The England fans who went to the 1986 World Cup and decided to stay | OneFootball

A group of England supporters who travelled to the 1986 World Cup in Mexico and chose not to return will reunite this summer.

According to Telegraph, Wolves fans Gary Allen, Stuart Bates, David Arnold and Garry Hardwicke flew 5,000 miles to follow England, then began new lives in the United States.

Aged between twenty and twenty-three, they stayed, married and now have 14 children between them. Bates, known as Batesy, recalled restlessness in the West Midlands, greater opportunity in North America and the friends’ nickname, the Disco Firm.

They travelled to Monterrey and Acapulco and watched every England game until Argentina, and Diego Maradona’s Hand of God, ended hopes. Allen says the first was a handball over Peter Shilton, though seeing Maradona’s brilliant second felt a privilege.

After elimination they remained in South Padre, took restaurant jobs, found a hotel costing about three pounds a night and even posed as England players. The most hostile scenes came against Argentina, when Arnold was stabbed in the leg with a flagpole and Hardwicke, Rabbithead, fell from a bridge and was hospitalised.

Allen later built a sewage and drain equipment company and retired last year, Arnold married a former Miss Mexico and became a school head, and Bates settled in Texas with four children. Hardwicke, a painter in Atlanta, died two years ago.

The friends plan to watch England face Croatia in Dallas on 17 June. Their story features in new documentary Lost Down Mexico Way, developed with Eight Engines.

Source: Telegraph