You know the story of Euro 96, don’t you? A footballing opera played out against a backdrop of endless summer, accompanied by a timeless theme song, with cameo roles for great goals and that most enduring of central themes: England coming up agonisingly short (even before the tournament began, it was “thirty years of hurt”).
Except, as is so often the case, the pocket opera tells only half of the story. Euro 96 was far more nuanced and more complicated than that. Albeit not on this subject, Charles Dickens penned: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” - and that was Euro 96.
