Scottish Football Forums

We’re onto the penultimate episode of our Euro ’92 throwback series, and it’s onto the fortunes of the two home nations England and Scotland. In this episode, John Bleasdale talks to England striker Alan Smith, and leading Scottish Sports Writer Hugh MacDonald. Alan talks about England’s tight qualifying group where they sneaked through ahead of Republic of Ireland by one point, and his part in the campaign with the winning goal against Turkey at Wembley. He then goes into detail about why this England side didn’t have the same expectation of winning the tournament, with injuries in certain areas playing a part, before analysing their sub-standard performances in Sweden, culminating in a 2-1 loss to the hosts that sent them home. Alan goes into detail about that substitution where he replaced Gary Lineker and how he felt at replacing a man he was expecting to partner, and also how the stick for manager Graham Taylor was over the top. It was a tournament to forget for England, added by the riots of a section