October 13 – Did he not like that

IN the last few weeks there has been some essential television viewing for England fans, and it wasn’t the 5-1 win over Kazakstan on Saturday.

In 1994 Channel 4 broadcast one of the best documentaries ever made about football, or indeed any subject, An Impossible Job. In a decision he would surely come to regret, England manager Graham Taylor agreed to have a film crew follow him around during England’s qualification campaign for the 1994 World Cup in the USA. The film was re-shown for the first time by ITV this month, click here to see Taylor and others reflecting on the film.

Not only did Taylor grant the crew extremely close access, he also allowed his team talks to be recorded, and was wired up to a mic during matches which revealed to the public his penchant for the ‘f’ word and his memorable catchphrase: “Do I not like that.”

Taylor was under pressure following a 2-0 loss away to Norway in June, but some confidence was restored after England beat Poland 3-0 at Wembley in September.

Norway were by now looking good for top spot in the group leaving Holland and England to fight it out for second place. They met in the de Kuip Stadion in Rotterdam for the decisive game on this day in 1993. The victors would be in the box seat for qualification while the losers would be contemplating a long football-less summer in 1994.

The match was largely decided on two pivotal moments. On 56 minutes David Platt was sent through on goal and was wrestled to the ground by Ronald Koeman on the edge of the box.

The England players and coaches thought it was a penalty and red card for Koeman. Gary Pallister said later: “It was a blatant sending-off but because it was Koeman and it was in Holland, the referee [Karl-Josef Assenmacher, from Germany] bottled the decision. Everyone knew he should have gone, including the Dutch players.”

Platt said: ” I thought I saw the ref pointing to the penalty spot. I took them, so I collected the ball so I could control the situation. There was a melee around the ref. It was only then that I thought: ‘Shit, Koeman’s off as well.’ It looked like they were going to be down to 10 men and, if I knocked the penalty in, we would be a goal up. But I saw Incey remonstrating with the referee and realised he’d only given a free-kick.”

Taylor was incensed, and remonstrated wildly with the fourth official and the linesman while Phil Neal cemented his position as the world’s biggest yes-man by simply agreeing with everything Taylor said.

Tony Dorigo took the free-kick which was charged down by the Dutch wall and came to nothing, but five minuted later things got worse for Taylor and England. Another foul, this time on the edge of the England box, saw Ronald Koeman step up to take the free-kick. His first effort was charged down by Paul Ince, in much the same way the Dutch wall had dealt with Dorigo’s kick earlier, but this time Ince was booked and the referee ordered the kick to be re-taken.

This time Koeman made no mistake and curled the ball over the wall and past David Seaman into the net. Taylor was incandescent by now and continued to barrack the fourth official saying: “You see, at the end of the day, I get the sack. Will you say to the fella, the referee has got me the sack … Thank him ever so much for that, won’t you?”

He said later: “What people forget is that when we were awarded the free-kick, the Dutch wall encroached and the referee did nothing. Koeman, though, was allowed to retake his free-kick and Paul Ince was booked for doing just that. Well, I lost it. Things were not right. The fourth official, Markus Merk [now a top Fifa referee], was excellent to me. He could have sent me off. He knew that the referee had made a major mistake. He kept saying: ‘I know Mr Taylor, I know Mr Taylor, please sit down.’ All these years later I still feel the team was cheated. To my knowledge the referee never handled a top game again.”

Paul Merson hit the post for England but Dennis Bergkamp scored another to win the match 2-0 for Holland. Back at Wembley a month later England put seven past San Marino, despite famously conceeding to the part-timers in the opening seconds, but it was not enough and England had missed out on the World Cup. Taylor resigned and is in a two horse race with Steve McClaren for the title of worst ever England boss.

He said: “Because we lost and didn’t qualify, I received a lot of stick. Despite what people might say about the documentary, at least my passion was shown. I know I used the F-word 25 times in a 50-minute programme. But I was being filmed for two years. Tell me anyone in football who wouldn’t swear that many times over two years?”

We will leave you with some footage from the documentary of the Holland match below, but have a look at Taylor dealing with football journalist Rob Shepherd in a hilarious press conference before the match here. Today also marks the anniversary of the first ever Merseyside derby which you can read about here.