Suddenly Faure's Pavanne sounded just like the funeral accompaniment from which it originated.

When the ball thudded back off Argentinian goalkeeper Carlos Roa's gloves from David Batty's penalty mourning broke out across Albion. The shoot-out curse - give England 12 yards and they'll hang themselves.

Now many facile, fatuous things have been claimed about football's 'importance'.

But to the fan the game in its purest essence is life-enriching.

It is also strife-engendering when the balloon pops as it did so resoundingly for Glenn Hoddle's 'Trojans, lions, bulldogs' near the midnight hour in Lens.

An audience of 25 million plus were said to have tuned in to England's latest vile spot-kick ousting. Nigh on 50 million reddened eyes, stinging with incredulity at the unravelling of a dream on that box of switches, screen and signal.

The bewildering pictures of an engagement that had everything but the right result conveyed the tense, dense drama. All of it was encapsulated in Michael Owen. Sheer exultation at rifling the goal of the tournament, abject exasperation at the desperate denouement spelling exit.

Such images screamed, if not for respectful silence, then definitely for at least some well-chosen words.

But this was ITV. Jingo hell, jingo hell, jingo all the way. From the 'good, bad and ugly'-type theme twang of the pre-match introduction to the silver-suited glimmer gang of Ian Wright and John Barnes, each seemingly fresh from a failed audition for a Smokey Robinson and the Miracles revival.

Redemption only surfaced from the wisdom of jowled owl Terry Venables and the cushion-faced Bobby Robson, both former England managers to suffer spot-kick anguish.

But otherwise inanity was piled upon banality, with master of stating the obvious, Bob Wilson, the chief stoker of that tiresome heap.

As a certain Scottish talking head might say of result and presentation - 'shocking'.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.