WHAT did it take to put the brakes on the England U21 team today in 1996? It wasn’t a duff manager, an unbalanced side or even a penalty shoot-out. Instead it was a meagre sandwich.

The Under-21 European Championship qualifying clash with Poland was delayed until 10pm when a small, foil-covered “suspect package” was spotted by an over-enthusiastic steward in a bin in the lower tier of the John Ireland Stand at Molineux.

In came an army unit from Hereford who turned their attention to the package as over 6,000 supporters stood around in the pouring rain. After an x-ray proved to be ‘inconclusive’ - obviously no one thought of opening the foil up - a controlled explosion took place and some poor souls dinner was no more.

Chief Supt Roger Allen, of the West Midlands police force said at the time: “The package was behind where the Royal Marines band would have been sitting. With explosives recently going off in Ireland and of the parts of the country security obviously has to come first.”

Eventually the match got under way, two hours late and those that waited around probably wished the hadn’t have bothered as England, featuring future full-internationals Emile Heskey, Nicky Butt and, ehm, Michael Duberry played out a dull 0-0 draw with their Polish counterparts.



The highlight of the game came at the start of the second half, when Riccardo Scimeca missed a penalty. Scimeca was Gareth Southgate’s understudy at Aston Villa, so this proved for the second time that year that you shouldn’t let Villa centre-backs anywhere near the opposition penalty spot with England.

Sadly, no footage of the infamous sarnie exists on YouTube, so we’ll show you highlights of the England U21’s titanic clash with the Netherlands in the 2007 European Championships. Check out what else was going on today here and unlike the FTSE 100 we’ll be bouncing back tomorrow for more footballing tales.

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