Should Harry Kane find himself striding towards the penalty spot in an England shirt again this summer, with ball in hand, demons to banish and the hopes of a nation resting upon him, then at least he will do so in the knowledge that somebody has been there before.
That somebody was Stuart Pearce, and that walk was one he had to make at Euro 96. Six years after Italia 90. Six years after shootout heartbreak on the biggest stage of all. Fight or flight, do or die. In front of 75,000 at Wembley. So, Stuart, how does that moment feel?
‘Well, the walk from the centre circle to the penalty spot felt like it lasted about three-and-a-half miles,’ Pearce tells Mail Sport, 28 years on from that quarter-final showdown with Spain.
‘You’re trying to keep focused, you’re getting it in your head which direction you’re going, you’re looking for good contact on the ball. But the nervousness… the tension in the air was something quite incredible.’
Crumbs of comfort for Kane seem scarce, at this point, don’t they? ‘Actually, I had the feeling that there were probably 75,000 people in the stadium who were more nervous than I was, walking up there, because of my history,’ Pearce says.
‘The explosion of emotion from myself and everybody in the stadium was there for all to see.’
That explosion, of course, came after Pearce blasted his spot-kick past Andoni Zubizarreta and into the bottom-right corner. Arms flailing, his face contorting with emotion, he let out a primal roar.
As iconic screams go, it gives Edvard Munch a run for his money. ‘There was a little bit of relief there,’ Pearce, now 62, admits. More than little, I'd wager.
Twenty-four hours later, Pearce — a music nut — was introducing the Sex Pistols on stage in Finsbury Park with a certain Gareth Southgate in tow.
‘It was one of the best weekends of my life,’ he adds. ‘I managed to talk Gareth and a few staff members from the FA into going. It was brilliant — though I’m not sure Gareth had ever been to a gig before he turned up at the Pistols. I’d been going since I was 14... I think it was an eye-opener for him!’
Pearce is proof positive that a World Cup penalty miss need not define you. The photo of his celebration after scoring in ‘96 occupies a much more prominent space in the nation’s consciousness than the footage of him trudging back despondently in Turin six years earlier.
It helped that Euro 96 was a tournament that captured the public’s imagination like few others. Even the build-up, when England’s players were showered with spirits in a Hong Kong nightclub — ‘I was in bed sleeping, like all good professionals’ — and then splashed again, across the nation’s front pages, following a booze-fuelled flight back from Asia, is iconic in its own way.
It was a summer when Britain’s culture, its politics and its football teams were hurtling in exciting new directions.
‘As the tournament got going, the carnival atmosphere went to a crescendo,’ recalls Pearce. ‘The musical scene was fantastic, the sun was out, it all combined into a brilliant summer.
'A lot of fans come up to me and talk about that tournament and how their love of football was rekindled by it. Younger people tell me it was the first one they remember and that they absolutely loved it. There were so many good aspects of it.’
One of those aspects was Three Lions — Baddiel and Skinner’s enduring anthem that (unofficially) soundtracked the tournament. It will doubtless soar up the charts again in the next few weeks, if the prospect of football coming home from Euro 2024 gains any momentum. So, what was the seasoned gig-goer's verdict?
‘When I first heard it at the team hotel, I’ve got to say, I weren’t sure! But the longer the tournament went on, the more iconic it became.
‘At the end of every game, it rung out around the stadiums and it was incredible. I remember after the Spain game, myself and Dave Seaman did an interview in a backroom at Wembley somewhere, up the tunnel. The pitch was out of the way, but all you could hear was the whole of Wembley singing Three Lions, it was deafening.
‘I’ve got it on one of my compilation tapes in the car now. If I hear it, it brings back so many good memories.’
Good memories, but ones tinged with thoughts of ‘What if?’ nonetheless. Southgate succeeded Pearce as England’s tragic hero from the spot in the semi-final with Germany as even the most glorious and exciting of summers ended in a familiar feeling of despair.
Quick to comfort Southgate in his darkest hour with a playful slap of his face, and their own cheeky Cockney grin, was Terry Venables. That human touch was typical of the England manager, who passed away aged 80 in November last year.
‘Terry was a wonderful coach,’ says Pearce, of the former Tottenham, Leeds and Barcelona boss.
‘The players loved him, he dealt with Gazza brilliantly well and his man-management skills were very good — but don’t underestimate how good he was as a coach. He knew the game very well, he was very cute tactically.
‘Terry knew he had to put an arm around certain individuals (after the Germany loss), you saw that on the pitch after the game. Gareth was an obvious one we had to get round and help.
‘It was the same with that incident on the plane leading into the tournament — he dealt with it, with a statement of collective responsibility, he never threw any individual player under the bus.
'He was instrumental in us standing strong together as a squad. His experience under Terry will without doubt have rubbed off on Gareth.’
There was, then, no one better than Southgate to put an arm around Kane when the darkness came for him against France in Qatar two years ago. And there remains no one better than Pearce to prove that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
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