How the Socceroos’ 2003 upset win over England shaped Australian football

In the history of the Anglo-Australian sporting rivalry, 2003 was a big year. The Wallabies and England clashed in the Rugby World Cup final in Sydney, the Kangaroos and Great Britain locked horns in rugby league’s Ashes, while in cricket Australia romped to an Ashes triumph on home soil.

But it was a round-ball international friendly in mid-February, on a cold night in east London, that perhaps lives longest in the memory, especially for those with antipodean minds. That was when the Socceroos’ motley crew of underdogs took on Sven-Goran Erickson’s England at Upton Park and sprung a stunning 3-1 upset.

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Then ranked 50th in the world, compared with England’s eighth, Australia had never beaten the motherland in its national pastime. However, first-half goals to Tony Popovic and Harry Kewell, followed by a second-half strike by Brett Emerton, ensured an illustrious, history-making victory that left one country chastened and another elated.

The Age newspaper described it as “one of the biggest upsets in soccer history” while The Sun greeted the defeat the next day with a headline of “KANGA POO: Stinking England dumped on by Aussies.” From the English perspective, it was a humiliating defeat they never saw coming, despite Eriksson’s experimental decision to field different starting XIs in each half, a ploy later banned by Fifa.

“I don’t think anyone outside the playing camp had the belief that we could go there and win,” recalls former Socceroo Tony Vidmar, who came on as a second half substitute.

“But that was the group of players we had, the self-belief was huge. It wasn’t the first time we’d come up against a top nation and knocked them off. We always had that in our bag. We knew it was going to be a tough game and we rose to the occasion.”

Despite the Iran nightmare in 1997, World Cup qualification heartbreak against Uruguay in 2001 and the Oceania Nations Cup failure in 2002, this was a Socceroos side brimming with quality – including Kewell and Mark Viduka up front, Paul Okon and Josip Skoko in midfield, Tony Popovic and Lucas Neill at the back and Mark Schwarzer in goal.

At the time, Football administration in Australia was on the verge of collapse, with the National Soccer League (NSL) and governing body Soccer Australia on life support, and the Crawford report – which led to huge reform of the sport’s governance – a mere five months away. But this was a very talented team. The undercurrent may have been a code in crisis, but the result at the home of West Ham would hint at the better times soon to come.

“That was as big as it got for Australian football in that period,” says journalist David Davutovic, who covered the game. “It was the first time the full squad had assembled since the Montevideo heartbreak 15 months earlier and the backdrop was that Fifa had just announced Oceania would receive direct entry into the 2006 World Cup, whilst we hadn’t played England since the Premier League era began.

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“The match underlined the missed opportunity of the 2002 Fifa World Cup. That Socceroos team that beat England was strong, in-form and playing at the highest levels. The Upton Park win was a huge morale boost as we were nearing 30 years without World Cup qualification, Soccer Australia was cash-strapped, the NSL was flagging. That match undoubtedly helped change the course of Australian football.”

The England side they faced that night were no mugs either. Captained by David Beckham, it featured Michael Owen in attack, a midfield of Frank Lampard, Paul Scholes and his Manchester United teammate, along with Sol Campbell, Rio Ferdinand, Gary Neville and Ashley Cole.

“It was a friendly game – but they’re never friendly,” Vidmar says. “That doesn’t exist. For Sven to come out and say he was going to play two different XIs was probably a poor choice.

“We want to prove we could play football and that’s what we did. I don’t think the players in that first XI for England wanted to come off because there was a bit of chaos in the game. We performed well and it’s probably something they regretted after.”

While the Australian fans cheered long into the night after the victory, sport writer and author Matthew Hall remembers the Socceroos side being “incredibly professional”.

“Australia had trained at Tottenham Hotspurs’ training ground the week before the game and while the result against England was not a surprise, if you had said that 20 years later an Australian coach would have led Tottenham to the top of the Premier League we would have probably said you were having a laugh,” Hall says.

Two years later the Socceroos ended 32 years of World Cup hurt by qualifying for the 2006 tournament. The A-League was formed and football was irrevocably redeemed in Australia. Now, 20 years on, the Socceroos and England meet again in London, this time in front of a sold-out Wembley. Like in 2003, an England victory is expected.

But Vidmar, now an assistant coach with the Socceroos, isn’t underestimating the chance of history repeating itself.

“We can win,” he says, “If the players have that belief, as they showed in the World Cup, it doesn’t matter which team we’re playing against.”

• Follow all the buildup and every minute of the international friendly between England and Australia in London with the Guardian’s live blog on Saturday (Sunday AEDT)