England v Brazil 27th May 2000, Wembley (friendly)

After my first game against Argentina, I completed the South America powerhouse set by seeing Brazil in my next game. This was a saturday game in front of a pretty much sold out crowd. It finished 1-1. This was the first of a couple of games warming up to Euro 2000 in belgium/holland.

Venue: Wembley Stadium, Wembley, London, capacity 79,045.
Attendance: 73,956.
Goals: England - Michael Owen, 38th min. Brazil - França, 45th min.
Kickoff 3.30 p.m. BST; delayed due to London Underground congestion. Rain & hail.

Teams presented to Gary Lineker, O.B.E.

 

 

England v Argentina 23rd Feb 2000, Wembley (friendly)

My first England game was at the old Wembley for a wednesday night friendly against Argentina. I had been to wembley several times before for Play-Off games but it was different seeing England. I went with my Dad who picked me up from Cheltenham on his way down from Cheshire. It finished 0-0 but I still had a great experience and wanted more!

Attendance: 74,008.
Kickoff 8:00 p.m. GMT; weather dry, brisk and cool, 10ºC; pitch firm.

A minute's silence before kickoff was observed following the death earlier in the day of Sir Stanley Matthews. The England team and most of the Argentine players wore black armbands.

My England football story 2000-2004

I went to my first England game in 2000 after years of watching England's games on TV since my first England memories from the 1990 World Cup in Italy. I spent summer 1998 in France and wished I could have been at some of the games in the World Cup there that year. I had been going to football games for years starting in 1985 as a 7 year old when my Dad first took me to Anfield and then from about 1991 onwards I started watching Crewe (my local team). It was every home game at first but soon included lots of away games too.

By late 1999 I had left university and had a job so I could expand my horizons beyond watching just Crewe home & away each week. I joined the England Members Club (EMC) which was later to become Englandfans and got tickets to the next game available which was Argentina (h). After that I went to as many games as I could wth England culminating in going to Portugal in 2004 for the Euro's. In late summer 2004 my job moved to the USA and that completely stopped my England watching with the exception being the USA tour in 2005! In hindsight I wish I had gone to Japan in 2002 for the world cup (I had enough loyalty points for tickets) but I was too cash strapped at the time.

Anyway, I just wanted to list my England matches on a blog to bring back some memories with pictures, tickets and badges included if I have them.