England in Friendly Competition
The very first international match, featuring England away
to Scotland on 30 November 1872, was a friendly. Friendly internationals
preceded the first tournament matches, those of the British or Home
International Championship, by more than 11 years. As of 16 November
2007,
England had played 332 friendly matches. More than a third of England's
total matches have been friendlies, although, with the increase in tournament
matches over the past few decades, that percentage is constantly diminishing.
Friendly Match Classification
Friendly matches are those which are not part of
a tournament or cup competition.
They are commonly contrasted with "competitive" matches, and the
implication is that they are not competitive. But friendlies are
competitive in the sense that both teams are trying
to win the match or at least supposed to be trying to win under FIFA's fair play
rule. Indeed, many of England's friendly matches have been distinctly
unfriendly and have been hard-fought affairs, as competitive as any tournament
match. Through the greater part of the team's history, England met
teams from outside the British Isles only in friendly matches, and considerable
prestige was at stake. Some of England's most famous victories and
defeats have come in friendly matches. For these reasons, we have titled
this section of our website "England in Friendly Competition."
Because of the rather narrow popular concept of
"competitive matches," it is also common to designate as a
“friendly” any match which is not part of one of the major
tournaments in which England have taken part—the British Championship
(also known as the Home International Championship), the World Cup and
the European Championship (formerly known as the European Nations' Cup).
But we also exclude from the “friendly” category certain
minor tournament or cup matches which, although not part of one of the
major tournaments, nevertheless present a distinctly competitive element
missing from friendly matches.
Thus, unlike some other works on the national
side's history, we do not label
as “friendly” any match played in a minor tournament or any
stand-alone match played for a cup that England contested on a regular
basis. However, we do label
as “friendly” stand-alone cup games which England played on a
one-off basis. Those games
are more akin to friendly matches in which the winning team just
happened to be awarded a trophy than they are to competitive tournament
or cup matches.
Thus, for example, we have classed as minor
tournament/cup matches rather than friendly matches all those which
England played for the Rous Cup because, although it involved only a
single match against Scotland the first two times it was contested,
England competed for that cup regularly from 1985 to 1989.
But we have classed as a friendly, for example, England's match
against South Africa on 22 May 2003 because, although the International
Launch Trophy commemorating the launch of South Africa's bid to host
World Cup 2010 was awarded to England for their 2-1 victory, the match
was a one-off affair and in substance merely a friendly in which the
winning team was awarded a cup.
Friendly Match History
The first 19 matches England played, from the
scoreless away draw against Scotland on 30 November 1872 to the 3-2 home
loss to Scotland on 10 March 1883, were friendlies.
No tournament existed until the British or Home
International Championship was established in the 1883-84 season. The next 75 matches England played, from the 8-1 away win
against Ireland on 23 February 1884 to the 1-1 draw with Scotland on 4
April 1908, were all part of the annual British Championship tournament.
England resumed playing friendlies only on the first Continental tour
at the end of the
1907-08 season when they met foreign opposition for the first time in two matches against Austria
followed by single games against Hungary and Bohemia. At the
end of the 1908-09 season came another tour with two friendly matches
against Hungary followed by one in Austria. But England had no
further encounters with foreign sides until after World War I, and a string of 21
consecutive British Championship matches followed. The
next friendly match did not come until the end of the 1920-21 season, when England
met Belgium in Brussels. Beginning with the 1922-23 season,
friendly matches became a regular feature of the England
programme. In only one season since then--1971-72, when England played
five European Championship preliminary and three British Championship
matches--have they failed to play a single friendly match.
Because England did not enter the World Cup
until its fourth edition in 1950, they played foreign sides only in
friendly matches for the greater part of their history. Their
first tournament match against a foreign team came at the World Cup 1950
finals in Brazil. As late as 1956, England had played only six
tournament matches of any kind against foreign opposition--against Chile, the U.S.A. and Spain at the World Cup 1950
final tournament and against Belgium, Switzerland and Uruguay at the
World Cup 1954 final tournament--because British Championship
matches served as qualifying matches for the first two World Cup
tournaments they entered, those of 1950 and 1954. But for these
six matches, all England's matches against foreign sides had been friendlies.
Until the mid-20th Century, then, friendly matches against foreign sides
were the only means of gauging England's standing in the world game.
They were also the only way in which England gained
exposure to technical and tactical advancements developed abroad.
That is not to say England learnt much from meeting foreign opposition; the
prevailing attitude until well into the 1950s was that England had
nothing to learn from foreign footballers and that nothing was to be
gained from coaching and tactical instruction.
Some Famous
Friendlies
Partly because of the self-imposed isolation
which kept England from World Cup participation, some of the most famous matches in England’s
history have been friendlies. Among the most memorable friendlies were:
Spain 4 England 3, Estadio Metropolitano, Madrid,
15 May 1929 - England's first defeat by a foreign side.
England 7 Spain 1, Arsenal Stadium, Highbury,
London, 9 December 1931 - England gained revenge at home for their first
loss to a foreign team.
England 4 Austria 3, Stamford Bridge, Chelsea, London,
7 December 1932 - England beat, but just barely and with luck, the
"Wunderteam," which had the better part of the play and showed why
they were regarded as Europe's best.
England 3 Italy 2, Arsenal Stadium, Highbury,
London, 14 November 1934 - England edged the newly-crowned World Cup
1834 champions in a thoroughly ill-tempered affair still remembered as the
"Battle of Highbury."
Germany 3 England 6, Olympiastadion, Berlin, 14 May
1938 - After giving the Nazi salute in pre-match ceremonies, England trounced
the Nazis' pride and joy before several Third Reich big-wigs.
Portugal 0 England 10, Estadio Nacional, Lisbon, 25
May 1947 - Everything fell together for England's post-war forward line, with Stanley Matthews and Tom Finney playing
together for the first time, on either wing.
Italy 0 England 4, Stadio Communale, Turin, 16 May
1948 - The World Cup holders from 1938 were humbled by England's post-war
greats.
England 0 Republic of Ireland 2, Goodison Park,
Liverpool, 21 September 1949 - England had begun to lose some of the stars
from their first post-war team and suffered their first home defeat by a team from
outside the United Kingdom.
England 2 Argentina 1, Empire Stadium, Wembley, 9 May
1951 - England's first meeting with the team that was to become one of its main
rivals in the first visit of a South American national side to England.
Austria 2 England 3, Praterstadion, Vienna, 25
May 1952 - Nat Lofthouse's "Lion of Vienna" heroics inspired England to victory over the team
regarded as Europe's finest, although Hungary were about to displace
them as No. 1.
England 3 Hungary 6, Empire Stadium, Wembley, 25
November 1953 - England were humiliated in their first defeat at Wembley by a foreign side.
Hungary 7 England 1, Népstadion, Budapest, 23
May 1954 - England endured their record defeat in the return match as
Hungary demonstrated their Wembley performance was not a one-off.
England 4 Brazil 2, Empire Stadium, Wembley, 9 May
1956 - England served notice that they were regrouping in their first meeting
with the South American side.
Spain 0 England 2, Estadio Santiago Bernabéu, Madrid,
8 December 1965 - Manager Alf Ramsey tried out his wingless wonders formation
to critical acclaim.
Brazil 0 England 2, Estádio Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro,
10 June 1984 - England's only victory against the masters in Brazil, featuring
John Barnes' very Brazilian goal.
Spain 2 England 4 - Estadio Santiago Bernabéu, Madrid,
18 February 1987 - Gary Lineker scored four as England showed they were one of
the top teams in Europe, but they still managed to flop the following year in the European
Championship.
Friendlies Under
Fire
Friendly matches are now under threat. The
national team has always had difficulties in gaining club cooperation, but
clubs have become much less willing to relinquish their players for friendly
matches over the past decade as the growing number of matches in European club
competitions added to fixture congestion and as the monetary value and wages
of the players increased astronomically. The clubs, as well as their
supporters, have become increasingly critical of friendlies, and "meaningless
friendly" has become a catchphrase.
Friendly matches, however, are far from meaningless;
they continue to carry great
value for the national side. They serve as practice or warm-up matches
for important tournament encounters. They allow players from many
different club sides the opportunity to become used to playing together, and
since football is a team game, that is essential. They also serve as a risk-free way of experimenting with new players,
new formations and new styles of play. They give newer players the
opportunity to gain international experience, which is important because the international
game is so different from the English domestic game and the quality of
the opposition is often much higher. And, in an age when depth in the
squad is important, they allow players who are not regulars in the England
first eleven to gain playing time at international level.
Nonetheless, England are highly unlikely to play as
many friendlies in the future as they have in the past. The national
side will suffer as a result. Increasingly, England have left open dates
set aside on FIFA's international calendar when they could have played
friendly matches. Sometimes England
have remained idle when most European national sides have played,
even in the critical period before important international tournaments.
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PY/CG
England
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