1) England's trip to China and Hong Kong (1996)
"Terry Venables wanted to get away to a different environment," explained the FA's travel manager, Brian Scott, after announcing that the England squad would visit east Asia ahead of Euro '96. It would very quickly become one of those quotes to which hindsight lends a darkly comic edge. "He wants the squad to relax before the pressures of the tournament. To have stayed at home for the three weeks before the championship would have been to risk boredom. Terry sees the trip as an excellent opportunity for the players to forge a strong team spirit." How quickly El Tel might have started to ponder the merits of a few weeks' playing Monopoly and exchanging tips on kitbag hygiene. "The tone was set on the flight out," Robbie Fowler wrote in his autobiography, describing a trip that he felt unfairly tarnished his reputation before he had pulled on an England shirt more than twice. Paul Gascoigne was drunk on the outward journey. "Gazza got involved in a row with one of the stewards on the plane, and ended up having a bit of scrap. The pilot saw his arse and said that he was going to stop the plane in Russia and boot us all off!"
Happily – or perhaps not – the England party made it to the same airport as their luggage in the end. After winning their last match before returning to England for the European Championship, a 3-0 friendly win over China, Fowler said: "Venables gave us the night off to have a blast." It wouldn't be long before the papers back home were letting off a few blasts of their own, running pictures of various players having tequila poured down their necks as they lay back in the instantly infamous dentist's chair. "DISGRACEFOOL" said the Sun's extraordinary headline: "Look at Gazza … a drunken oaf with no pride."
(Seriously, think on that headline for a moment. A couple of weeks later, the paper watched Gascoigne's goal against Scotland – celebrated with a delirious re-enactment of the dentist's chair – and warmly concluded that "Gazza is loved by the football nation".)
In the pictures the players were drenched and dishevelled, what was left of their shirts hanging like rags around their necks and waists. A billboard poster for Sun, Sea and A&E. The story broke along with the news that two television screens had been smashed on the flight home, with the airline demanding £5,000 in compensation. Gascoigne, drunk again and enraged by a smack upside the head from Alan Shearer, did the damage, though the players initially took responsibility collectively. "We pay lip service to drunken, flatulent, screen-smashing yobs by calling them heroes, aware that if they were unable to kick a ball in approximately the right direction they would be up in court," tsked Jeff Powell in the Mail.
"Even now when I see those pictures I think, ah Jesus," wrote Fowler. "They look terrible." In his account, the ripped shirts and beer-matted hair tell the story of earlier in the evening, when the players wrestled Gascoigne to shut him up in a bar; as for the dentist's chair, Fowler says: "We all got in, all had a laugh, drank a few beers, sang a few songs and went home. No problem, not even that pissed." "When people are trying to pour several bottles down at once, it's physically impossible to drink a lot," McManaman later said in an interview with FourFourTwo. "I think people drank for about a second, got drenched and then quickly got out." Not quick enough to avoid the papping skills of a fellow customer at the China Jump Bar.
Perhaps Venables did get his wish, though, after all. Teddy Sheringham said that England's foray to the semi-finals (don't make us type the gory details again) was given impetus by the trouble. "We had so much stick going into the Euros in 1996," he told the Mirror last year. "All we did was make it work for us. Yes, it was a prove 'em wrong approach – but it worked." Perhaps he was just trying to recreate that blitz spirit when he was snapped boozing at six in the morning ahead of the 1998 World Cup, eh Mr Hoddle?
