21 November 2007, Wembley. Croatia 3–2 England. By Hamish McTavish
You already know the score. What you might not have is the Wednesday itself — new Wembley in the rain, a November night that only needed a point, and a manager who packed for the weather instead of the match.
The ones who went down filled the new ground and waited for the arithmetic to behave. The ones at home had the other screen on as well, Russia against Andorra, because that was the rest of the sum. You do not need a seat in the wet to own this one. You need the night, and the picture of a man under nylon while a country missed a tournament. If you missed it live you have been shown the brolly since. If you were in the room you already know why the nickname stuck.
A point would do. That is the whole certainty. Croatia had already qualified. England needed a draw at home. The week was about Russia and Andorra and the sum, not about Croatia as a side that might win in the rain. The team sheet said Scott Carson, competitive debut, instead of Paul Robinson. David Beckham started on the bench. The rain came in. Steve McClaren brought a brolly.
That is what they took into a night that was supposed to be a stamp on a passport. A debut in goal, the old captain sat down, and the manager dressed for a bus stop. Nobody spent the English week talking about Croatia as if they might actually take the point away. The maths had already been kind. The weather had not.
They kicked off anyway.
The new pitch is wet and the new ground is full of a crowd that has come for a formality. Eight minutes in, Niko Kranjčar has it from distance — the sort of strike a keeper has sat on a thousand times on a dry Tuesday. It bounces in front of Carson. His hands are there and then they are not. The ball hits the roof of the net and the new Wembley makes the sound of a room that has just remembered the sum. Six minutes later the night goes from a mistake to a scoreline. Ivica Olić through, rounds him, rolls it into the empty net. Two-nil, and the debut is already a story they will tell without being asked. The rain keeps on. The brolly stays up.
The rest of the first half is England chasing a point they had treated as already theirs. Half-time the same two-nil, and the other screen is still a problem they have not had to look at yet. Russia are still playing Andorra. The sum is still waiting. McClaren is still under the nylon. If you were in the ground you will remember the rain more than the speeches. If you were not, this is why they still show the brolly.
They had a second half to remember they only needed a point.
Beckham comes on. The night, for a stretch, does the English thing of deciding it will be all right because it has to be. Frank Lampard from the spot. Peter Crouch off a Beckham cross — chested, smashed, two-two — and the ground finds a noise it had mislaid in the first quarter of an hour. For twelve minutes they are where the maths wanted them. A point. A tournament. A morning that would have been about travel and hotels. The rain has not stopped. The brolly has not come down. Wembley, for that stretch, sounds like a country that has got away with it. That is the turn, and they do not know it yet. They think the night has come back. The night is only waiting.
Seventy-seven minutes. Mladen Petrić, on as a sub, from twenty-five yards. The ball goes where Carson is not. Three-two. The other screen does its job: Russia beat Andorra 1–0. England fail to qualify for Euro 2008. The new Wembley, built to stage nights like this, stages this one. The last ten minutes are a chase that does not arrive. The whistle goes on a home side that needed a draw and could not keep one for a quarter of an hour.
McClaren is sacked in the morning. Shortest permanent England boss at the time, which is a record you do not put on a CV. After, he said the only true thing he said all week. "I feel I have let the fans down and the country down." The Sun put him on the back page under the brolly and the nickname stuck because it was accurate. Not a tactical masterclass. A man getting wet while his country missed a tournament. Wally with the brolly. Wear it. He never will.
Slaven Bilić was out in the rain with his players. No nylon. That is the other picture, and it is why the first one still works. Kranjčar had hit the one that bounced. Olić had walked through a back line that was waiting for a flag that never came. Petrić had ended it from a range England had already failed to deal with once. Carson will have the first one until they stop showing it, and the second, and the third. Beckham had the cross that made it a game. Crouch had the finish that made it two-two. Lampard had the penalty that started the comeback they could not keep. McClaren had the brolly, which is what anyone who was not there still has.
They needed a point. They picked a debut. They sat the old captain. They packed an umbrella. A country that writes the ending as arithmetic will always have a morning left over for the sacking.
The film is a Croatian upload: Engleska 2–3 Hrvatska, 21.11.2007. An earlier Reuters clip is gone. This one is still up. Thin, but real. Do not review it. Watch it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeaW4shmVUE
They get surer. It gets worse. Or start the first tape again — Wembley, 1967, the one they still will not count. There is not a sixth night in this run. Come back when there is another Hamish.