FEATURE | AYLESBURY UNITED HOST ENGLAND, 1988

It's a friendly match-up that we'll never see the like of again

Fresh from lifting the Southern League title at the end of the 1987/88 season, Aylesbury United faced a rather unusual friendly fixture on June 4th 1988 as they lined up against the England national team just prior to them flying out to West Germany to take part in the 1988 European Championships.

Buckingham Road was the venue as a crowd of over 6,000 packed in, with many more on rooftops and up in surrounding trees, to see the likes of Gary Lineker, John Barnes, Peter Beardsley, Bryan Robson, Glenn Hoddle, Chris Waddle and Peter Shilton strut their stuff as Bobby Robson fielded a full-strength side just over a week before their first game in the tournament.

The quality of Aylesbury’s playing surface at the time was a key factor in the decision to play the game as many of their players, who had secured promotion to the Vauxhall Conference a month earlier, returned early from their summer holidays to take part in this momentous fixture, which really captured the imagination of the local community and earned plenty of media attention.

There is the story of how talisman, Cliff Hercules, was flown back from his holiday in Ibiza by the club to take part in the game before flying back out to Spain that evening.

England raced into an early two-goal lead and eventually bagged seven without reply as Beardsley helped himself to four of the goals, with Lineker also on the scoresheet as well as Everton duo, Dave Watson and Trevor Steven.

We will never see the like of this game again. It’s still spoken about 36 years later and still provides so many precious memories for the Aylesbury United players, staff, volunteers and supporters that were involved in it.

Sadly, the club departed Buckingham Road in 2006 and their ‘home’ games have been played away from the town ever since. They returned to the Southern League in 2004 and are currently members of the Pitching In Southern League Division One Central.

Next week our Players Panel give their verdict on England's chances in EURO 2024...

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