England's 500th victory
Thursday, 04 March, 2010
Three Lions achieved their 500th win in history last night.
David Barber
There was a special significance to England’s 3-1 win against Egypt in last night’s Wembley friendly. It was their 500th victory in history.
England’s first-ever international – and the world’s first – was played against Scotland in Glasgow back in 1872. That match, played at the West of Scotland Cricket Ground in Partick, finished goalless.
Their second, played in the following year at Kennington Oval, resulted in a 4-2 win for England against the Scots. A crowd of around 3,000 watched that first England victory; more than 80,000 were at Wembley to witness the 500th last night.
They took a while to get going after that initial success, failing to win any of the next five internationals (all against Scotland), but they showed that they knew where the goal was with a 13-0 drubbing of the Irish in Belfast in 1882.
England had chalked up their 100th victory by the end of the 1920s. Their 245th won them the World Cup in 1966 and in more recent times the 2005-06 season proved to be particularly productive, with wins against Wales (1-0), Austria (1-0), Poland (2-1), Argentina (3-2), Uruguay (2-1), Hungary (3-1), Jamaica (6-0), Paraguay (1-0), Trinidad & Tobago (2-0) and Ecuador (1-0).