It was the era of Braveheart, and Mel Gibson references were rife in the British press on the eve of a crucial Euro 96 six-pointer derby match. England vs Scotland at Wembley Stadium.
Trevor Brooking, on commentary duty that day reinforced the obvious: “I can’t think of a bigger game that any of these players could play in.”
Paul Gascoigne was portrayed as Henry V; Gary McAllister, William Wallace. On pundit duty, Alan Hansen was balanced with Tartan Army hate figure Jimmy Hill.
VIDEO Alan Shearer Explains How England Could Have Won The Euros
New Chelsea boss Ruud Gullit was drafted as neutral, with the effortlessly cool Des Lynam refereeing and 28 years later we’re still talking about it.
“All England-Scotland games, whether at Wembley or Hampden Park, are big games.” Alan Shearer tells FourFourTwo in 2024. “That result [2-0 win vs Scotland] could have gone either way as well. We hadn’t played fantastically well against Switzerland – we drew that game 1-1.
“Against Scotland, we got a little bit of luck with them missing the penalty at 1-0 – if they’d scored, then who knows? They miss it, then we’re up the other end and Gazza scores that amazing goal.
“It’s funny, because not many people remember who scored the first goal. Obviously I do, but everyone remembers Gazza, and rightly so, because that was such an iconic moment in English football.
“To do it against Scotland, at Wembley, and in a major tournament, the brilliance of that goal was just something else. Not many people could have done that.”
It wasn’t the only miraculous thing that happened on the pitch at Wembley on that blazing hot afternoon. The key moment of the game came as Gary McAllister ran up to belt his penalty.
Replays showed the ball clearly moved. It rolled, subtly, but enough to be captured on camera. McAllister has since admitted he noticed it and it can’t have helped his efforts to beat David Seaman.
Speaking to FourFourTwo last year, McAllister revealed "During the pandemic, all of the games from that summer were shown on TV. I’d never watched the England match back because of the penalty I missed – when Uri Gellar made the ball move!”
The 90s TV personality, Geller, later claimed it was HE who moved the ball using psychic powers. Shearer admits he didn’t see it at the time, and doesn’t recall players discussing it either.
“Who was the guy that tried to claim he moved it? Uri Geller! I remember reading about that nonsense,” he said.
McAllister meanwhile told FourFourTwo: “There’s no doubt in my mind that the result would have been different had I netted the penalty. England took the initiative after David Seaman saved it. Had I scored, I think we’d probably have won that match.”
Alan Shearer was speaking to FourFourTwo as part of his work with Topps to promote the official UEFA EURO 2024 sticker collection, available now from Topps.com and all good retailers
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