April 22 – Neville Neville Will be Proud

EVERYBODY’S favourite footballing family were making the headlines today in 1998, when the Neville’s became the first ever brothers to replace each other as substitutes for the England team.

England’s opponents that day were Portugal at Wembley Stadium as Glenn Hoddle prepared for the upcoming World Cup in France.

In their usual build-up-the-nation’s-confidence-before-a-major-tournament style England coasted to 3-0 lead with 25 minutes remaining thanks to a brace from Alan Shearer and a Teddy Sheringham strike.

This meant that Hoddle looked at his subs bench, and after he threw on the promising youngster Michael Owen he decided that his right back Gary Neville should be replaced by little brother Phil.

Between the pair of them the Neville brothers have notched up 144 caps for the national team, making them England’s most successful pair of siblings. How proud their father, and inspiration of one of Old Trafford’s best songs, Neville Neville must be.

During the Hoddle/Keegan/Sven years the brothers had quite a rivalry, with Phil claiming in 2001 that “I want to be a regular. If that means dislodging Gary, then so be it.”

Despite this fighting talk, Gary has ended up with more caps and poor old Phil has never made it to a World Cup squad. It looks like their England days are well and truly behind them now so Gary the elder looks to have secured the family’s cap-based bragging rights.

Don’t tell Neville Neville, but with the emergence of the da Silva twins in the Manchester United team means that the Neviller’s place as top Old Trafford brothers may be under threat.

And they’re not to everyone’s tastes. All you have to do is ask Liverpool fans or even Jaap Stam, who said the brothers were: “”busy c**** for their endless grumbling about everything in general and nothing in particular. They never stop.”

Jaap would probably appreciate this clip, so have a giggle and see what else was happening in the big bad world of football today here.