Matchday Memories: On This Day 1984 – First & Last England Games For Mark & Steve.

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Steve Hunt takes on a Russian defender

Steve Hunt in the Sky Blue

Steve Hunt (England)

On this day (June 2nd) in 1984 former Sky Blue (and now CCFPA member) Steve Hunt lined up for England at Wembley for a friendly against the USSR. Steve had only just left the Sky Blues in March 1964 for West Bromwich Albion for fee of £100k. Surprisingly, having made his England debut as a substitute for Mark Chamberlain in a 1–1 draw with Scotland at Hampden Park on 26th May 1984 today’s game proved to be Steve’s last full cap for his country! Between 1978-84 Steve scored 34 Sky Blue goals in his 216 CCFC appearances.

Mark Hateley (England)

Mark in the Sky Blue

However, the game also saw the first full international England cap awarde to recent CCFPA recruit and this season’s very recent ‘special’ matchday guest Mark Hateley (then playing for Portsmouth). Mark went on to net nine goals in 32 appearances for his country between 1984-92!  As a Sky Blue where he started his professional career he knocked in 34 goals in his 112 games.

Mark Hateley with CCFPA’s Billy Bell this year

Steve with his CCFPA tie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kenny Sansom (England)

Peter Shilton with CCFC

As it happened, also in the England team was an England hero Kenny Sansom who made his first appearance at CCFPA’s grand reunion, Legends Day 2022 a few weeks back and made 55 Sky Blue appearances between 1991-93. By the time he joined the Sky Blues he was a seasoned (but retired) England international with 86 caps netting once.

A fourth England team member that day with Sky Blues connections was famous ‘keeper Peter Shilton who was at Highfield Road as goalkeeping cover (without making a first team appearance) late in his career in 1995-96. Peter ended up with a massive 125 Full Caps for England between 1970-90.

Kenny at LD22

Bobby Robson’s England went down to a 2-0 defeat at Wembley generating ‘Robson Out‘ chants from the disgruntled crowd. The damage came from second-half goals from Russian substitutes Sergei Gotsanov and Oleg Protasov. The first USSR goal was down to a Mike Duxbury error treading on a through ball to allow the Russian to produce a left footer from the edge of the box that beat Shilton. The second  to finish England off was a tap in from five yards a minute into added on time at the end of the game after Peter had parried a 25 yard Oleg Blokhin strike.

The home team seemed clumsy and uncoordinated, a performance brightened up by the introduction of newbie central striker Mark Hateley, who rejuvenated the England attack for the last twenty minutes when Trevor Francis gave way to the youngster.  Steve also made his contribution (for the second successive match) from the subs bench replacing John Barnes in the 66th minute to complete an international career that, sadly, had lasted just fifty minutes in total (xx Caps). The result just added to the vitriolic criticism of the likeable and approachable England ‘gaffer’ particularly by some in the fan base and the tabloid media! The graphic below gives all the international match details.

 

To complete the record the match referee was Michel Vautrot (France), the attendance at Wembley was 38,125 and England’s unused subs were Gary Stevens, Dave Watson and Chris Woods (gk)

TThanks to CCFPA’s Mike Young for sourcing the graphic and images
 
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