UEFA has recently changed the age levels for its Youth Tournaments. Matches played previously at U16 and U18 levels are now designated U17 and U19.

The new U18s are therefore in an 'in between' year and in 2001/2002 they played just four times - a friendly in Italy (lost 0-3) and three matches in a Portuguese tournament (beat Slovakia 1-0, lost 2-3 to Norway and lost 0-3 to the hosts). Fulham's Dean Leacock played in three of them and he has already made his first-team debut for the Cottagers.

The old 'Under-18s' are the England Youth Team that won no fewer than NINE European Championships. In the early years of the competition, i.e. from the first one in 1948, it was simply known as the 'International Youth Tournament'. It wasn't until the 1980s that it came officially under UEFA's auspices.

England hosted the Tournament Finals in 1948, 1963, 1983 and 1993 - and we were champions three times out of four!

There was a 30,500 crowd for the 1963 Final at Wembley and they saw England beat Northern Ireland 4-0. The Irish had a young Pat Jennings in goal. The start of the 1993 Final at Nottingham Forest’s City Ground was delayed with so many people trying to get in. More than 23,000 eventually saw England edge Turkey 1-0 with Darren Caskey's penalty near the end.

This was the winning England team in 1993: Chris Day, Gary Neville, Kevin Sharp, Darren Caskey, Chris Casper, Sol Campbell, Mark Tinkler, Julian Joachim, Paul Scholes, Robbie Fowler and Kevin Gallen (sub Noel Whelan). A few familiar names there!

Here's a summary of England's victories in the European Youth (Under-18) Final:-

1948: England 3 Holland 2 at Tottenham
1963: England 4 Northern Ireland 0 at Wembley
1964: England 4 Spain 0 in Amsterdam
1971: England 3 Portugal 0 in Prague
1972: England 2 West Germany 0 in Barcelona
1973: England 3 East Germany 2 in Florence
1975: England 1 Finland 0 in Berne
1980: England 2 Poland 1 in Leipzig
1993: England 1 Turkey 0 in Nottingham