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Success of Euro 96 proves Yorkshire should play key role if football comes home again
As delegates from three Yorkshire cities bid to be a part of the 2018 World Cup, Richard Sutcliffe looks back to the 1996 European Championships.
A GLEAMING new arch may have replaced the Twin Towers but the walk up Wembley Way still remains one of football's enduring pleasures.
Whether it be an England international, the FA Cup final or one of non-League football's showpiece fixtures, the sense of excitement and anticipation grows with each step that takes supporters closer to the self-styled Venue of Legends.
Being among a throng of thousands heading towards one of the world's most iconic stadiums invariably brings a quickening of the pace, so much so that close to kick-off anyone stopping to tie a shoelace or gaze in wonderment at the sight before them runs the risk of being trodden underfoot.
Today, the crowds will be absent, save for the usual mixture of locals going about their everyday business and tourists hoping to catch a peek behind the scenes.
However, despite the scene looking tranquil, it will actually be anything but with many of those striding along one of England's most recognisable streets likely to be experiencing their very own adrenaline rush as the Football Association's bid to bring the World Cup to these shores takes a significant step forward.
Delegates from Hull, Leeds and Sheffield will be at Wembley to officially hand over their own cases for inclusion, along with representatives from the other 12 cities wanting to be part of the final bid submitted to FIFA next May. All will be hoping the documents handed to FA chairman Lord Triesman, Football League chairman Lord Mawhinney and 2018 bid director Andy Anson will be enough to win selection when the FA make their choices on December 16.
Memories of the huge success that was Euro 96 are still fresh in Yorkshire, a county that provided a quarter of the host venues when football came home 13 summers ago.
The staging of three group games apiece at Elland Road and Hillsborough provided a tremendous boost to Yorkshire's prestige with fans of the eight countries who played at least once within the Broad Acres being left with a hugely positive impression of the region.
Euro 96 was also a significant boost to the economy, though the money that trickled into the tills of Yorkshire back then would be nothing compared to the deluge that would inevitably follow in 2018 should the FA win the right to stage the World Cup.
Professor Chris Gratton, director of Sheffield Hallam University's sports research centre, conducted a major study into the staging of Euro 96.
He said: "In the case of Sheffield, the most interesting aspect of the research we gathered by interviewing fans at the three games was that the economic impact was less than had been expected.
"The main reason for this was that, in common with any European Championship held in northern Europe such as the one jointly staged by Holland and Belgium in 2000, Euro 96 saw a lot of overseas fans fly in before a game and then straight back out afterwards.
"Denmark's base was Sheffield and they had 10,000-12,000 at their three games at Hillsborough but the vast majority flew home in between.
"It was a similar story in Leeds where Spain played all their three group games. We found that the Spanish supporters tended to fly into Manchester and stay there, only commuting over to Leeds for the games.
"Sheffield was also not helped by Denmark's opponents being Turkey, Croatia and Portugal, three countries that were not very fashionable back then so the result was Hillsborough being three-quarters or two-thirds full.
"From our research, we worked out overseas spending in Sheffield for Euro 96 to be 1.6m per match as opposed to the average across the eight venues of 3.87m – a figure that was boosted by London doing very well due to England playing all five games at Wembley.
"If the 2018 World Cup was to come to Sheffield, the economic impact would be massively increased with, for instance, the overseas spending by visitors alone in the 2006 World Cup in Germany being E40m per match."
The cash influx to businesses and hotels may not have been as hoped when Euro 96 came to Yorkshire but there was little doubting the cultural impact made by the tournament.
Whether it be the 'Little Denmark' campsite that sprang up courtesy of the hundreds of Danes who decided to make the Steel City their base for 10 days or the way thousands of Spanish, French and English football fans mingled happily in Leeds despite pre-tournament scare-mongering about the threat of hooliganism, Euro 96 was fun.
Wayne Cordle, now Sheffield 2018 bid director but in 1996 the head of the city's major events unit, recalls: "The international flavour it brought to Sheffield is something I won't forget, nor is looking at the Kop during the final game and seeing a red banner with 'Sheffield' written on it amid a sea of Danish scarves. It was the Danes' way of saying they had been made to feel very welcome in the city.
"Perhaps the biggest proof of how much everyone enjoyed Euro 96 has come during the current bidding process as we have not had to convince anyone of the benefits a World Cup would bring.
"Of course, things have changed a lot since 1996 and particularly in the selection of host venues. Basically, the FA got together with the clubs to decide what stadia would be used to host games and, only then, did the local authorities become involved.
"We set up a Fan Festival in Hillsborough Park, which was quite ground-breaking at the time, but that only took place when there was a match on."
In common with their six fellow host venues in Euro 96, the two Yorkshire cities tried to widen the appeal of the tournament beyond the actual games.
In Leeds, an exhibition of football culture called 'More Than A Game' was staged along with a street music festival and various five-a-side tournaments. Pub and club opening times were also extended, while a tented village capable of hosting 3,000 visitors was set up at Temple Newsam. Sheffield saw a host of cultural events staged including a jazz festival and a carnival parade.
The main focus, however, was football, with a cumulative worldwide audience of 7bn tuning in to watch 31 matches spread across three weeks.
As with the bid to bring the 2018 World Cup to England, a host of hotels and training bases were utilised across the county with only the Bulgarian base of Scarborough proving problematic – Hristo Stoichkov and co followed up their initial complaints about the state of the McCain Stadium pitch by later decamping to Stockton due to "being bored".
Otherwise, however, the White Rose operation ran like clockwork.
John Wray, the FA's press officer in Leeds throughout the year- long build-up and the tournament itself, recalls: "The FA held a lot of meetings with us all at Lancaster Gate and ironed out any potential problems.
"The result was Euro 96 being very successful. In terms of Leeds, hotels and businesses profited massively while the profile of the city grew.
"We had journalists here from all over the world and, being from Leeds, my brief of publicising the city was something I relished.
"Not only were the facilities at Elland Road improved, but also the infrastructure. Euro 96 also opened doors for businesses in both Leeds and Sheffield – certainly, in the immediate aftermath anyway."
England's run to the semi-finals undoubtedly played a part in the feel-good factor that swept the country. But with a seeding system that ensured Terry Venables's side would stay in the capital throughout, it is clear the success of the tournament also owed a huge debt to the people of Birmingham, Nottingham, Liverpool, Newcastle and Manchester along with those in both Leeds and Sheffield.
Just how many venues Yorkshire will boast if the 2018 World Cup comes to England remains to be seen, but those who helped make Euro 96 such a success point to one huge benefit of having two neighbouring cities involved.
John Wray said: "Leeds was a major centre in the country anyway but I definitely feel having two cities from the same county helped us both. Each wanted to out-do the other and the competition drove both Leeds and Sheffield on."
Cordle concurs, adding: "In a positive way, I do feel we did spur each other on in 1996.
"We were both part of Team England in terms of hosting the tournament but there was an element of profiling both the region and our own cities as well."
Yorkshire's Euro 96
June 9, Elland Road: Spain 1-1 Bulgaria.
June 9, Hillsborough: Denmark 1-1 Portugal.
June 15, Elland Road: France 1-1 Spain.
June 16, Hillsborough: Croatia 3-0 Denmark.
June 18, Elland Road: Romania 1-2 Spain.
June 19, Hillsborough: Turkey 0-3 Denmark.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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