Superbfc at Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0,
One year after Hillsborough was Italia ’90. Fondly remembered today for Gazza’s tears, an evening, or three with Gary Lineker and the culture clash of Pavarotti’s Nessum Dorum vs New Order’s World in Motion.
Italia ’90 was the start of a process, accelerated six years later at Euro 96, towards the embrace of a popular Englishness via football. But the actuality of the time was that until the semi-final against you-know-who, as a tournament, Italia ‘90 was dominated by what had become known as ‘The English Disease’: something quite different to the largely family-friendly multicultiural version of England in a summer tournament of today.
