An observation.

Since getting a little bit of good luck in the 1966 World Cup Final against Germany, with the Russian linesman, England have been the victims in major football tournaments of horrible luck and/or terrible refereeing.

1986 - The hand of God incident. Undoubtedly one of the biggest injustices in World football.

1990 - Losing on penalties to the Germans. Horrible luck but in fairness a draw was a fair result. Waddle and Pearce missing was just bad luck.

1992 - Euro championships in Sweden. Some bright spark thought it would be great to put Graham Taylor in charge. Graham Taylor thought it would be a good idea to substitute Gary Lineker when we were losing. And he wonders why the nation resents him.

1994 - Didn't even qualify for the U.S.A World Cup. See above.

1996 - This time the Germans did rob us. Penalites was painful in a game we should have won.

1998 - Sol Campbell has a goal ruled out by Kim Neilson at 2-2. Heartbreaking as we held them even with only 10 men on. Batty and Ince miss penalties.

2000 - Phillip Neville. All we had to do was hold on for two more minutes but satchel face Phil Neville gives away a last minute penalty against Romania. England crash out despite beating the Germans 1-0.

2002 - No excuses. We were cack against Brazil, the ref was on our side and David Seaman got lobbed from 40 yards.

2004 - All of the above. A lacklustre performance combined with poor refeering, a perfectly good goal disallowed and a nervewracking penalty shootout. The only team England have ever beaten (when the host nation) was Switzerland over 40 years ago. Do you think Urs Maier was still pissed?

Sick.