Making my full England debut just before the Euro 96 finals on home soil felt like a natural progression for me.
I had played at all age levels for England, right from U14s through to the U21s, so the target of getting into the senior team was always there and I felt ready for it when it happened.
Having trained with the senior squad when I was younger, it didn’t feel like a massive step to be part of the squad for real, but it's still a very special moment when you walk onto the pitch at Wembley for the first time as an England international.
I went on for Paul Ince in the second half of the game against Hungary and every time I pulled on an England shirt after that it felt magical. I appreciated it every time and to have 73 England caps at the end of my career was a fantastic legacy for me.
I was still a young kid in 1996, but Terry Venables included me in the squad for that tournament and coming on against Scotland in the game when Paul Gascoigne scored his famous goal was another great moment for me.
There were some great matches in my England career and the 5-1 win against Germany in Munich in 2001 will always be remembered, but the game that I am asked about more than most is probably the second-round match against Argentina at the 1998 World Cup.
We were down to ten men for a long time after David Beckham was sent off and in extra-time, I scored a goal that I still believe should have been allowed to stand and could have changed the course of that tournament for us.
I will always have questions about why that goal was disallowed. In my mind, there was nothing wrong with it, but someone decided that it wasn't going to allowed and we had to accept what we all felt was the wrong decision.
I remember celebrating what I thought might be the winner for England in a massive World Cup match and then suddenly we turn around, realise the referee has cancelled out the goal and on top of that, he has allowed Argentina to kick-off when we were all out of position and they were counter-attacking us.
The second part of that was as bad as the first in many ways because we didn’t even know the goal had been disallowed and suddenly they're allowed to break forward and try and score at the other end.
In the end, we lost on penalties and you wonder what might have been. That was a good England squad which could've gone a long way in the competition if the decision on my goal had gone the other way.
But you need a bit of luck at times and it went against us on that incident and that has often been the story for England in major tournaments in recent years.
