LOOSE CONNECTIONS...

Big day in the Euro Footy Thing with England playing Scotland at Wembley this evening. I should perhaps be more excited than I am but I confess to a degree of ambivalence.  It is, of course, high Summer - the cricket season - and domestic competitive football was supposed to have come to an end.  Well it hasn`t quite - there`s still the play-off final for promotion from the National League to the English Football League between Torquay United and Hartlepool to come this weekend and on the international stage the finals of Euro 2020 drone on despite being a year late.

Tonight`s game is billed as the oldest international ever and so has with it some history and tradition not a million miles away from Bannockburn in its intensity and deep rivalry.  Not so much a football match, more a re-enactment.

I suppose the reasons for my ambivalence are twofold.  First, it`s interfering with what Summer should really be about but secondly because, with the dumping of James Ward-Prowse from the England squad, my Southampton based interest has been replaced by what loose connections with the Saints I can find.  I guess three of our Academy graduates, Luke Shaw, Tyrone Mings and Ben White will play for England although they each went off to other clubs.   Scotland will have current Saints midfielder Stuart Armstrong and striker Che Adams who now qualifies to play for Scotland thanks to his grandparents apparently going there on holiday once.

All very tenuous links for me to encourage any real interest in the game or the outcome and so I`ve been looking at more compelling examples of Southampton`s influence on this fixture.   And it doesn`t get any better - any more romantic - any more inspiring than the England debut of Rickie Lambert Southampton`s Goal Machine (RLSGM) scoring the winning goal against Scotland at Wembley in 2013.    Here it is:-

Unforgettable !