This week’s round-up also features fireworks, Arnold Schwarzenegger and English football meetings with Albania
1) England meet Albania for only the sixth time on Friday, at Wembley. Their first encounter, in Tirana in 1989 shortly before the fall of Albania’s particularly hardline Stalinist government, attracted a good deal of curiosity. Here are Barry Davies and Des Lynam providing a little bit of background to tee up the BBC’s live coverage of England’s 2-0 victory. The return fixture, a routine 5-0 England win, was notable for Paul Gascoigne’s first international goal. Elsewhere this weekend, the Republic of Ireland, long out of the World Cup qualification running, face another tough test against Portugal, so here’s a reminder of their 1-0 Euro 96 qualifying win over the Portuguese in April 1995, the closing stages of Jack Charlton’s reign.
2) England and Australia lock horns at Twickenham on Saturday, the 28th time the two rivals have met in TW2. Here’s silent footage of the first, an 18-11 England win in 1928, though strictly speaking Australia were represented by the New South Wales Waratahs, and Australia’s first win at the ground, in 1948. The rivals have met rather more regularly in the modern era, treating us to classics such as England’s hard-fought 22-19 victory in 2000, their famous 32-31 comeback win in 2002, and Australia’s most famous Twickenham triumph, in the 1991 World Cup final. Meanwhile Ireland and New Zealand meet for the first time since the All Blacks romped to victory in the 2019 World Cup quarter-finals, though the Irish were famously victorious the last time they hosted them. The first two times they did, in 1905 and 1924, Ireland didn’t manage a point at Lansdowne Road.
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