RED CARD

"Disappointed" will be the feeling of many of us hardened England supporters, who remember those moments when our national team did not come up with the goods for one reason or another. 

We start watching the international game with high hopes that the England team will give us something to cheer, but last night, Gareth's boys left us wanting and poor old Harry and debutant Reece James saw the red card presented by the "hapless" referee, Jesus Gil Martinez of Spain. I suspect the actual sendings off were justified but it was stuff prior that led to the dismissals. It's not the first time in ther international history of the England team, that first played international football in 1872. It took 96 years, on June 5th  1968, for the embarrassment of the first sending off to taint the England team's history. Imagine the various ex-FA committee members "spinning" in their graves.

It was poor old Alan Mullery who had the walk of shame, against Yugoslavia, in a European Championship semi-finals match, in Florence, Italy, a tie we lost 0-1. It was England's 424th international match. 

You will not be surprised to know that the referee that day was a Mr Ortiz De Mendibil of Spain who made the decision. Manager Alf Ramsey told Mullery as he walked off the pitch;" I don't think anybody, if they were any sort of man, could have stood for much more of what you have had to put up with, If you hadn't done it, I would have." Ramsey paid Mullery's "£50 fine".

Four days earlier in Hannover, England, the World Champions, had lost to West Germany, 0-1, in a friendly. Three days later in Rome, England beat the USSR 2-0 (Hurst and Charlton R) in the third place play-off.

Since then England has lost the following players through sendings off: Alan Mullery (1973) v Yugo, Trevor Cherry (1977) v Arg, Ray Wilkins (1986) v Morocco, David Beckham (1998) v Arg, Paul Ince (1998) v Sweden, Paul Scholes (1999) v Swe, David Batty (1999) v Pol, Alan Smith v Macedonia (2002) , David Beckham again v Austria (2005), Wayne Rooney v Port (2006), Rob Green v Ukr (2009), Wayne Rooney v Montenegro (2011), Steven Gerrard v Ukraine (2012), Raheem Sterling v Ecuador (2014), Kyle Walker v Iceland (2020) and Harry Macquire and Reece James (2020) v Denmark.

https://thefootballfaithful.com/every-player-sent-off-competitive-england-game/

The long lonely walk.