"I know that was then, but it could be again...?"
Not all England team-members came away empty-handed when (wait for it) football (almost) came home at Euro 96.
Twenty years ago this month, and some 16 years before London 2012’s 70,000 selfless and tireless ‘Games Makers’ became the world’s most acclaimed ‘under-rated heroes’, a volunteer army ten times as small played their part in another summer of now-nostalgia-drenched sporting glory.
Or, of course, and indeed agonisingly, near-glory.
Unlike London 2012, however, here at least any impatient, cheerleading or indeed finger-wagging build-up to England's hugest hosting since that summer of '66 hardly felt overwhelming.
That is, until the autumn beforehand, when waving flags bearing that oh-so-savvy 'Football's Coming Home' slogan began billowing from a fair few lamp-posts on city streets.
Perhaps the lower-key approach - in stark contrast to what the event became at the time, and ever more so since - came from that post-Euro ban hangover: 'the English disease' no longer spreading across the continent but internalising self-conscious fears here.
But thankfully, an instinct kicked in - for this student, at least ... to apply to be an Euro 96 volunteer.
A form filled out with boasts based on little more than earnest intentions, school qualifications and possibly even photocopies of football articles already somehow published led to acceptance into this 700-strong circle of trust. Or, at least, tolerance. 'You'll do.' That'll do.
Four months or so before that strange St George's-themed opening ceremony at Wembley, the West Midlands contingent of volunteers were gathered in an anteroom at Aston Villa.
Media relations manager Alec McGivan and event manager Hazel Ruscoe were our very-welcoming leaders, setting out the overall strategy for the tournament and our rather more basic roles and place within it.
Suddenly, everything was becoming even more enticing. Football really was about to come home - even if that Monday night became traipsing all the way back from Witton (not Aston) to Edgbaston halls of residence.
Across city centre - and more windingly surrounding - streets that would later be cram-packed with Scots and Swiss and Dutch in their clogs and tablecloths and kilts and hats, pint-clutching/collecting arms around each other in boisterous communal collusion.
(Crazy days, eh.)
Those duties turned out to be at the Villa Park media centre - that is, the building behind the North Stand now known as 'Villa Village': a corporate base an Alan Hutton first touch's distance from the stadium itself.
This was June and July, for a first-year university student that odd inter-regnum between finishing your end-of-year exams and waiting for results - or the go-ahead to go home for a three-month summer break, which now seems indecent ever since reaching full-time employment.
(Crazy days, eh.)
Those duties turned out to be at the Villa Park media centre - that is, the building behind the North Stand now known as 'Villa Village': a corporate base an Alan Hutton first touch's distance from the stadium itself.
This was June and July, for a first-year university student that odd inter-regnum between finishing your end-of-year exams and waiting for results - or the go-ahead to go home for a three-month summer break, which now seems indecent ever since reaching full-time employment.
Many might well have whiled all away the sunny hours on the Vale knocking back £1.50 bottles of wine, each slug carefully calibrated with another of Tango or Fanta to entirely neutralise any vinegary taste.
And, sure, watching the matches on big screens - or at least as best a view as could be glimpsed between po-go-ing heads fighting stale-beer-sticky feet.
But, no - instead, some of us were photocopying pages of stats about ages and injuries, shuffling and sorting them not into order but into rows of layers of sort-of-order, and making sure each one would then be stuffed into the appropriate pigeonhole.
Even before the first kick-off, there were plenty of potential benefits.
The obligatory and yet free uniform, for a start: a navy sweater with ominously-grey sleeves, a navy polo shirt and a similar T-shirt for choosing to wear underneath, plus a pair of colour-coded shellsuit trousers.
(Although the supplies of the latter ran out for a few of us last slow-movers, who had to make do with providing our own provided there would be no clash.)
Most importantly, however - and, yes, even above camaraderie - there was the hint of tickets, once your pre-match rigmarole passed muster.
Ten minutes into a game, a flutter of magic tokens would be fanned out - always with the suggestion some unlucky soul would have to miss out, although it never really seemed that anyone ever did.
(Apologies to those who ever actually did.)
The only proviso was you had to be back across the car park and into the media centre with ten to 15 minutes to go, to start doling out even more important missives: stat attacks to help beleaguered hacks.
Fortune-favoured here again in having family tickets to all Wembley games, Villa Park (tr)avails were enhanced by witnessing and exuberantly celebrating all those joyous London moments we all know.
Oh, plus those stark seconds in the semi-final: 80,000 people's collective intake of breath when Stefan Kuntz thought his golden 'goal' won it in extra-time, then a similar silence when poor, ever-interview-friendly Gareth Southgate faltered.
(That quiet was then broken, in our section anyway, by at first a solitary voice and quickly a ensemble chorus, of the right place, right time song. No, not gloomily cheery 'Three Lions', but similarly: 'Always look on the bright side of life...')
There was, mind, one Wembley match missed - and it had to be the somehow-comfy 4-1 vs the Dutch.
Last group-games being as they are, that night's duties meant preparing for - and preparing people for - seeing Scotland face Switzerland.
And so, on 75 minutes, then making our way out of our seats along the rows around one perimeter of the ground - (im)perfectly timed to absorb all blame and abuse from Scottish fans for news of Patrick Kluivert's significant goal-difference consolation strike.
(Cheers, David Seaman.)
That left, at Villa Park, only one quarter-final to go - the winner that put the Czech Republic through and won Karel Poborsky a transfer to Manchester United, his scoop of a ball from penalty-edge into the net like Frogger somehow simultaneously leaping two roads not one.
For an aspiring hack as well as lifelong football fan, those experiences behind the scenes - while spectator-ly in front of them too - gleamed golden. (Don't confuse with the lion mascot "Goaliath".)
Not only, that is, for exciting experience of and eye-opening insight into the alternately languid and fractious environment of the sporting event media centre.
Why, those working common-room collections of some tapping on laptops with glum or studious intensity - others more volubly clubbable, the odd one or few prone to panicky rages at the sheer audacity of technology.
Privileges and pleasures have followed, actually getting to be there as a correspondent at Euros, World Cups and Olympics - now relying on those seen but unsung volunteers, assistants, technicians. Content- and help-providers.
(Even if that sense of feeling out of place, diminished - as back in '96 - still lingers on, this other side.)
Best to just do your best, really, and not be like one veteran and volatile BBC radio commentator overheard at Villa Park way back then, barking at a timid and unsatisfying receptionist that deathless phrase: 'Do you know who I am?'
Always timid at the time, and wrapping scarred arms around that summer at the end of an often-lost first year out in the wider world, Euro 96 as a Villa Park volunteer gave some precious sense of connection.
Sipping an orange juice on the fringes of a first lunch-break, it took the guileless Black Country friendliness of two middle-aged mechanic brothers to take a step forward and talk.
'Come on, son, tuck in - doh be shoy, doh let us all tek it all.'
And then, plenty of small teams. Focused on our shared duties. In the hurried moments beforehand. And then - for 60 minutes or so in the stadium - indulgently concentrating on two teams only. Well, four, on that Scotland-Switzerland/England-Netherlands night.
And, sure, watching the matches on big screens - or at least as best a view as could be glimpsed between po-go-ing heads fighting stale-beer-sticky feet.
But, no - instead, some of us were photocopying pages of stats about ages and injuries, shuffling and sorting them not into order but into rows of layers of sort-of-order, and making sure each one would then be stuffed into the appropriate pigeonhole.
Even before the first kick-off, there were plenty of potential benefits.
The obligatory and yet free uniform, for a start: a navy sweater with ominously-grey sleeves, a navy polo shirt and a similar T-shirt for choosing to wear underneath, plus a pair of colour-coded shellsuit trousers.
(Although the supplies of the latter ran out for a few of us last slow-movers, who had to make do with providing our own provided there would be no clash.)
Most importantly, however - and, yes, even above camaraderie - there was the hint of tickets, once your pre-match rigmarole passed muster.
Ten minutes into a game, a flutter of magic tokens would be fanned out - always with the suggestion some unlucky soul would have to miss out, although it never really seemed that anyone ever did.
(Apologies to those who ever actually did.)
The only proviso was you had to be back across the car park and into the media centre with ten to 15 minutes to go, to start doling out even more important missives: stat attacks to help beleaguered hacks.
Fortune-favoured here again in having family tickets to all Wembley games, Villa Park (tr)avails were enhanced by witnessing and exuberantly celebrating all those joyous London moments we all know.
Oh, plus those stark seconds in the semi-final: 80,000 people's collective intake of breath when Stefan Kuntz thought his golden 'goal' won it in extra-time, then a similar silence when poor, ever-interview-friendly Gareth Southgate faltered.
(That quiet was then broken, in our section anyway, by at first a solitary voice and quickly a ensemble chorus, of the right place, right time song. No, not gloomily cheery 'Three Lions', but similarly: 'Always look on the bright side of life...')
There was, mind, one Wembley match missed - and it had to be the somehow-comfy 4-1 vs the Dutch.
Last group-games being as they are, that night's duties meant preparing for - and preparing people for - seeing Scotland face Switzerland.
And so, on 75 minutes, then making our way out of our seats along the rows around one perimeter of the ground - (im)perfectly timed to absorb all blame and abuse from Scottish fans for news of Patrick Kluivert's significant goal-difference consolation strike.
(Cheers, David Seaman.)
That left, at Villa Park, only one quarter-final to go - the winner that put the Czech Republic through and won Karel Poborsky a transfer to Manchester United, his scoop of a ball from penalty-edge into the net like Frogger somehow simultaneously leaping two roads not one.
For an aspiring hack as well as lifelong football fan, those experiences behind the scenes - while spectator-ly in front of them too - gleamed golden. (Don't confuse with the lion mascot "Goaliath".)
Not only, that is, for exciting experience of and eye-opening insight into the alternately languid and fractious environment of the sporting event media centre.
Why, those working common-room collections of some tapping on laptops with glum or studious intensity - others more volubly clubbable, the odd one or few prone to panicky rages at the sheer audacity of technology.
Privileges and pleasures have followed, actually getting to be there as a correspondent at Euros, World Cups and Olympics - now relying on those seen but unsung volunteers, assistants, technicians. Content- and help-providers.
(Even if that sense of feeling out of place, diminished - as back in '96 - still lingers on, this other side.)
Best to just do your best, really, and not be like one veteran and volatile BBC radio commentator overheard at Villa Park way back then, barking at a timid and unsatisfying receptionist that deathless phrase: 'Do you know who I am?'
Always timid at the time, and wrapping scarred arms around that summer at the end of an often-lost first year out in the wider world, Euro 96 as a Villa Park volunteer gave some precious sense of connection.
Sipping an orange juice on the fringes of a first lunch-break, it took the guileless Black Country friendliness of two middle-aged mechanic brothers to take a step forward and talk.
'Come on, son, tuck in - doh be shoy, doh let us all tek it all.'
And then, plenty of small teams. Focused on our shared duties. In the hurried moments beforehand. And then - for 60 minutes or so in the stadium - indulgently concentrating on two teams only. Well, four, on that Scotland-Switzerland/England-Netherlands night.
And then, in the harried moments in the aftermath.
Before, several months later, in that fading yet glimmering sort-of-glow, unexpectedly getting a parcel of a message through the post.
Another 26 years of hurt along, on top of the former 30 - and yet this medal along with those memories do still add up enough to, well: sweet, FA.
Before, several months later, in that fading yet glimmering sort-of-glow, unexpectedly getting a parcel of a message through the post.
Another 26 years of hurt along, on top of the former 30 - and yet this medal along with those memories do still add up enough to, well: sweet, FA.
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