A v Malta 3.6.2000

Words by Mark Raven

Pictures by Liz O'Brien

A v Malta




........................England go 1-0 up with this goal, honest there are England players on the pitch........




This is the view from our Hotel, the Bristish Hotel



.It was hot and these steps where steep so.



we stop to coooooool down for a beer (or perhaps it was two!)and we move to a shadier bar and bump into Batty and Middlesbrough Mick.





A few pictures of the ground, the warm up and the actual match. England run out 2-1 winners in the last warm up match before Euro 2000..



The excitment of the game has got to me and I take a seat.


After the game we move back to a bar for just one or two more refreshments! I dont think the band playing in the background is Oasis



.....................but they cannot be that bad as we are still there a little later on, but appear to have been playing musical chairs.....................







We get in a little sightseeing...



This is infact right outside our hotel, perhaps we didnt walk very far!!

Euro 2000 Play Offs H v Scotland 17.11.1999

Home v Scotland Play off second leg at Wembley Stadium

Wednesday and it was the short trek to Wembley. We sampled the new Weatherspoons outside Victoria station and others headed for the Stage Door. One pint and a vodka and red bull cost Liz £7.80. Ouch. As normal we headed for JJMoons near Wembley. The pub was packed and a few Scots were there having a laugh. But as usual a few idiots spoilt it. JJMoons is always a very lively pub and when the Scots decided to leave around 6pm all hell broke loose. A few England fans decided to give them a slap but other England fans stepped in to prevent it. A few punches were thrown and that was that, the pub was shut down by the Police. We headed next door to the Post Office and then onto the match.

I am not going to go into the dire 90 minutes but we escaped with a 0-1 score line. The 7,500 Scotland fans did there best to roar them onto the second goal but they just failed.

We went back to the Post office after the game to celebrate reaching Euro 2000. We finally caught the 1am back to Brighton, but this terminated at Three bridges and we had to get a bus. It finally arrived in Brighton just on 3am. Luckily Thursday had been booked off work and a well deserved lay in followed. So its 12th December and the draw to look forward to in addition to the World Cup draw (also in December)

Euro 2000 play offs A v Scotland 13.11.1999

England v The Auld Enemy

After Sweden had done us the huge favour of beating Poland, England had made the Euro 2000 play offs with Scotland, Republic of Ireland, Slovakia, Ukraine, Turkey, Denmark and Israel.

So after the draw it was Scotland v England at Hampden on Saturday 13th November with the return at Wembley on the 17th. The Macclesfield v Brighton match had been moved to Sunday 14th November so a weekend feast of football was planned.


..............................................Moss Rose?.......................

..............................................Hampden Park?..........................

We picked up our ‘luxury’ Minibus from Strafford Rent a Van at 10am on the Friday morning and set out for the long trip north. We had decided to base ourselves in Edinburgh and anticipated a journey of 8/9 hours. I won’t go into the gory details of the journey (The bottle of Southern comfort disappeared soon after we passed the Angle of the North , we had plenty of time to see it as we were stuck in a traffic jam!). We finally arrived in Edinburgh around 8pm after meeting another mate at Scotch corner (some people transferred to the car so we at last had some more room).

We met up with Liz who had flown up to Edinburgh due to work commitments and headed for her old local pub (Liz use to regularly travel from Edinburgh to Brighton when she worked up there, conformation that she was mad if we needed any). We settled down for a few quiet beers and then headed into the City until the early hours of the morning.

On the Saturday morning everybody just about made breakfast but it was a struggle. We headed down to the station to meet up with some other Albion fans and caught an early train to Glasgow. The train was full of kilted men drinking alcohol. All I could manage was a small bottle of water! Glasgow station was very noisy and we still hadn’t seen any other England supporters about.

We headed out and into Queens square. There is a massive Weatherspoons on one of the corners and we wandered in . Its was packed but we bumped into some old mates from Middlesborough, Northampton and Gainsborough Trinity. We had a few quiet beers (fellow Albion fans Big Spud and Little Spud also turned up) and then caught one of the free buses provided to Hampden Park. As England fans we got our own bus and it took us to outside the England fans entrance.







The ground was disappointing, they had spent so many millions on it and it still only held 52,000, but at least there were no restricted views and the seats are big enough (unlike Wembley). The atmosphere was buzzing, the 6,000 England fans in fine voice. The Scottish booing of the national anthem was a disgrace and would be returned in full at Wembley during Flower of Scotland. Everyone knew we could win but would the team perform. I won’t comment on the match as I assume most will have seen it. Once Scholes made it 2-0 the Scots fans were stunned into silence. The England fans took full advantage and mercilessly mocked the Scots. The best song being ‘Where’s you famous Hampden Roar’ followed by Shhhhhhh and then virtual silence. The only retort they had was ‘Argentina’ how sad. We could have responded with Iran, Peru, Cost Rica but we didn’t need to fall that low. Also the unfurling of a 30 foot St George’s Cross with ‘Rangers’ across the middle upset a few Scots! After the game the bus from Hampden to Glasgow train stations was a real laugh. The Scots we passed looked distraught. Oh how they hated loosing to England.

We headed back to the safety of Edinburgh (We didn’t see any trouble all weekend) and a few celebratory beers. We met up with some Albion fans exiled in Edinburgh and celebrated the night away. A few of us even had the added bonus of catching a Saw Doctors gig at the Liquid rooms. It was a brilliant weekend so far.

According to Ian St John in his article in one of the Sunday Scottish rags England fans shouldn't take any pride in our win at Hampden. He said we will be humiliated in Euro 2000, and according to Kevin Gallagher the Scots have nothing to fear at Wembey as they played us off the park! Right after me 'Cheer up Craigy Brown - Oh what can it mean - to a sad scottishb******d and a shite football team'

Sunday morning was hell after two night out on the ale. The B&B had arranged an early breakfast so we could set of by 8am for Macclesfield. The minibus was quiet and we all fell asleep for a few hours (Well I hope the driver didn’t!). We arrived in Macclesfield about 1pm and headed into the Silkman. We chatted to several other Albion fans who had also been up to the match and everyone was buzzing! We had to tell our horror of our seats being in the row in front of the Sheff Wednesday band but who cared that we were deaf, we had won 2-0! I have to confess I found it hard to get enthusiastic about the Macc match but was amazed at over 600 Albion fans made the Sunday trip. We were 1-0 down and looking out of it when the team sprung into life for the final 15 minutes. We were rewarded with a Mayo equaliser and that completed a great weekend.


Mark R

H v Belgium (Stadium of Light) 10.10.1999

Carlisle/Sunderland weekend

Once again the England fixture was arranged so that it fitted in perfectly with the Albion match. England vs Belgium at the stadium of light the day after the long trek North to Carlisle for the Albion match. We left Hove at 4am on Saturday morning and had one pick up in North London (I bet we couldn’t find Stoke Newington again!) and the second in Warwick. We arrived in Carlisle just before 12 o’clock, dumped our stuff in the B&B and then headed into town. We met the first train into Carlisle from London and there must have been 100 Albion fans on it. Amazing! We headed into the Caledonian and with Guinness at 3 for the price of 2 we got stuck into the beers. We headed up to the Rugby club next door to the ground to watch the first half of the Sweden v Poland match. I couldn’t watch. We headed to the ground just in time for kick off and the 500+ Albion fans once again were very vocal. Carlisle were the worst team I have seen for a long time and we dominated the match from start to finish. During the first half the first celebration was the news that Sweden had taken the lead against Poland. During half time we heard news of the second goal and England were into the Euro 2000 play offs. Yes!!!! In the second half Warren Aspinall was excellent and he used his footballing brain to be in place to intercept a back pass. He deftly chipped the keeper and immediately made a bee line towards the Albion fans. He slid about 10 yards on his backside (I bet the pitch is still scared to this day) and everyone went wild. After the game we headed back to the rugby club to celebrate the two wins that day and then headed into town. We sampled a few different pubs and then had a very dodgy and expensive Chinese. Peter C was in his usual form and complained when his spare ribs were full of bones!!! Somebody then had to pick the onions out of his main course as he doesn’t like em!!


We left early Sunday morning after Peter C had……no I cant repeat what he did but if he was a child of 3 rather than 37 it would have been more understandable! We finally arrived in Sunderland after Liz had persuaded the nice man in a Police uniform to let us cross the path of the Great North Run. Every route into Sunderland was blocked and we were getting desperate. We headed into the nearest pub and bumped into the Rochdale lads we always see at England games and also some QPR fans who had come up for the weekend. The Stadium of Light is a brilliant stadium, it’s a shame the Sunderland fans didn’t get behind the whole team rather than just Kevin Phillips. Shearer got the expected stick but soon shut them up with a brilliant first goal. The Belgium’s played some great one touch football and soon equalised. Redknapp scored a stunning winner and kept everyone happy. After the match we bumped into the Exeter lads who had spent Saturday night in Shrewsbury (after their league game) . One of them had left at half time as he was sick of the Sunderland fans moaning at everyone but Phillips. It shows the importance of the national stadium being a neutral venue! We headed home on the A1 but due to the increased traffic and a crash when the road reduces from three lanes to two we crawled 50 miles in 4 hours in our Minibus with a dodgy clutch. After the detours on the way home I finally arrive back home at 3am. When my alarm went off at 6.45am I dint feel at my best. Roll on Hampden park on the 13th and once again the Albion match had been moved so once again we can see 2 games in 2 days.

Mark R