It has been recently noted that 1976 is an outlier, in footballing terms, in that no men’s senior international was born in that year. While 1975 produced some big names – David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Robbie Fowler Gary Neville, and 1977 gave us a few less impressive, but respectable players – Danny Mills, Danny Murphy, Phil Neville – the year in between drew a blank.
Michael Cox at The Athletic looked into this phenomenon – the reasons why, the comparisons with other years – but we thought we’d take it a step further: what would an England team made up purely of players born in 1976 look like? Are there any players that could feel hard-done by, or might have had more caps in a different era? Well, judge for yourself, this is the XI we came up with. Thanks to Denis Hurley of Museum of Jerseys for the graphic – we’ve chosen a mixture of kits from 1998-2004, when most these players would – and in some cases should – have been at their peak. See further down for players’ full names.
Yeah, there are a lot of Hugheses in there, aren’t there. Strange. We used the Wikipedia category search tool, and from the result, set a few guidelines:
- It should be a natural formation (and a realistic squad – see below)
- Anyone who played for another nation, at any level, was excluded
- Players chosen should have played at least a season in the top-flight, with U-21 caps for England helping their cause.
As Michael Cox discovered, there aren’t many standout players. You could easily imagine Darren Huckerby getting a single cap in the Keegan era, and if Stephen Hughes had lived up to his early promise he’d certainly have won a few caps. Wayne Quinn played for England B in the 1998 match against Russia in which Matt Le Tissier scored a hattrick, while Kelvin Davis is very plausible in the role of a goalkeeper called up to fill an England squad but with no chance of playing (your Frank Fieldings, your Joe Lewises). Other than that though, it’s a picture of unfulfilled potential and/or solid careers just below the elite. This is the full squad:
- Kelvin Davis
- Des Hamilton
- Wayne Quinn
- Paul Hughes
- Marcus Hall
- Darren Powell
- Terry Cooke
- Stephen Hughes
- Lee Hughes
- Darren Huckerby
- Bryan Hughes
- Chris Plummer
- David Preece
- Martin Phillips
- Jon Bass
- Ian Ashbee
- Robbie Blake
- Brett Ormerod
- Lee Trundle
- Ashley Westwood
- Paul Murray
- Simon Brown
- Jamie Stuart
How would this team do? Well it’s hard to see them qualifying for a tournament, even in today’s era of larger competitions. What we probably have here is a squad with a decent chance of earning promotion to the Premier League, and not much chance of staying in it. Of course, it’s an unfair proposition – even the strongest year’s cohort of players, from any nation, would be hamstrung by this restriction. But nonetheless, no international players at all is unusual. Let’s look at a selection of 1976 births from other major nations:
- Argentina: Marcelo Gallardo, Santiago Solari, Juan Pablo Sorin
- Brazil: Belletti, Edmilson, Emerson (not the Middlesbrough one), Gilberto Silva, Roque Junior, Ronaldo. Quite a lot of the 2002 World Cup squad in other words.
- France: Ludovic Giuly, Patrick Vieira. Interestingly there is only one other, Nantes defender Nicolas Gillet.
- Germany: Michael Ballack, Torsten Frings
- Italy: Mauro Camoranesi, Simone Inzaghi, Alessandro Nesta, Francesco Totti
- Netherlands: Patrick Kluivert and Ruud van Nistelrooy (born on the same day), Mario Melchiot, Clarence Seedorf, Bolo Zenden
- Spain: Guti, Fernando Morientes, Ivan de la Peña, Marcos Senna
What do you think? Anyone we’ve missed out on? Could any of these players earned England caps, had they been luckier?
