England’s Euro 96 team faced far worse criticism than Gareth Southgate’s side

When England prepared to face the Netherlands in what would be one of the national team’s greatest ever days at Wembley in June 1996, both squads and both managers found themselves under the kind of scrutiny Gareth Southgate would now consider familiar.

By then one of Terry Venables’ first-choice defenders, Southgate was not part of the pre-Euro 96 night out in Hong Kong and Paul Gascoigne’s alcohol consumption on the infamous dentist’s chair. Neither was he one of those accused of damaging a Cathay Pacific jet on the flight home. By the time England had scraped only a draw with Switzerland in their opening game at Wembley, and beaten Scotland, Venables was facing a third round of accusations.

The tabloid newspapers of the day, then locked in a bitter sales war, had discovered three of Venables’ players – Sol Campbell, Jamie Redknapp and Teddy Sheringham – drinking in an Essex nightclub. Venables explained that the matter had been blown out of proportion. The players had been given the day off to go home. “It amazes me,” Venables said, “when the Irish [team] did it you’re all thinking how funny it is … but suddenly it’s us and it’s a different attitude altogether.”

The mood was about to change sharply between the team and the English media in the days to come, but at that point there was no disguising the tension. As England face another moment of reckoning with the Dutch at Euro 2024 in Wednesday’s semi-final, the criticism comes much harder from social media and the pundit class, which is different to 28 years ago.

Venables, paid handsomely as a newspaper columnist, and friend to many of the football reporters of the day, was unsparing. “There are a few [journalists] who seem like traitors to us,” he said. “They are turning the public against the players, which can turn them against us in the stadium.”

Over at the Dutch camp across the home counties in Hertfordshire, Guus Hiddink was faring little better. After a draw with Scotland in the first game, Hiddink had dropped Edgar Davids for what turned out to be a hard-fought 2-0 win over Switzerland. Davids, then 23, had not taken the news well. “What am I to think when the coach has his hands and head up the a--- of certain players?” Davids wondered to Dutch reporters. Hiddink had demanded he apologise. Davids agreed to apologise for the choice of language but not the sentiment. Hiddink sent him home.

The Dutch camp was, commentators at the time agreed, split between an old guard of Dennis Bergkamp, Danny Blind and Ronald De Boer, and the new generation of Davids, Clarence Seedorf, Michael Reiziger and Patrick Kluivert. This kind of rift was nothing new for the Netherlands. Ruud Gullit remarked in his newspaper column that week: “I can’t say I’m surprised at the trouble in the Dutch camp. It wouldn’t be a major tournament if there wasn’t talk of rows and disagreements.”

Following a Dutch habit going back to the 1970s, Gullit himself had fallen out with manager Dick Advocaat at the 1994 World Cup finals and walked out the pre-tournament camp. In the end even the 4-1 defeat at Wembley was enough for the Netherlands to progress to the last eight, where they would lose on penalties to France. Kluivert’s 78th-minute goal, with the Dutch four down at the time, was critical.

That goal put the Netherlands level on goal difference with Scotland in Group A, both on four points. The Netherlands went through on goals scored. Scotland were out. Kluivert had been the subject of one of Nike’s guerrilla marketing campaigns around the tournament. A huge billboard at Wembley Park tube station featuring a moody portrait of Kluivert, the Dutch flag as the background, proclaimed “Venables, quit now”. Kluivert’s goal against England would be his only one at Euro 96.

Previewing the game as a guest columnist in the Sunday Telegraph, the Manchester United manager of the time, Alex Ferguson, considered the Dutch “excellent rather than truly exceptional”. He noticed that if disrupted, “they seem to lose their trust in each other and that is fundamental to the Ajax system”. Under Louis van Gaal, Ajax had won the Champions League in 1995 and were finalists again one year later, losing to Juventus. The Dutch team was built on many of those Ajax players.

Ferguson also noted that while he regarded Peter Schmeichel as Europe’s best goalkeeper, he admired the talent of the 25-year-old in goal for the Netherlands. “Even though Edwin Van der Sar has not yet had to make too many breathtaking saves, he does look the part,” Ferguson wrote. Hiddink was without star winger Marc Overmars, who had been injured before the tournament.

Venables would not change the England XI that had beaten Scotland although he could no longer call upon the injured Redknapp, who had been a half-time game-changing substitute against the Scots. Even a draw would have been enough for England to win the group and continue playing their games at Wembley – but in the end theirs would be the performance that ignited the nation’s hopes.

Euro 96 had a slow start. The English Football Association, a key part of the organisation of the tournament, had come under criticism for its ticketing policy. Many tickets destined for overseas fans had been returned unsold and were then put on general sale, although the pre-digital era meant that the phonelines were overwhelmed. There were 19,000 calls to the contractors Synchro Systems for a few thousand extra tickets for England’s second game against Scotland.

Senior police officers were unhappy about the ad hoc sale of tickets by clubs hosting games, approved by the FA at the last minute. Previously all tickets had been sent by post which had allowed for security checks. But Scotland’s 0-0 draw with the Netherlands at Villa Park had not sold out and the FA did not like the prospect of empty seats. Police figures feared those rushed sales could affect careful planning to stop crowd trouble.

There were other more esoteric concerns about the huge influx of Dutch fans. A source in HM Revenue and Customs told the Telegraph that Euro 96 was being used by Dutch smugglers as cover to bring in ecstasy tablets and amphetamine to sell on the streets of Britain. “Euro 96 is the perfect cover for the smugglers because of the sheer number of travellers,” the Telegraph was told at the time.

Although it was not just the football that the Dutch were coming to Britain for that year in startling numbers. The BBC had syndicated its popular show Lovejoy, starring Ian McShane as a roguish antiques dealer, to a Dutch broadcaster, whereupon it had proved a hit in the Netherlands. The owner of a 400-year-old hotel in Halstead, north Essex, where members of the cast had stayed during filming, had arranged a Lovejoy tour. More than 6,000 Dutch Lovejoy fans booked trips.

After the 4-1 victory at Wembley, beyond all expectation for England, some scores were settled. “I can’t believe you guys ran us down so badly,” Sheringham said to the English press, having scored two of England’s goals. “The quality of our side is unbelievable, and the sooner you guys realise that and start backing us the better we will do.”

From 5.30am on the Wednesday morning that followed, thousands queued outside Wembley for tickets for the quarter-final against Spain. A further 3,000 were sold by 9am that morning by the embattled phone operators. Sales were only stopped on the phonelines in order to satisfy the demand of those who had waited at Wembley.

With English football having struggled against hooliganism and the national embarrassment of fan violence at Euro 88 and the 1990 World Cup finals, at Euro 96 the signs were that the problem was easing. Frank Skinner and David Baddiel, popular presenters of the Fantasy Football TV show, had recorded Three Lions (Football’s Coming Home) with The Lightning Seeds. The video featured members of the Euro 96 squad recreating great moments from England’s history, as the show did each week in its phoenix from the flames segment.

The song was a slow burner in stadiums, and nothing like the global anthem it is now. Instead England fans had recently adopted the England rugby anthem “Swing Low Sweet Chariot”. Speaking to the Telegraph, Helen Joslin of the Football Supporters’ Association, as it was then, said she found the rugby song “a bit boring”. “Recently I have heard a lot of people singing the Baddiel-Skinner song,” she added, “and that is catching on.”