Bobby Robson inherited this 'Down Under' tour, and went there reluctantly with what was virtually an England 'B' team and it was a controversial issue that full caps were awarded. Australia missed the chance to turn the games into a soccer showpiece, and defended grimly and often brutally in all three matches. A crowd of 14,000 saw England struggle through a goalless first game in Sydney, and there were just 10,000 to watch Paul Walsh score the only game of the match three days late in Brisbane. A Phil Neal own goal cancelled out a Trevor Francis goal in the third match in front of 20,000 spectators in Melbourne in the final game of a tour that Robson described as 'of little value to anybody, and nothing like the sort of preparation we needed for the European championships.' Mark Barham, Steve Williams, Danny Thomas, John Gregory, Nick Pickering and Nigel Spink were, along with Walsh, the new full caps, and not one of them was still in the frame for England when the 1986 World Cup build-up started.

Source Notes

TheFA.com
Original newspaper reports
Rothman's Yearbooks
Mike Payne's England: The Complete Post-War Record (Breedon Books Publishing Company, Derby, U.K., 1993)
Norman Giller, Football Author
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CG