England 1 Denmark 0

Match 64/13/1091 - Wedmesday, 5th March 2014 - International

England (0) 1 Sturridge 82
Denmark (0) 0
Att. 68,573

Entrance: £30
Programme: £6
Mileage: 160/6,478

Match Report

I am going to officially hang-up my boots from International Friendlies, if I needed any confirmation that this decision was to be the correct one, it was the Roy Hodgson interview on the radio on the way home. I've no axe to grind with Roy, he is doing a good job with the "tools" he has at his disposal, but the interview smacked of taking the paying public for mugs. Hodgson explained his delight at the victory and took many positives from the game, such was the upbeat nature it left me to wonder whether I had actually attended the wrong stadium.

For years, long before Roy, probably long before Sven, these friendlies have been pointless and tedious. For us England fans that wished to travel to the high profile tournaments and qualifying games accumulating loyalty points through attendance was the only way to ensure tickets and even then just a couple of missed games could lead to being outside of the number of caps needed for the most sought after games. The member was being held to ransom, we probably still are but I'm no longer prepared to suffer these games for any reason.

Over the years, I've seen a few England v Denmark or Sweden games and they always follow the same pattern . . . they are so boring. This one was no exception, it was probably worse. Roy may take a lot of positives, I can think of just three, one on the pitch and two off. On the pitch there is the Southampton connection with Adam Lallana coming off the bench to inject a bit of quality and laying the winning goal on a plate for Daniel Sturridge and Luke Shaw looking strong and composed, belying his tender 18 years. Off the pitch, we had a welcome quiet night, with no thugs and drunks to contend with. The final plus was the fantastic response to the tribute to Sir Tom Finney. He shared his minute’s applause with Bert Williams and the Danish manager from the 90s, Richard Moller Nielsen. As Finney’s name was announced the applause began to ring around Wembley, no prompt from the referee’s whistle was required, it brought a lump to my throat for a man I never saw play but just had the word of my seniors that the man was worthy of the title of legend.

We had a couple of inward laughs at some of the people around us though. Just prior to kick-off a group of six well-dressed young men politely passed us to their seats. They looked as though they had come straight from their jobs in the City. One of the lads was carrying his paperback book, it amused us and when they exited their seats with about five minutes remaining, I'm sure his bookmarker had moved on about 50 pages. But joking apart, I'm absolutely sure he got more out of his evening with his head buried in his novel than we did staring at the tedium being served up on the Wembley turf.

And then there was the couple behind us. They were middle-aged and it would be easy to ascertain that the wife hadn't been to many football matches in her lifetime. Her husband spent the early stages of game explaining who each player was and when he came to Sturridge he simply explained that he played for Liverpool . . . on the TV! I suppose it tells us all where we are at with football and television in 2014.

I understand that Argentina are going to be one of the early opponents next season in a friendly and that will test my resolve. I've no doubt that the opportunity to see Messi and Co will be a big hook and I'm probably going to be reeled in, but can I expect anything different from this woeful experience, I doubt it very much.