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English fans in mourning after loss
Posted: Wednesday July 01, 1998 01:34 PM
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For English fans, four years is a long time to wait for the next shot at World Cup glory (AP) |
LONDON (AP) -- One fan took it out on the TV set, and several
hundred others in dozens of towns and cities across England took to
the streets, smashing shop windows and fighting after England's World Cup
soccer dream collapsed. Newspapers hailed England's team as heroes,
battling with one player short most of the time to hold Argentina to
a draw -- only to lose Tuesday night in St. Etienne, France, in a
nail-biting 4-3 penalty shoot-out. Police reported 45 arrests,
mainly in southern England towns, as shocked fans poured out of pubs.
England coach Glen Hoddle commented that "it's a football match at the end
of the day -- it's not a matter of life and death." But that's not how many
saw England's World Cup defeat on penalties for the third time in eight
years. In the country with the worst record for soccer hooliganism,
and a stunning record for fervor, the English know a disaster when they see
one. A Sky TV phone-in was flooded with callers, many blaming David
Beckham, an 8-million-pound a year star with a Spice Girl for a fiancee. He
got sent off for a retaliatory kick at an Argentine player who fouled him.
"Beckham has let the team, the fans out there and everyone watching at
home down," said Ian Hawkins, 37. "He should never play for England again."
Hawkins was among hundreds of dejected fans, many still wearing
their England replica shirts, who arrived at London's Waterloo station
Wednesday morning, streaming off the English Channel tunnel train from
France. In Poole, on the south England coast, a 29-year-old man
smashed the TV set in his pub, The Tatnum, after England missed the final
penalty. Dorset police said six people were arrested in separate incidents
in the county. In Peterborough, near Cambridge, police armed with
riot shields used tear gas to break up a crowd of about 100 fans fighting
and shouting in the town's Cathedral Square. A policeman was hit in the
face during the fracas, the most serious of 20 incidents in the town.
Police reported scattered disturbances in several other southern
counties, but said most fans were well-behaved. The story of
England's defeat was splashed over national newspapers. "Heroes" said the
Express. "So Cruel" declared the mass-circulation Sun, while
the Mirror announced, "10 Heroic Lions, One Stupid Boy."
"Outcha" said the Daily Star, playing on the notorious Sun
headline "Gotcha" when Britain sank an Argentine warship when the countries
went to war for real over the Falkland Islands colony in 1982. England won
that one. The upbeat note continued with an announcement by British
Airways that it was sending a Concorde supersonic jet to bring the team
home. An estimated 28 million people watched the match on TV,
causing one of the biggest power surges ever recorded -- 2,100 megawatts,
said the National Grid, which operates the power lines. "The surge
at half-time was equivalent to that reached in 1985 during an episode of
`Dallas' when JR was shot," National Grid spokesman Sean Regan said.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who watched the game on television in
his Downing Street home with his children, praised the team as epitomizing
"the English spirit at its very best." "I think people do feel a sense
of frustration because the team had really come into its own," Blair said.
During the Wednesday morning rush-hour, there was little sympathy for
Beckham in Manchester, where the player is a star of the Manchester United
team. "He's supposed to be a professional. He's paid millions of
pounds a year and he goes and does something like that in an important
game," said draughtsman Gary Foden, 32, on his way to work. "It cost
England the match."
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