Rick Edwards

In the second half, it just felt like it was like slowly but surely.

It was just slowly slipping away.

And it just felt like it was slowly slipping away all the way through until it inevitably, you know, when it happened, then...

I remember being gutted.

Of course I remember being gutted in England.

I was watching the semi-final.

I would have loved to have had to have the conversation about staying for a final, but I didn't.

But even then, right, at the end of the game, they're playing Don't Look Back in Anger on the speaker and Gareth Southgate's doing the rounds and the players are doing the rounds.

It's a bit on the nose, isn't it?

It's a little bit on the nose, but I remember everyone just sort of going...

Yeah, do you know what?

Honestly, I remember being, I was crestfallen when we lost against Italy and I was there at Wembley.

I was crestfallen, absolutely crestfallen.

But this one just felt like, this has been a great journey.

How do you restore some hope?

You know, just a bit of belief in the team because for 20 years we haven't been able to get anywhere in the World Cup.

I totally resonate with that.

I don't think I've registered that until you've just said that.

But yeah, the feeling in the stadium afterwards was momentarily that a bubble had been burst, that, oh, we're not just going to, this fairy tale isn't going to end like this.

But then on the way out, I just didn't look at too many dejected England fans.