ON THIS DAY

Liverpool’s Steven Gerrard won his 100th cap in England’s visit to Sweden. He became the sixth England player to achieve a century of England appearances, the first five being Billy Wright, Bobby Moore, Bobby Charlton, Peter Shilton and David Beckham. Steven Gerrard had made his debut back in 2000 in a 2-0 friendly win over Ukraine at Wembley and he went on to play 114 times for England. The match in Sweden was a friendly to mark the first football match played at the country’s new national stadium, The Friends Arena in Stockholm. A 49,967 crowd was present under a closed roof to witness a 4-2 win for Sweden, Zlatan Ibrahimovic scoring all four Sweden goals.

England were beaten 1-0 by Italy in a friendly at Wembley. It was the 108th and last England appearance for Bobby Moore while the Italy goalscorer would have an England connection in the future - Fabio Capello.

England's line-up for their 'friendly' against world champions Italy at Highbury included seven Arsenal players - Bastin, Bowden, Copping, Drake, Hapgood, Male and Moss. That was - and still is - the record for the most players from a single club in the starting line-up of an England team. England later fielded seven Manchester United players against Albania in 2001 only five were in the starting line-up and two came on later as subs. Then followed the 'Battle of Highbury' which was one of the most ill-tempered matches in history - a broken foot, a broken arm and a broken nose to name but three injuries....and England won 3-2.