England (1) 1 Young 35
Wales (0) 0
Att. 77,128
Entrance: £40
Programme: £6.00
Mileage: 100/1,043
Match Report
This has been a difficult time on a personal front following England. My dear friend, John Gilmour, travelling companion to away games with the national team for the past eight years, suffered a heart attack and died on 24 July, he was just 54.John was everything you would want from a football supporter, intensely loyal, he hardly ever missed a game and a man with the correct sense of values towards his fellow human beings, something that I failed to observe at Wembley on Tuesday night. In fact the happenings of the evening besmirched the memory of that fine man.
I’m not going into the incident, just to say that it shook me to the core. On the way home we heard of the Wales supporter that was killed outside Wembley and it reinforced my opinion that, at this level, football is just not worth the risk.
A visit to Wembley for an England international has long since lost its shine. They are always blighted by drunken behaviour but this has only ever affected us on the periphery; we’ve witnessed acts of thuggery but once again it has not directly involved us, Tuesday night was different.
At present I never want to go to an England game ever again. My first international was with my Dad prior to the 1962 World Cup in Chile against Mexico (an 8-0 victory) when midweek games were played in the afternoon as Wembley had no floodlights. Almost 50 years that has taken in the high of Bobby Moore lifting the World Cup to the Wally with the Brolly, time that will be left behind because of the actions of a thug.
As for the game, Ashley Young scored, Robert Earnshaw missed and England put more than one foot into the door of Euro 2012 and I couldn't care less.
RIP John Gilmour.
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