In May 1982, England were preparing for their first appearance at a World Cup in 12 years and it was Ron Greenwood’s job to pick the squad. Knowing he had four games in 10 days between the end of the season and England’s opening match at the tournament against France, Greenwood named a provisional squad of 30 players, with 10 more on standby.
For the two games at the end of May – a friendly against the Netherlands at Wembley and a Home International against Scotland at Hampden – Greenwood was without his Tottenham players, who were preparing for the FA Cup final, and his Aston Villa players, who were in Rotterdam winning the European Cup final, so he must have been delighted with a 2-0 win over the Netherlands and 1-0 win over Scotland. Having suffered an embarrassing defeat to Norway six months earlier, Greenwood’s team had now won five games in a row. Things were looking up.
England had another warm-up match scheduled for Thursday 3 June – a game in Helsinki that had been arranged to mark the 75th anniversary of the Finnish FA. England had also organised to play a B’ international in Iceland the night before the Finland friendly, but it was assumed the majority of players picked for this fixture would not be boarding the plane to Spain for the World Cup.
With England facing two games in two countries in two days, Greenwood added standby players Gary Bailey and Steve Perryman to his original squad of 30 and then divided the group in half, with 16 players going to Reykjavik and 16 going to Helsinki. “It should not be taken as read that the 16 players going to Finland can assume they are automatically in the final squad of 22,” said Greenwood, although it was hard not to arrive at this conclusion.
Greenwood was not in attendance in Iceland, but he was determined that the match would not be dismissed as a pointless exercise and even appealed to the FA International Committee that the game be awarded full international status. “A team of such strength deserves caps,” said Greenwood, even though the match would be widely reported as a B international or Iceland v England XI.
“The chance is there for the taking for all 32 players in action this week,” said Bobby Robson, who took charge of the England team in Iceland. As things transpired, Robson would be managing his first match as England manager a month before he officially landed the role. Robson did have a point about some of the members of his 16-man squad. Joe Corrigan was expected to go to Spain as third-choice keeper behind Peter Shilton and Ray Clemence, and there were also opportunities to impress for Viv Anderson, Dave Watson, Steve Foster, Russell Osman, Glenn Hoddle, Terry McDermott, Tony Morley, Peter Withe, Cyrille Regis and Phil Neal, who captained the team on the night.
There was very little hype surrounding the game, and the blustery conditions and poor playing surface did little to encourage free-flowing football, but the quality of one man shone through. Hoddle, fresh from scoring the winner in the FA Cup final replay against QPR, stood out on a difficult night for the visitors. “This is the first time I have worked with Glenn at close quarters and I was very impressed,” said Robson after the 1-1 draw. “He was our most creative player. He made the game talk at certain stages. He’s got everything it takes to develop into a world-class player.” Hoddle may have guaranteed his place in Greenwood’s squad but the dream was over for Regis. The West Brom forward pulled his hamstring shortly before half-time and was immediately ruled out of the World Cup.
Iceland had held Wales and Czechoslovakia to draws in World Cup qualifying and they stretched England throughout, with Corrigan saving well from Arnor Gudjohnsen (Eidur’s father) and Trausti Haraldsson. Gudjohnsen gave Iceland the lead in the 23rd minute, as the crowd of 11,110 sensed a shock. Inevitably, Hoddle was the player who provided the opportunity for England to equalise, setting up Paul Goddard – who had replaced Regis – to score on his international debut. As England pushed for a winner, Robson introduced Steve Perryman from the bench for an important 20 minutes of his career.
The press dedicated very few words to England’s 1-1 draw in Reykjavik, concentrating instead on the game in Finland. The Guardian had described the situation as “Possibles tonight, Probables tomorrow” in their preview of the Iceland fixture. “Goddard saves England’s face,” declared the headline in the same paper, as the tabloids praised Hoddle.
In the end, Hoddle, Corrigan, Anderson, Neal, McDermott and Withe all made it into Greenwood’s squad for the World Cup – as did Steve Foster, strangely jumping the queue in front of Watson and Osman even though he was an unused substitute in Iceland. Morley, who had just set up the winning goal in the European Cup final, missed out. “I hope Mr Greenwood didn’t judge me on the midweek match in Iceland. That was a bit of a joke,” said Morley.
Perhaps Morley did not take the fixture seriously but, when it was given full international status a few months later, the upgrade was significant for Perryman and Goddard. Both would claim their only cap, with Goddard becoming a member of the played-one scored-one club, a group that also includes Bill Nicholson, Tony Kay, Danny Wallace, Francis Jeffers, Steven Caulker and David Nugent.
At the time, the 30-year-old Perryman seemed pleased at the announcement. “I never thought of the game in Iceland as anything but a B international, so getting a full cap for it now is nice – especially as it will probably be my one and only.” But, speaking earlier this year, he said he looked back on his only England cap with regret. “I’m annoyed that I accepted it. I was football writers’ player of the year in 1982 and Ron Greenwood said I’d get a cap – but only as a favour to him. I was there to make up the numbers and wished I hadn’t done it. Either I was good enough or I wasn’t. I went to Iceland and Bobby Robson led the team, but I think he said about four words to me over three days and I played about eight minutes. It was back-handed, disrespectful and not done right. I should have just said no.”
It would have been difficult for Perryman to turn down the chance to represent England, even if he only had an outside chance of going to the World Cup. At least the decision to give the players a cap for their efforts in Reykjavik means Perryman is no longer on the list of the best players who were never capped by their country.
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