England's Euro 96 Squad: Where Are They Now?
With no real European Championship to look forward to this summer (thanks, coronavirus), Euro 96 is getting the re-run treatment on UK television, reminding English fans just why they fell so deeply back in love with the Three Lions that summer as a festival of football descended on the country.
This a look at the 22-man squad manager Terry Venables selected for the tournament, reaching the semi-finals and coming within a penalty shootout against Germany of a first final since 1966.
Note: Club, age and caps as at 8 June 1996 when the tournament began.
1. David Seaman (GK)
Club: Arsenal
Age: 32
Caps: 24
Despite being a top flight starter since 1985 and a league champion with Arsenal in 1990/91, Seaman didn’t play regularly for England until 1993 and earned almost all of his 75 total caps after turning 30.
Euro 96 was his first major international tournament and he was the hero of the quarter-final penalty shootout against Spain.
Seaman was England number one at three further tournaments in 1998, 2000 and 2002 and has largely been a media personality since his retirement in 2004.
2. Gary Neville (DF)
Club: Manchester United
Age: 21
Caps: 10
Having made his international debut in 1995, Neville already had 10 senior England caps to his name by the time he named in the Euro’ 96 squad and went into the tournament off the back of a domestic double winning season with Manchester United.
He played more than 600 games for the club in total, won eight Premier League titles and earned 85 international caps.
These days, he is a very prominent and outspoken pundit on Sky Sports, a hotelier, businessman and co-owner of League Two club Salford City.
3. Stuart Pearce (DF)
Club: Nottingham Forest
Age: 34
Caps: 65
Pearce exorcised the demons of his 1990 World Cup semi-final penalty shootout miss at these Euros, converting from the spot against Spain in the last eight, and then Germany in the last four.
The left-back was persuaded to extend his international career after the tournament by new manager Glenn Hoddle, although he was ultimately not selected for the 1998 World Cup.
Since retiring altogether in 2002, Pearce’s management career has taken in Manchester City, England Under-21, Great Britain’s Olympic team and former club Nottingham Forest.
4. Paul Ince (MF)
Club: Inter
Age: 28
Caps: 19
Ince was the only member of the Euro 96 squad who played his club football outside the British Isles, having left Manchester United for Inter in the summer of 1995.
Following England’s failure to qualify for the 1994 World Cup, the combative midfielder hadn’t played much international football for a couple of years prior to 1996.
Ince has managed a number of lower league clubs since 2006, the most recent being Blackpool in 2014. He has since mainly stayed in the public eye as a pundit.
5. Tony Adams (DF)
Club: Arsenal
Age: 29
Caps: 40
Adams was selected for major tournaments in three separate decades – 1980s, 1990s and 2000s – and remains the only England player in history to have achieved that feat. Euro 96 was actually his first since Euro 88 nearly a decade earlier.
At club level, Adams went on to captain Arsenal to two domestic doubles in 1997/98 and 2001/02.
In retirement, he has managed Wycombe, Portsmouth and Azerbaijan’s Gabala, as well as a surprise stint in charge of Granada in Spain in 2017.
6. Gareth Southgate (DF)
Club: Aston Villa
Age: 25
Caps: 4
As manager at the 2018 World Cup, Southgate oversaw England’s best performance at an international tournament since 1996. Back then, it was his own missed penalty in the semi-final shootout against Germany that saw the Three Lions crash out.
He remained a regular and was called up for subsequent tournaments in 1998, 2000 and 2002, while his club career took him from Aston Villa to Middlesbrough.
Southgate managed Middlesbrough before joining the FA setup in 2013.
7. David Platt (MF)
Club: Arsenal
Age: 29
Caps: 58
Platt was the second most capped player in the Euro 96 squad behind only Pearce and had prior tournament experience from 1990 and 1992, including a very famous last gasp winner against Belgium in the former.
He had previously been England captain, although lost that honour to Adams in 1995.
Platt has managed in Italy, England and India since hanging up his boots, as well as being part of the Manchester City coaching staff under former teammate Roberto Mancini.
8. Paul Gascoigne (MF)
Club: Rangers
Age: 29
Caps: 38
Gascoigne stole the show at Euro 96 with his stunning goal against Scotland and infamous ‘Dentist Chair’ celebration that followed it.
The mercurial talent came within inches of an outstretched boot of sending England to the final, but he still got to the last four both times he was selected for a major tournament.
Gascoigne briefly tried his hand at non-league management in 2005, although his life since retirement has sadly been dominated by alcoholism and personal problems.
9. Alan Shearer (FW)
Club: Blackburn Rovers
Age: 25
Caps: 23
Shearer had scored 96 Premier League goals for Blackburn in the three seasons leading up to Euro 96, yet he was without an international goal since 1994 going into the tournament. That quickly changed and he netted five to scoop the golden boot.
Within weeks, Shearer joined Newcastle in a £15m world record transfer and went on to score a club record 206 goals over the next decade.
He has been a prominent pundit on BBC football coverage ever since retiring.
10. Teddy Sheringham (FW)
Club: Tottenham Hotspur
Age: 30
Caps: 15
Sheringham was a relatively late top flight bloomer and so hadn’t played very much international football by the time of Euro 96, given that he was already 30.
His partnership with Shearer that summer has become the stuff of legend, especially the 4-1 thrashing of the Netherlands in which both players netted twice.
Sheringham was still playing in the Premier League at 40 and still holds the record as the league’s oldest goalscorer. He was managing in India as recently as 2018.
11. Darren Anderton (MF)
Club: Tottenham Hotspur
Age: 24
Caps: 11
Anderton was a regular pick for England in the mid to late 1990s and started all five games at Euro ’96. Injury was ravaging his club career with Spurs during that period, yet he went on to also start every England game at the 1998 World Cup as well.
Anderton remained in the Premier League until 2005 and finished his career lower down the league ladder with Wolves and Bournemouth.
Since retiring, he has worked in media, notably in North America.
12. Steve Howey (DF)
Club: Newcastle United
Age: 24
Caps: 4
Howey was called up for Euro 96 off the back of his part in Newcastle’s Premier League title challenge. He didn’t actually get on the pitch and never added to his four caps afterwards.
His club career continued with four more years at St James’ Park, followed by spells at Manchester City, Leicester, Bolton, New England Revolution and Hartlepool.
Howey has since coached at non-league level and was more recently working alongside the Premier League as a referee’s assessor, as well as travelling the world doing coaching clinics.
13. Tim Flowers (GK)
Club: Blackburn Rovers
Age: 29
Caps: 8
Flowers was a two-time PFA Team of the Year inclusion in the early Premier League seasons and was a genuine challenger for the number one shirt alongside Seaman.
He was a title winner with Blackburn and remained on the international scene as a backup in 1998 as well. His club career, meanwhile, saw a move to Leicester in 1999.
Flowers has since coached at a variety of levels, as a goalkeeping coach, assistant manager and manager. He was in charge at non-league Solihull Moors until January 2020.
14. Nick Barmby (MF)
Club: Middlesbrough
Age: 22
Caps: 6
Barmby was one of the Premier League’s rising stars at the time of Euro 96 and was coming off the back of an impressive club season with an ambitious Middlesbrough. He appeared as a substitute in three of England’s five game at the tournament.
After spells with Everton, Liverpool and Leeds, the midfielder dropped out of the top fight in 2004 but returned with home town club Hull four years later.
Barmby later managed Hull and was briefly an assistant coach at Scunthorpe in 2018/19.
15. Jamie Redknapp (MF)
Club: Liverpool
Age: 22
Caps: 4
Perhaps surprisingly, Euro 96 was the only major international tournament of Redknapp’s England career. Injury was largely the reason for that and he won his last of 17 total caps in 1999 at the age of just 26.
Redknapp was Liverpool captain from 1999 until 2002 and later also skippered Tottenham. He was only 32 when he finished his career at Southampton in 2005.
These days, he is known for his television work at Sky, both as a pundit on Sky Sports and a captain on comedy/sports panel show A League of Their Own.
16. Sol Campbell (DF)
Club: Tottenham Hotspur
Age: 21
Caps: 1
Campbell was among England’s least experienced players called up for Euro 96, although his sole senior cap had actually come more than a year earlier in a friendly against Hungary.
He was already a Premier League star by then, having been a Tottenham regular since 1993 and initially getting his debut at White Hart Lane under Venables.
Campbell controversially joined Arsenal as a free agent in 2001 and also won the FA Cup at Portsmouth. He briefly had a failed political career trying to run for London Mayor in 2016, but has since returned to football as manager with Macclesfield and Southend.
17. Steve McManaman (MF)
Club: Liverpool
Age: 24
Caps: 10
Much like Anderton on the opposite flank, McManaman also started all five England games at Euro 96. However, it was the peak of his international career and he was only a bit-part player thereafter.
His club career took him from Liverpool to Real Madrid in 1999, winning two Champions League titles with the Spanish giants and even scoring in the 2000 final.
After a stint with Manchester City back in England, McManaman has worked as a pundit and co-commentator, perhaps most notably with BT Sport in recent years.
18. Les Ferdinand (FW)
Club: Newcastle United
Age: 29
Caps: 10
Despite his 25 Premier League goals for Newcastle during the 1995/96 campaign, Ferdinand didn’t even get on the pitch at Euro ’96 thanks to the Shearer/Sheringham partnership.
He also had to contend with Shearer at club level the following season and joined Spurs in 1997, before finishing his career as something of a veteran journeyman.
Ferdinand worked for a number of years as a coach at Spurs and has been employed as Director of Football at another of his former clubs in QPR since 2015.
19. Phil Neville (DF)
Club: Manchester United
Age: 19
Caps: 1
Capped by England before Manchester United teammates David Beckham, Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt, the junior Neville brother was England’s only teenager at Euro 96.
He had just had a significant role in his club’s domestic double winning season, which was his first proper year as a first-team player and went on to win five more Premier League titles.
After retiring as a player with Everton, Neville has coached as an assistant at United and Valencia, joined his brother a co-owner at Salford City and will be England Women manager until 2021.
20. Steve Stone (MF)
Club: Nottingham Forest
Age: 24
Caps: 6
Along with the aforementioned Pearce, Stone remains the last Nottingham Forest player to have been selected by England for a major international tournament.
The midfielder came off the bench three times in games against Switzerland, Scotland and Spain to take his tally of caps to nine, but then never played for England again.
Stone later turned out for Aston Villa, Portsmouth and Leeds, while he was a coach at Newcastle for a number of years until 2015 and joined Burnley’s development staff in 2018.
21. Robbie Fowler (FW)
Club: Liverpool
Age: 21
Caps: 3
Despite scoring 85 goals in less than three full seasons as a first-team player at Liverpool, Fowler only made two substitute appearances at Euro 96 and generally struggled for opportunities at international level throughout his career – just 26 caps in total.
He scored 31 goals in all competitions in 1996/97 but was never quite as prolific again.
Fowler moved into management in 2011 in Thailand as a player/coach with Muangthong United, while he has been head coach at A-League club Brisbane Roar since 2019.
22. Ian Walker (GK)
Club: Tottenham Hotspur
Age: 24
Caps: 2
Walker’s international career ultimately spanned eight years, although he was rarely more than a back-up during that time and only actually represented his country four times.
The goalkeeper played over 300 games for Tottenham but moved on in 2001 after losing his starting place, joining Leicester, before finishing his career as a deputy at Bolton.
Walker moved into goalkeeping coaching after retiring and has predominantly worked in China. He has been based in Shanghai, first with Shanghai Shenhua and since Shanghai SIPG.
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