When Steph Houghton scored an indirect free-kick for England against Cameroon at the Women’s World Cup in 2019, many fans’ minds instantly turned back 22 years.
The roll back, the full team of players assembled on the line, the ability to find the corner anyway… it could only remind us of one thing.
When you add in the instinctively raised right arm, it was impossible for Houghton to not remind us of an Alan Shearer strike more than two decades earlier.
England’s opponents at Wembley in April 1997, Georgia, were embarking on their first World Cup qualifying campaign as an independent nation.
They’d given a good account of themselves in Euro 96 qualifying, thanks in no small part to Georgi Kinkladze, but England had already won in Tbilisi thanks to goals from Teddy Sheringham and Les Ferdinand.
Sheringham opened the scoring in the return game, too, but things were still a little too close for comfort going into the final minutes.
Rob Lee came close to a second when his shot was pawed away by goalkeeper Irakli Zoidze, and seconds later there was a fantastic chance for England as a defender touched the ball back to the Georgian stopper, who picked it up.
An indirect free-kick from inside the box is never a sure thing, but when Alan Shearer is involved you’ve got to fancy your chances.
Alan Shearer vs Georgia
Wednesday 30 April 1997
World Cup 1998 Qualifier
England 2-0 Georgia pic.twitter.com/AthPwX6d5a— England Goals (@ThreeLionsGoals) July 1, 2017
When Sheringham rolls the ball back to Shearer, the closest Georgian defender cannot be more than two yards away.
It’s not even that they haven’t been warned about this sort of thing; seconds earlier, Murtaz Shelia has been shown a yellow card for encroachment, but perhaps referee Rémy Harrel recognises – accurately – that Shearer doesn’t need the opposition defence to be a full 10 yards back.
He’s right, of course. The velocity of Shearer’s drive threatens to rip the net asunder, taking with it the heads of anyone stupid enough to get in the way.
It’s as if the net forces itself to expand to protect the vulnerable fans behind the goal, who would surely have themselves been decapitated if exposed to the drive without such protection.
The desperate slides and dives add to the spectacle, of course, but as he peels away he has the look of an action hero, fresh from ousting a villain’s henchman with a grenade and escaping his lair with a trail of destruction in his wake.
The…
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