My Process of Pinpointing the ’86 Lads
Right, so I got to thinking about that England squad from the 1986 World Cup. It’s funny how these things just pop into your head, isn’t it? One minute you’re making a brew, the next you’re deep diving into football history from decades ago, trying to remember who was who.
I decided I really wanted to get it straight in my own head, you know, who was actually on the pitch for England and who was pulling the strings from the sideline. It’s not like today where you can just whip out your phone and have every stat imaginable in two seconds flat. Back then, you either knew it, or you had to dig out an old football annual or something. My memory’s not quite what it used to be for every single detail, so I had to really rack my brains and then go back and check a few bits to make sure I wasn’t mixing things up.
So, the gaffer, the main man in charge, that was Bobby Robson, of course. A top, top manager. And for the starting lineup, this is what I pieced together from what I recall and then verified. You had:
- Peter Shilton in goal – an absolute legend between the sticks.
- Then across the back four, it was Gary Stevens, Terry Fenwick, the mighty Terry Butcher – blood and guts, that fella – and Kenny Sansom. A pretty solid defence, all things considered.
- In the midfield, you had Trevor Steven out wide, Peter Reid doing all the hard graft in the middle, Glenn Hoddle with all his unbelievable skill and passing range, and Steve Hodge.
- And up top, leading the line, it was the partnership of Peter Beardsley and Gary Lineker. Lineker was on absolute fire that tournament, wasn’t he? Ended up as the top scorer with six goals.
And I even managed to drag up a memory of one of the key substitutions they often made: Chris Waddle would usually come on, often for Peter Reid, I think it was around the 69th minute in one of the big games, to give a bit more attacking threat and try to change things up.
Why I Bothered With All This Detail, You Ask?
Now, you might be sitting there wondering why on earth I’d go to the trouble of digging all this old stuff up and jotting it down. It’s not like I’m training for some daft quiz show, specializing in 80s football squads. Truth is, it all goes back to a rather embarrassing incident a few years back down at my local pub. They had a pub quiz, right? And the jackpot question, the one that could have won us a decent round of drinks and, more importantly, bragging rights for the week, was about a specific player from a World Cup squad – not even this ’86 one, an earlier one.
And I completely blanked. My mind just went totally fuzzy. My mates still give me proper stick about it to this day. “Mr. Football Know-it-all,” they called me, “couldn’t even remember who played left-back for England in ’70!” or something along those lines. It was absolutely mortifying, I tell ya. I’d always prided myself on knowing this kind of stuff. I grew up with those Panini sticker albums, religiously bought Match magazine every week, the whole shebang. My dad used to test me on squads and scores all the time.
So, after that pub quiz disaster, I sort of made it a little personal hobby. Whenever a particular team or tournament pops into my head, I try to list them out. Old school, with a pen and paper first, then maybe check it online if I’m really stuck. It’s like a mental workout, keeps the brain cells from going completely dormant. And this 1986 squad, well, it was one of the first England teams I properly remember watching as a young lad, feeling all the excitement and then the inevitable heartbreak. That Hand of God, Maradona’s other ridiculous goal… still stings a bit, that whole quarter-final, even now.
So, yeah, that’s my little ritual. Keeps the old grey matter ticking over, and hopefully stops me from making a complete fool of myself at the pub quiz again. Though, knowing my luck, next time the killer question will be on the bloody Paraguayan squad from the 1958 World Cup or something equally obscure that no one in their right mind would remember. You just can’t win sometimes, can ya?
