Q. from Alan Petcher, Bradford, England, April 8, 2000.  I am in the process of writing a biography of Evelyn Henry Lintott who played 7 professional games for England in 1907/08.  But he also played 5 times as an amateur in 1908. Can anybody tell me who against and what were the teams, also where were they played.  Also he played in the 1908 Olympic Games for Great Britain, winning the Gold Medal.  Can you tell me anything about it?  Does anybody have any photographs or information about him at all?

A. from PY.  Most of the information we have on Lintott comes from the brief biographical sketch in Douglas Lamming's superb An English Football Internationalist's Who's Who (Hutton Press, 1990).  He was born in Godalming, Surrey, November 2, 1883 and was killed in action on the Somme July 1, 1916 while serving with the 1st Yorkshire Regiment.  After playing with  Woking and Plymouth Argyle, he joined Queen's Park Rangers as an amateur in September, 1907 and turned professional in May, 1908, the year they won the Southern League championship.  He went on to Bradford City in November, 1908 and to Leeds City in June, 1912.

Lintott made five appearances as an England amateur international and one appearance for the Football League.  We have no information on these matches, and, if you have not done so already, you might inquire of the Association of Football Statisticians, who have just revamped their website.  

Lintott earned seven full England caps at left halfback while with Queen's Park and Bradford City, beginning with the 3-1 victory over Ireland in Belfast on February 15, 1908 and ending with the 8-2 win over Hungary in Budapest on May 31, 1909.  He did not score for England.

That Lintott turned professional in May, 1908 means he could not have competed in the Olympic Games, held later in 1908.  In fact, the Rec.Sport Soccer Statistical Foundation Archive's match summaries for the 1908 Games do not include him in the line-ups for Great Britain's matches.

Later, Lintott, a school teacher, served as chairman of the Players Union.

Q. from G�bor Voda, Hungary, April 8, 2000.  I'm a big ENGLAND fan. I write to you because I would like to ask something. If you could send me wallpapers about ENGLAND, please contact me.  Thank you in advance.

A.  from PY.  Very well done England wallpaper and screensaver may be found on UEFA's official Euro 2000 website.

Q. from Al Hayhurst, London, England, April 3, 2000.  My Nan went to watch England v. Ireland on 05/11/1947. She has asked me if I could possibly find out the players for both teams and any information about the match. We know it finished 2-2.  Many thanks.

A.  from PY.  We've posted the summary and report for Match No. 237.  Your Nan was fortunate to see an England team featuring one of the greatest forward lines ever assembled--Stanley Matthews, Stan Mortensen, Tommy Lawton, Wilf Mannion and Tom Finney--in an enthralling match that ended in dramatic fashion.  Early this morning (April 14, 2000), a few minutes after I typed Mannion's name in the summary as one of the game's goalscorers, I got the news that he had died.  Now only Finney survives from this tremendous attacking combination.

Q. from Mark Kinver, U.K., March 19, 2000.  Hiya.  I was wondering whether the England's training sessions at Bisham Abbey are open to the public - and if so, is it a case of just turning up or is there more to it than that?  Thanks for your time.

A. from PY.  Readers, can you help?  The only information we have is that during Euro '96 security was very tight during training sessions.  We posed your question to the Football Association website by e-mail several weeks ago, but have received no response.  

Q. from Nick Bromwich, London, England, March 13, 2000.  Do you know what clubs Walter Winterbottom managed besides England?  

A.  from PY.  None.

Q. from Bjoern Holzgrabe, Dortmund, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany, March 12, 2000.  I'm a student at the University of Dortmund, Germany, working on a paper about the four British national teams (history, national identity and so on).  Found your page on competitions, but had to find out that your pages about the BIC aren't ready yet.  Hope you can help me anyway.  I have several questions about the British International Championships.  Why were they set up?  By whom?  Why were they cancelled in 1984 ('83?)?  What are the records?  What was the role of the 'International Football Association Board'?  How long did the IFAB exist?  What was the status of the IFAB and the BIC in relation to the FIFA (UEFA?) and the World Cup?  I have lots more questions but these might keep you busy enough.  Can you name me any literature where I can get information on the IFAB and the BIC?  Thanks.

A. from PY.  The British or Home International Championship was the world's first international football tournament.  It was contested annually from the 1883-84 season through the 1983-84 season with the exception of intervals of five and seven years during the two world wars.  We have not completed our pages on this tournament yet, but in the meantime an adequate record may be found in the Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistical Foundation Archive.

The championship was a natural progression from the series of annual matches the home countries began playing against each other in the 1870's and early 1880's.  England began playing Scotland in 1872, Wales in 1879 and and Ireland in 1882.  Wales began playing Scotland in 1876 and Ireland in 1882.  Scotland's first match with Ireland in 1884 completed the itinerary and was the first match played in the first home international tournament.

The birth of the championship is intertwined with the creation of the International Football Association Board, the first and oldest of international football's governing bodies.  The first matches between England and Scotland were played according to the laws of the home country, English rules prevailing one year and Scottish the next.  In 1882, the Football Association, firm in its resolve there should be uniformity in the laws, invited the associations of Scotland, Wales and Ireland to a meeting to discuss the formation of a board to settle their differences and to organize an international championship.  Scotland at first declined the invitation, relenting only after the Football Association threatened to end the yearly international matches.  At the meeting, held in Manchester on December 6, 1882, the four associations adopted a uniform code and established the International Football Association Board to  approve changes in the laws.  Each association was given equal voting rights on the board.

When FIFA was founded in 1904, the Board was the game's acknowledged lawmaking body.  In 1905, FIFA assured the four home associations that the Board would continue as the sole lawmaking body.  England joined FIFA in 1906 and the other three home associations followed in 1910.  But not until 1913 did the British associations allow two FIFA representatives to join the International Board.  When the British associations withdrew from FIFA in 1920 in protest of postwar Austro-German membership, they voted the FIFA representatives off the Board.  FIFA's participation on the Board resumed when the British associations rejoined FIFA in 1924 and since then it has been continuous, despite a second British withdrawal from FIFA between 1928 and 1946.  

Today the Board continues to exercise hegemony over the laws of the game.  It is composed of the four delegates from each of the four British associations as permanent members and four FIFA delegates.  The FIFA website's Inside FIFA section describes the Board as "an abiding acknowledgement of the historic significance of the British associations in world football."  That website also reproduces the Board's rules.

The International Football Association Board has lasted longer than the international championship it was set up to regulate.  Although there is little doubt that fan violence and other disturbances made ending the British International Championship an easier decision, the primary reason for the tournament's demise in 1984 was fixture congestion.  Most of the crowd problems had occurred when England and Scotland met, and if those problems had been the main reason for ending the championship, then those matches would have ended, too.  Instead, England and Scotland continued to meet each other annually for the next five years in the Rous Cup.  

As early as the 1960's, with the growing importance of the World Cup and the emergence of the European Championship, the Football League, whose membership then included the top level English clubs, began pressing for discontinuance of the British International Championship because of the player demands it made.  The Football Association resisted at first, but eventually yielded.  As Ted Coker, F.A. general secretary at the time, explained in his autobiography, The First Voice You Will Hear Is ... (Collins, London, 1987):  

"as long as the home international championship continued, we had eight [World Cup or European Championship] qualifying matches and six home internationals in each two-year programme, that is, 14 matches plus, we hope, participation in a finals tournament.  No leeway was left for other matches.  That was the main reason for abandoning the Home International Championship.

"The European Championship competition is against European countries, obviously, and similarly the World Cup qualifying games are in opposition to familiar European countries.  So much for the need for experience against South American opposition!  When we took part in the 1982 World Cup finals only one of our opponents, Kuwait, was from outside Europe.

"Another problem is that with the seeding that goes on in the international competitions we tend to avoid many of the countries we need to play for experience, such as West Germany, France, Holland, Belgium, Italy and Spain.  To be drawn against such opposition is not impossible but is still unlikely, even in five-nation groups.

"Therefore, to meet these teams, we must arrange friendly matches.  By careful planning we have managed to play Spain, Brazil, Argentina, Holland, West Germany and Russia [sic: the Soviet Union] at Wembley in recent years.  These facts help to highlight the difficulty of persisting with the home internationals and explain why they were dropped in 1985."

[As an aside, Croker's views on the importance of friendly matches may be contrasted with those of manager Kevin Keegan and the current F.A. administration, who, yielding to club pressures, have left open dates for friendly matches vacant and will send an inadequately prepared team into this year's European Championship.]

Q. from Rory Leavy, Athlone, Republic of Ireland, March 8, 2000.  Could you tell me how many black players have played for England and does England have the record in Europe for the amount of black players playing for them?  Could you name England's squads for Italia 90 and Euro 92?  Finally don't you think that Ugo Ehiogu and Trevor Sinclair should both be starters for England in Holland and Belgium?

A. from PY.  We've posted the England squads you asked for on our World Cup 1990 and European Championship 1996 pages, which are still in preparation.

One of this website's authors, Alan Brook, glanced through the list of about 1,300 England players and counted 24 black players who have earned England caps, although he's not sure he got them all.  Another, Josh Benn, who's attended England's Wembley matches for many years, believes  manager Graham Taylor started five or six black players in a couple of matches.  Readers, can you help further on this?  The only national team in Europe that could possibly come close to England in number of black players who have earned caps is France. 

I'm not confident either Sinclair or Ehiogu will make the England squad, much less start, although both have earned consideration.  Manager Kevin Keegan has called Sinclair to recent squads, but he has yet to earn his first cap.  Ehiogu gained his only cap as a substitute against China almost four years ago when Terry Venables was in charge.

Postscript from CG.  Black Players file completed.

Q. from Richard Perry, U.K., March 6, 2000.  I would really like to know the date and whereabouts of England's next match with Wales.  I work for a management company representing an artist who is hotly tipped to have written the England song for the Euro2000 championships, if you would like a copy, please feel free to get in touch.  Keep it up, its an impressive sight!

A. from PY.  England have no scheduled matches with Wales.  Although the Football Association of Wales expressed some interest in a match against England at the new Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, England discouraged an invitation.  It used to be that England and Wales played once a year in the British Championship, also known as the Home International Championship, but that competition ended in 1984, exactly 100 years after it began. The last match between the two was May 2, 1984 at the The Racecourse in Wrexham with Wales winning, 1-0.

Q. from Steven Rigby, Lisburn, Northern Ireland, March 3, 2000.  Hi I am writing a project on the England Football team and would like to ask you When Was The England Team Established?  Please could you send me the answer as soon as possible please!!!!

A from PY.  One can justifiably assert that the England national football team was established in either 1870 or 1872. Most people probably would say 1872, the year the first official international football match was held, but 1870 is probably the more accurate answer.

An England national football team was first called together for a match against Scotland by a letter from Football Association Secretary Charles W. Alcock published in The Sportsman, a London newspaper, on February 5, 1870.  Severe frost caused postponement of the match, originally scheduled for February 19 at The Oval, and it eventually took place on March 5, 1870, resulting in a 1-1 draw.  Another England-Scotland match was held in late 1870, two more in 1871 and still another in early 1872.  These initial matches were rather informal contests, and they are not viewed as official because the Scotland team was composed of London-based Scots plus a few "all-comers" needed to make a full team. 

The world's first official international football match was held November 30, 1872 at Hamilton Crescent, Glasgow, and resulted in a scoreless draw between England and Scotland. 

Q. from Ken Talbot, Manchester, England, March 2, 2000.  Could you please tell me the England squad for 1966?  Was it originally 30 players reduced to 22?  Many thanks.  

A.  from PY.  The 1966 World Cup squad was the product of a rather protracted winnowing process.  Manager Alf Ramsey originally named a squad of 40 men, which was eventually pared to 28, including three replacements, for more than two weeks of training at Lilleshall.  Only 27 showed up; one withdrew because of injury.  Finally, Ramsey named his final squad of 22 men, which embarked on a four-match tour of Northern Europe as a final tune-up before the tournament began on July 11.  Details and squad statistics have now been posted on our World Cup 1966 page, which is still in preparation.    

Q. from Gerry, Glasgow, Scotland, March 1, 2000.  I am sending this in the hope you are online just now as I need the answer pretty quickly.  Could you please tell me who was the first black player to play for England. I am between Luther Blissett, Laurie Cunningham, Viv Anderson, Cyril Regis, but of course it may be none of them. Thank you for your time.

A. from PY.  Right fullback Viv Anderson was the first black player to appear for England.  His first cap came in a 1-0 victory against Czechoslovakia at Wembley on November 29, 1978, when he played for Nottingham Forest.  He later earned caps while playing for Arsenal and Manchester United.  While he was a member of both the 1982 and 1986 World Cup squads, his only appearance in the finals of a major tournament came in the 2-1 victory over Spain in the European Championship finals of 1980 in Italy.   Altogether he made 30 England appearances spread over a 10-year international career that came to a close in the 1-1 Rous Cup draw with Colombia at Wembley on May 24, 1988.  Now an assistant manager at Middlesbrough under his former England teammate and captain Bryan Robson, Anderson was awarded an MBE in the Queen's New Year's Honours List published December 31, 1999.

Laurie Cunningham made his England debut in a goalless draw with Wales at Wembley on May 23, 1979.  Cyril Regis first appeared for England in a 4-0 victory over Northern Ireland at Wembley on February 23, 1982.  Luther Blissett got his first cap in a 2-1 loss to West Germany at Wembley on October 13, 1982.  

By the way, the first black player to captain England was Paul Ince.  The occasion was England's 1-1 U.S. Cup draw with Brazil on June 13, 1993 at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington, D.C.  [N.B. This is wrong; it was England's 2-0 U.S. Cup loss to the U.S.A. on 9 June 1993 at Foxboro Stadium in Foxboro, Mass.]  Another black player, Sol Campbell, also has captained England.

Q.  from Dan Reid, U.K., February 22, 2000.  Who presented Alan Shearer with the golden boot at Euro 96?  Did Alan Shearer present whoever gave him the golden boot with a signed England Shirt?  Are any photos available of this presentation taking place?   Where could I get a copy of one?  Thanks in anticipation of response.

A. from PY.  Sorry, we haven't the vaguest idea.  It appears you're considering buying an England shirt on the representation that Alan Shearer signed it and gave it to the person who presented him with the Golden Boot at Euro '96.  If our readers send us information on your questions, we'll forward it.

Q.  from Tony Pratt, Scarborough, England, February 18, 2000.  Hope you can help me. I saw the previous answer concerning the 1970 England world cup squad. What I am after though is the final 11 that made the starting line up. Also line ups for the rest of the tournament would be great if you have them.

A. from PY.  The summaries for England's 1970 World Cup matches are not yet posted on our website.  In the meantime, we've sent you a complete set of match summaries for the 1970 World Cup.  Summaries for all World Cup matches may be obtained from the RSSSF World Cup Archive.  If you look in the Appendices section of our website, you will find our Sources Index, which directs you to our list of the very best World Cup websites.  All our Sources pages have been carefully compiled, and they include only the best and most reliable football websites.  An hour or two spent surfing the websites listed in our Sources pages is well worthwhile. 

Q. from Andy Eve, U.K., February 3, 2000.  Could you please tell me the three fathers and sons who have played full internationals for England.  I already have got the Lampards and the Cloughs but need one more.

A. from PY.  George E. and George R. Eastham were the first of the three father-and-son sets who have won full England caps.  The senior Eastham recently died in South Africa.

Q. from Iain Rose, Gibraltar, January 7, 2000.  Hi I'm Iain, I would be grateful if you could give me the England squad together with their squad numbers from the 1982 world cup in Spain.  Thanks.

A. from PY.  England's World Cup 1982 squad:

1 Clemence, Ray; 2 Anderson, Viv; 3 Brooking, Trevor; 4 Butcher, Terry; 5 Coppell, Steve; 6 Foster, Steve; 7 Keegan, Kevin; 8 Francis, Trevor; 9 Hoddle, Glenn; 10 McDermott, Terry; 11 Mariner, Paul; 12 Mills, Mick; 13 Corrigan, Joe; 14 Neal, Phil; 15 Rix, Graham; 
16 Robson, Bryan; 17 Sansom, Kenny; 18 Thompson, Phil; 19 Wilkins, Ray; 20 Withe, Peter; 21 Woodcock, Tony; 22 Shilton, Peter.

Manager Ron Greenwood assigned squad numbers alphabetically according to the players' last names, making exceptions for captain Keegan and the three goalkeepers.  Clemence, Anderson, McDermott, Corrigan and Withe did not make any appearance in England's five matches at the 1982 World Cup finals.  As noted in the answer to the question immediately below, Keegan and Brooking were injured and did not appear until the last 23 minutes of the fifth and last match.  We've posted the squad statistics on our World Cup 1982 page, which is still in preparation.

PY/CG