English footballers show some respect

Football has often been described as life or death, but England's promising youngsters put things into perspective, writes Michael Walker in The Daily Mail.

The language of war has long been applied to football - but from now on it should be different for the young men of England in Normandy at the European Under 19s Championship. When skipper Matthew James of Manchester United referred to 'an uphill battle' yesterday, he was not talking about chasing a game in the second half, but about June 6, 1944 - D-Day.

Noel Blake, the Under 19s coach, took them to the beach at Arromanches-les-Bains where, at 7.25am 66 years ago, the Allies began landing in one of World War Two's pivotal attacks. An estimated 1,000 British soldiers died from German fire on the beach, codenamed Gold, where the heroism and sacrifice during the landings there and along Normandy's coast were captured in Saving Private Ryan. The film's opening sequence was shown to England's teenagers prior to their trip.

James said: 'It was a little eerie coming to a place like this. Just watching the film, you can see how intense and heavy it was, so to try to imagine what was actually happening 65 or so years ago to people who are our age and younger is hard. Of course it's emotional, and it was strange, looking over from the top where the Germans were stationed, just shooting down at the boats. We were fighting an uphill battle from the start and still they kept going and broke through.

Gold beach was taken within an hour, and that enabled 25,000 soldiers to pour across. Arromanches- les-Bains was l iberated the same evening. You can't imagine yourself at 16 or 17 going to fight for your country like that,' James added, 'coming across in a boat with friends and people you've been living and working with and just getting shot in an instant r ight next to you.

'It's an often-used phrase, but we really don't realise just how lucky we are. We're proud of what those soldiers did. People lost their lives for us and that's why we're able to be here today playing for our country. It really brought that home.'

Less than a mile from where England played Holland on Wednesday in Bayeux is a cemetery containing 4,000 graves. There is a recently-laid wreath from a school in Brighouse, Yorkshire.
Normandy is a place of pilgrimage and Blake wanted his squad to pay their respects.
Fabio Capello's players were criticised for a lack of interest in South Africa's turbulent recent history but that was not Blake's point.

'For me,' he said, 'it was important to see a place which is so important in our history.
'It was moving for all of us, something that I felt we needed to do as England representatives. People made a sacrifice with their lives here, it's important that we realise and remember that.

'The lads found it very touching and moving. We showed them the opening clips from Saving Private Ryan before we left and the room was in silence, which is very unusual. It was very good for them to get an understanding of the magnitude of loss.'

England face France today in Saint-Lo in their third group game. They may need to win to reach the semi-final. We were very motivated before we went to the beach,' James said, 'but now I think with everything being brought into perspective from the trip, it's added that bit extra.
'It was most eye-opening when we were told how most of them were our age.You always think of the Army being grown men. But they weren't, they were just teenage boys.'