'They are our heroes'
Wednesday, 25 March, 2009
Armed Forces heroes meet the England squad at their traning camp.
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Members of the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force were invited to watch England train on Tuesday at Arsenal's London Colney training ground before the entire squad joined them after lunch at the team hotel.
It was a special day as the training session was behind closed doors so "our boys and girls" were able to have an exclusive glance of Fabio Capello's training methods. The meet and greet then happened afterwards with the whole squad taking part and representatives from the Ministry of Defence said a few words of support and thanks.
England captain John Terry spoke of his eagerness to meet with men and women who regularly risk their lives for their country.
Terry said: "The guys who are over there on behalf of our country, the nurses, everything, I think it is unbelievable what they do. They look at us because they love their football but when we come here to meet them we are a bit overwhelmed."
Royal Marine Ben McBean lost an arm and a leg in a landmine explosion in Afghanistan and as he told the likes of Beckham and Rooney of his plans to climb Everest later this year he explained just how good an experience it was to meet the England players. McBean said: "It's strange to meet all the players and a good experience. But they are just human beings like us."
Many of the armed forces who met with the England team played football themselves as representatives of the RAF, including Michael Douglas, whose grandfather Bryan was the Blackburn Rovers and England winger who scored eleven times for his country in the late 1950s. Bryan also served in the RAF during the Second World War but was kept out the RAF team then by Stanley Matthews.
Michael, who was a trainee at Blackpool, said: "My grandfather went to the 1962 World Cup finals in Chile," he said. "He shared a room with Jimmy Greaves and, yes, he has got a few stories about him. He was also a mechanic in the RAF like me and I wind him up because he couldn't get into the RAF team because of Matthews.
"He scored against Scotland at Hampden Park in a 4-0 win [in 1958] and he said that although the place was packed you could have heard a pin drop every time one of England's goals went in."
Sergeant Nick de Long, also from the RAF, reminded Rio Ferdinand of the time he played against him for Bristol City reserves. "I am the same age as Rio and played for the reserves against West Ham. In fact, I marked Marco Boogers. Rio and Frank Lampard played in that team and, of all of them, Rio stood out. He played at the back and everything went through him. You could tell then he was going to be a great player. I mentioned it to him and he said, 'Ah, that was when they used to let me play the way I wanted'."
Ferdinand said: "We have seen so much on television about how these guys go about their work and the sacrifices they make for our well-being, for us to be able to share the same room is a privilege ... they are more worthy of the word 'hero' than we are."