The 1990 World Cup was considered a big success for the England football team, as getting to the semi-finals was the greatest progress in a tournament since winning the trophy in 1966. Documents recently released by the National Archives show that the July 1990 visit to Number 10 Downing Street by the England team was little more than a cynical photo opportunity. While Thatcher's speech at the event praised the team for their journey to the semi-finals of Italia 1990, other memos highlight how Thatcher essentially knew nothing about football and was merely exploiting the team's goodwill with the British public in order to raise the PM's profile. (Read more...)
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