A night of free beer and gourmet pies, asking David Seaman about Gazza – England spoiler | OneFootball

The last time I went for a drink in Shoreditch, I calculate was some twenty five years ago.

As I walk past the old 333 club on Old Street, scene of many madcap nights with lads down from Newcastle on an away day, the realisation hits hard that times have changed.

Some thirty years on, it is no longer the seedy nightclub, but yet another nondescript corporate franchise bar, the same as so many in the area and beyond.

Having unofficially been appointed as London correspondent for The Mag, it is Tuesday night and I am off to a media event at the Bike Shed under the railway arches, to watch the England game against Slovenia and hear David Seaman tell some anecdotes about Euro ’96.

Queueing up to get in and get my lanyard, I am alongside people from Sky Sports.

The event is a promotion for Hisense, the Chinese Tech company that is a major sponsor of the Euros. I have got to come clean here and admit that I had never heard of Hisense. A little research and you find that Hisense are the second biggest electrical goods manufacturer in the world. The first guy up on stage makes it quite clear that being number two is not good enough and they will not stop until they are number one.

The main event is the England game and there are huge one hundred inch TV screens on every wall.

There is a large turnout of media luvvies who I suspect are here to network, rather than watch the football, also of course to indulge in the huge volumes of free alcohol and food.

This is not just London’s metropolitan elite of the media world, as clearly there are people who have traveled some distance to be here,

So, David Seaman gets introduced to the audience by the MC and there are some mundane questions for him to get started.

Seaman was an England hero of Euro ’96 and he clearly enjoys reliving those moments from the past. Unfortunately, I guess that quite a few people here were not even born before 1996.

David Seaman talked about Gazza and his goal celebrations, also the relationship between Sheringham and Shearer, but gave the biggest praise to his Arsenal defenders of the time.

The Mic was opened up to the floor and I tried to get my questions in, wanting Seaman to talk more about Gascoigne, but the glamorous young lady with control of the microphone seemed to focus on the young beautiful people in the audience, as the whole event appeared to be being filmed by many separate parties.

The bald middle aged man with questions about Paul Gascoigne was overlooked. Instead having to listen to youngsters asking Big Dave what made a great goalkeeper and who was the best manager he had played under.

Oh well, at least we had the live game to look forward to.

David Seaman ended with the line “It’s coming home.”

Me and my mate sat back and enjoyed countless bottles of Moretti and several gourmet match pies, while England gave us another performance to forget.