February 12 – Strewth Sven | On This Football Day

February 12 – Strewth Sven

G’DAY cobbers and welcome back to OTFD. It’s time to park up the yute, grab a tinny and let those wallabies loose Bruce because today we’re taking a look at an England friendly that was played on this day in 2003 when the Three Lions looked more like a bunch of flaming galahs and Sven was throwing on subs like they were shrimps on a barbie.

Lazy stereotypes aside, and if you haven’t already worked this one out for yourself, England’s opponents that day for the match at West Ham’s Boleyn Ground were Australia.

Where to start with this one. Probably at the beginning. Before kick-off most England fans were acting like the colonial master of a couple of centuries ago about the Aussies trying to play the English national game.

“They may beat us at rugby, cricket, tennis, swimming and just about every other sport, but they will rue the day they took us on at football,” thought the English with a patronising chuckle. And when the Socceroos line up included such heavyweights as Stan Lazaridis, Tony Popovic and Paul Okon it was hard to see anything other than an England win.

However, pride comes before a Burton and a fairly full-strength England team (save for James Beattie playing in his first international) soon came unstuck through Crystal Palace defender Tony Popovic’s goal on 17 minutes. Harry Kewell (before he decided playing in anything other than the Champions League final was beneath him) added another to make it 2-0 to the Socceroos at half time.

Time for a stirring half-time team talk from Sven followed by a spirited comeback from England’s heroes against these colonial upstarts? Erm, no. Instead Sven substituted every single player to send out a completely changed side for the second half.

This experimental young side saw Wayne Rooney make his first appearance in an England shirt and play up front with forgotten man Franny Jeffers.

The young pretenders started to fair a lot better than their senior counterparts who had been booed off at half-time and Franny Jeffers pulled one back to mark what will surely be his only England start with his only England goal on 69 minutes.

A late goal from Brett Emerton ensured that Jeffers’ strike was nothing more than consolation as the away side ran out 3-1 winners to leave England officially crap at every sport ever invented.

At the time it seemed like the lowest ebb for the English national team, but then along came Second-Choice-Steve and his rather fetching umbrella to show us all what low really was.

And on that bombshell we leave you with some lowlights of the match. Unlike some other Australian franchises were are not going to shoot through to Channel 5 so come back tomorrow for more from us.