Not All That Glistened Turned Into Golden Balls in 2006

When the World Cup Finals had last been held on German soil, twenty two years previously, my Uncle Dick and I had followed our respective England and Dutch teams closely. Uncle Dick had died of cancer since then but I knew that he would be high up in the stands hoping that Holland would avenge that 1974 defeat to Gerd Muller and his comrades.

For England, this was allegedly the golden generation, forming the best national team since winning the tournament forty years previously. Unfortunately, though David Beckham set them on their way with a trademark free-kick against Paraguay, Sven-Goran Eriksson’s players underperformed yet again and went out to Portugal (on penalties of course) just as they had in the European Championships in 2004. Sam, Nathan and I stood in front of the television, arm-in-arm as yet another major football competition ended in failure for England.

Off the pitch Nathan had gone away to the Royal Ballet School where most of the staff formed an excellent team. Unfortunately others displayed the same egotistic disposition and bullying mentality as some of the English footballers. Sam now travelled by bus each day to high school in nearby Soham, which had its own dark cloud to deal with.

For Leeds, the David O’Leary adventure had ended and the waking nightmare of financial insolvency and relegation to the Championship had become a reality two years earlier. Just before the 2006 World Cup, Leeds had reached the Play-Off final against Watford, with promotion back to the Premiership on the agenda. The game was held in Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium and Nathan, Sam and I drove there on Nathan’s fourteenth birthday, full of expectation after a bruising win against Preston in the semi-final. Sam and I had been to the first leg match at Elland Road and Sam had experienced the full might of Leeds United support for the first time.

The game was another massive disappointment. Watford arrived on time and won 3.0. Leeds didn’t really turn up at all, and probably fell asleep again as they and we got caught up in the endless traffic jam on the M4 afterwards.

Ever since travelling over the River Great Ouse bridge at King’s Lynn as a young boy, on the way to family holidays in Hunstanton, I had had a fear of high bridges over water. Perhaps it was an old Fenland fear of the power of water too. Faced with high winds, as we approached the old Severn bridge, there were several notices indicating that the bridge was closed but, when we got there, it was as open as the goal Rob Hulse had failed to put the ball in just hours earlier.

As we climbed higher and higher Sam and Nathan started to talk about the relative merits of former Leeds United goalkeepers from the back seat of the car. Thankfully they didn’t mention Gary Sprake or I might have gone over the edge. Ian Bennett and Mervyn Day made the list as we made it safely to the other side. I realised then that my sons had only started up this bizarre conversation, insisting that I join in with it, in order to take my mind off of the deep waters below us.

A few weeks later, still waters quickly became choppy as the Dutch and Portuguese kicked lumps out of each other in the World Cup semi-final game which took me back to some of the more brutal football matches of the 1970’s rather than the total football of 1974 when Uncle Dick and I had so admired the silky skills of Cruyff and co.

Ronaldo had headlined by reaching an all-time record number of World Cup goals – 15 – for Brazil, with a goal against Ghana. The 2006 Golden Boot winner, Klose of Germany, would come so close to equalling this in South Africa in 2010.

Zinedine Zidane was due to retire after the 2006 tournament and wanted to prove that he was still as good a header of the ball as he had been when scoring those two goals for France against Ronaldo’s Brazil in the 1998 Final. Unfortunately, though his French team made it to the Final again, he decided to head Italy’s Materazzi instead of the ball and did make his own headlines by being sent off.

As Italy won the World Cup for the fourth time, the golden generation of English footballers was far less real than their sepia-tinged ancestors from 1966. My sons shared my disappointment even as I felt sure that their future would surely be brighter.

See also:

2002: http://sportales.com/soccer/eastern-promise-but-no-progress-in-2002/

1998: http://sportales.com/soccer/stylish-french-and-the-deja-vu-in-1998/ 

1994: http://sportales.com/soccer/hot-and-happy-states-in-1994/

1990: http://sportales.com/soccer/none-shall-sleep-in-italia-90/

1986: http://sportales.com/soccer/did-god-exist-in-1986/

1982: http://sportales.com/soccer/the-rain-and-spain-in-1982/

1978: http://sportales.com/soccer/i-cried-but-not-for-argentina-in-1978/

1974: http://sportales.com/soccer/by-the-1974-world-cup-i-had-grown-but-we-had-declined/

1970: http://sportales.com/soccer/the-1970-world-cup-the-end-of-a-golden-age/

1966: http://sportales.com/soccer/i-was-six-in-1966-and-thought-the-world-cup-was-just-for-fun/

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