9 September 1992, Estadio El Sardinero, Santander. Spain 1–0 England.
By Hamish McTavish
A Wednesday night on the Bay of Biscay, twenty-two thousand in the Sardinero, and a manager who had already been a turnip since June. Sky had Martin Tyler. Graham Taylor had come out of Sweden with no settled side and a Sun back page that had followed him south. Swedes 2, Turnips 1 was supposed to be the one-off. It was a campaign. Javier Clemente had promised a new direction after Spain had missed the same European Championship. Sixteen previous meetings had given England ten wins. Santander was in a mood to alter the maths. Taylor would say, breakfasting on the next morning's headlines, that he was beginning to wonder what bloody vegetable grew in Norway. The Sun had already chosen the onion.
England had been to the last four in Italy and then to a group in Sweden that ended with Gary Lineker on the bench and Taylor's head on a root. The World Cup qualifying programme had not even started. This was a friendly, which is the word English papers use when they still want a resignation. David White was making his debut on the right. Nigel Clough was in the side. Alan Shearer was the plan: get him the ball. Paul Ince was on the bench for a first cap that would arrive as a repair. Des Walker and Mark Wright were the pair at the back who were supposed to make an experimental night look like a continuation. The Bay did not care about the experiment. It cared about the next ninety minutes.
They kicked off anyway.
White had the early chance Clough made for him and did not take it. That is the minute the files keep because it is the last time the night looked like a story England might write. Spain were brighter and quicker in every phase. Rafael Martín Vázquez, from the left, picked out Gregorio Fonseca at the near post and Chris Woods shepherded the shot into the side-netting. The reprieve lasted until the eleventh minute. Walker lost the ball in midfield. Vázquez hit one from twenty-five yards. Luck, Joe Lovejoy called it in the Independent: the shot struck Fonseca just inside the area and became a pass, and the Espanyol striker lifted it over Woods with unhurried expertise. One-nil, and the Sardinero did the thing grounds do when the visitors have arrived as a vegetable.
The rest is the tide. Míchel chipped Woods from the right and watched it run wide of the far post. Juan Vizcaíno was uncomfortably close. Fonseca should have had a free header from six yards. After half an hour it was obvious they were in deep trouble, and the plan of feeding Shearer was a plan without a ball. Lee Dixon collided with Woods just before the half-hour and lasted until the interval. David Bardsley came on and then had to come off himself, Ince shoved to right-back, Carlton Palmer into the middle, which is how you play a friendly when the night has already decided it is not one. Mark Wright went through Fonseca from behind after the restart. Fernando replaced the scorer. Paul Merson and Brian Deane arrived late. Spain brought Alfonso and Goikoetxea. The score stayed one, which is the only mercy the files will allow.
Taylor, in the morning, dismissed Adios Taylor and Why He's Got To Go as the circulation war. He said he had been as disappointed as anyone. He said he had been looking to come out of Sweden with a settled side, and that was something they had not got. He said the alternative was to collapse under the weight of it all. The Sun portrayed his head as a Spanish onion and wrote Spanish 1, Onions 0, which is a follow-up, not a joke. The Guardian, same morning, had Experimental England fail to find a place in the sun. Lovejoy insisted it was not a resignation issue. The street had already moved the issue to Oslo.
Fonseca had the deflection and the lift and the header he missed. Vázquez had the shot that became a pass. Walker had the ball he lost. White had the one chance. Woods had the chip that stayed out and the one that did not. Shearer had the plan. Ince had the full-back's night on his first cap. Taylor had the turnip, then the onion, then the question about Norway. Clemente had the new direction. The Sun had the campaign.
They said a friendly. They said a new England. They said not a resignation issue. They said what vegetable grows in Norway. If you still think it was only a warm-up, a funeral is only a Tuesday. The warm-up put the onion on the back page. The World Cup programme started with a head they had already drawn. They took the road to Oslo with the same pencil.
Clough had made the chance. White had the debut. Shearer had the service that never came. Platt tried to knit it and Spain unpicked it at walking pace. Pearce, who would later be the Psycho the papers liked, was a full-back on a night the full-backs were chasing. Dixon went into his own keeper. Bardsley lasted a half as a repair and left as another injury. That is the experimental England the Guardian filed: not a laboratory, a queue for the treatment table, with Clemente's side quicker to every second ball and unhurried about the first. Taylor could laugh about the onion at breakfast. The laugh is in the quote. The face is not in the photograph.
Norway was the next vegetable in the book. Taylor had already asked the question. The street would answer it in Oslo, and then in Foxboro, and then in Rotterdam, all of them already filed. This Wednesday is the onion in the sequence, a friendly that the Sun treated as a result and the manager treated as a circulation war. Both things were true. Only one of them went on the back page. The turnip had been Sweden. The onion was Santander. The pencil did not change.
The film is up. Sky still have the eleventh minute: Walker, the ricochet, the lift. Do not review it. Watch the turnip become an onion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7gGZmuTxQU
Related reading
- Swedes 2, Turnips 1 — Råsunda 1992, the root that started the vegetable campaign
- Ta ta, turnip — Rotterdam 1993, the same pencil, the same end of the road
If the nights sit right, the shirts and the wall are at /shop.
FAQ
What was the score when Spain beat England in Santander in 1992?
Spain 1–0 England, on 9 September 1992 at Estadio El Sardinero, Santander. Gregorio Fonseca scored in the eleventh minute.
Why “Spanish 1, onions 0”?
The Sun’s follow-up after Swedes 2, Turnips 1 — Taylor’s head as a Spanish onion on the back page after a friendly that did not feel like one.
Was this a World Cup qualifier?
No. It was a friendly before the USA 94 programme. Oslo, Foxboro and Rotterdam would write the rest of the campaign.