later, he said, Stonker was there. I wasn't sexually aroused, but it was just there. It was the quickest person around that pitch. I had three legs. Because I think they told him it was a vitamin. Yeah, they told him it was a vitamin tablet. He took it willingly. Big blue vitamin.

28:24Yeah, he's been a good sport about it there. Yeah. He seems quite joking. Like him and a team talk with Fabio Capello. Just a raging hard on. Impassioned. I mean, he's Italian. He's probably Italian. Finally, someone in this team showing some passion.

28:46Anyway, alongside the contraband ketchup, dodgy dick pills and cartoon postman jibes, Capello did have to deal with a pretty big drama when papers report that John Terry has been shagging his England teammate Wayne Bridge's ex-wife, ex-girlfriend, which, again, we won't go into all the details. We've done that on our Terry episode. But obviously, that's a pretty big problem for Fabio. He'd probably want to pick both of them for his squads. In the end, Wayne Bridge decides to withdraw indefinitely from England duty, which I guess he probably knew that Terry wasn't going to get dropped. And Ashley Cole's first choice.

29:29Ashley Cole's first choice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So in the end, Capello decides that he's going to strip John Terry of the captaincy for this, for this affair and appoints Rio Ferdinand instead. And, you know, despite that disharmony sort of hitting the squad, you could think that could really derail England, but the vibes are still pretty good at that point on the pitch. at least. They qualified for the World Cup with a 5-1 win over Croatia, banishing the ghosts of 2007. There's quite a lot of optimism, isn't there? There is, yeah. Also, England famously get what looks like quite a good group for the 2010 World Cup.