England winners at nostalgia but we should not believe the Euro 96 hype

The images remain as clear as crystal, even with 20 years’ distance. Teddy Sheringham floats a crossfield ball, which hangs above Wembley like a drone before dropping on Alan Shearer’s right boot. The intended shot bobbles towards the six-yard box, evading Andreas Köpke’s fingertips. Paul Gascoigne charges, stretches, connects. Hands go up. Mouths scream. But while his legs end up scissored in the net, the ball evades his outstretched boot. Arms flop. Hopes sink. Soon afterwards comes the familiar conclusion: England lose on penalties to Germany again.

As a sun-blushed Terry Venables told the BBC last week: “I just don’t know how we didn’t win. Best time of our lives.”

Judging by conversations with friends and across social media following the broadcast of Shearer’s Euro 96, an overly warm look back on the competition, Venables was merely echoing the thoughts of a nation. England may not win much but few can match it for nostalgia. And that tournament, when football supposedly came home, is more sepia-tinged than most.

Shearer’s documentary took us back to a time where the tawdry spirits which formed Cool Britannia were fermenting; a few months before the big bang of a Newsweek cover which pronounced London as “the world’s coolest city”. Yet – remarkably – almost everything appeared staggeringly uncool. This was a land where the new lad looked remarkably like the old lad only with worse hair; and where wearing curtains, drinking Hooper’s Hooch and declaring Oasis as the greatest rock band since the Beatles was mainstream thought. The collective psychosis extended to Euro 96.

While England rocked the nation, too many other matches sent people to sleep. There were 2.06 goals a game and only nine in seven knockout matches – figures lower than Euro 2004, widely considered to be the worst European championship of them all. The crowds were just as patchy: 21,528 watched Russia’s 3-3 draw with the Czech Republic at Anfield, while only 19,107 bothered with Bulgaria against Romania at St James’ Park. Football’s coming home? More like fans staying at home.

Few English fans will remember what happened at Euro 2000 with such fondness, given England slumped out in the group stages, yet it was perhaps the greatest tournament of all our lives: football’s answer to Pet Sounds in its sustained brilliance. There were arguably 10 classic games, topped by Spain’s glorious 4-3 comeback against Yugoslavia, as well as a staggering average of 2.74 goals a game. Even one of the three goalless draws – Italy v Holland – produced one of the best nil-nils ever, while a desperately poor England team were involved in two thrillers, against Portugal and Romania.

Only the most myopic would argue that Euro 96 was better. Yet Shearer’s documentary captured how much England’s performances lifted the tournament and the nation. It did not matter that Venables’ side were patchy against Switzerland and Scotland and should have lost to Spain. A stunning obliteration of a Holland side riven with feuding and factionalism and that stirring semi-final against Germany, were enough to cherish.

The programme also provided a neat snapshot of how England’s fan culture was morphing. Speaking to Shearer, David Baddiel and Frank Skinner wondered whether it had started at Italia 90 but Bill Buford’s classic book Among the Thugs, leaves no room for doubt that English hooliganism was still rampant at that World Cup.

The hardcore England supporters Buford meets are vigorously nationalistic, desperate to prove their cultural superiority to every foreigner they meet. In Italia 90 he describes a pack of fans who possess a bloated code of maleness, an exaggerated patriotism, and a “lad culture so deadened that it uses violences to pick itself up”. And there are thousands of them.

The book ends with Buford being smashed to bits by the truncheons of Italian policemen, having earlier been part of a large mob of “bored ugly boys of the Union Jack” who charged cops before England’s World Cup match against Holland.

In Euro 96 those fans still existed – a Russian supporter was stabbed after the Germany game, remember – and one would have been brave not to expect eruptions of violence and rage in the forthcoming European Championship in France either. But the numbers were dwindling – helped by all-seater stadiums, closed circuit TV, better police intelligence and a slowly changing fan culture.

And it has been slow. Most people think Italia 90 and Euro 96 rapidly transformed English football by bringing newer, richer supporters into the game. But in the Economics of Football the respected academics Stephen Dobson and John Goddard cite a review of 11 studies of fans between 1983 and 1997 which, they say, “questions the common perception that the demographic composition of a typical 1990s crowd was markedly different to that of its predecessors in earlier decades”.

Another myth: the crowds for English football did not immediately spike after either tournament. In 1990, an aggregate of 19.5 million people watched a match in the top four divisions. The following year it was still 19.5 million. By 1996 the total attendances in English football were 21.8 million. A season later that figure had gone up by only 100,000.

However, by the late 90s those figures were skipping upwards by roughly a million a season. True, larger stadiums helped but so, undoubtedly, did the spirit of Euro 96.