OPINION: I wasn’t born the last time England’s football team made the final of a major tournament.
It was the 1966 World Cup - which they went on to win, beating West Germany 4-2.
Fifty-five years later and England have qualified for the final of another major tournament, the delayed Euro 2020 Championship.
It has been a long 55 years between finals, punctuated by occasional joy, lots of hope and plenty of despair.
I was born a year after England’s World Cup triumph, right in the middle of the summer of love in 1967, when the hippy counter-culture of the 1960s came to a head.
I don’t remember much of it, but the summer of love didn’t extend to following England over my life.
Being an England fan over the past half-century has, with a few exceptions, been a lesson in abject misery.
The first World Cups I remember - West Germany in 1974 and Argentina in 1978 - England failed to qualify, something they again failed to do in 1994.
In Mexico 1986, England were beaten by Argentina in the notorious 'Hand of God' game, where Maradona scored with his fist, before going on to net what is regarded as the greatest World Cup goal ever.
Being a football fan in the UK in 1980s wasn't easy, especially for a middle-class, public schoolboy such as myself.
That was the decade where football hooliganism came to the fore. Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher labelled the new breed of supporter, who used away games as a chance to tear it up with the opposing fans, as England’s public enemy No.1.
She even set up a 'war cabinet' to deal with the hooligans she said were a threat to English life.
That decade also saw a fire at Bradford City football club during a game in 1985, when 56 people died.
A month later came the infamous Heysel Stadium riot, where 39 Italian supporters died, after a confrontation with Liverpool fans. English teams were banned from playing in Europe for five years after that.
The end of the decade saw 96 people crushed to death at Hillsborough Stadium, after too many people were let in during an FA Cup clash between Liverpool and Nottingham Forrest.
Football in the UK in the 1980s hit such a low, many thought it would never recover.
Then came Italia '90, held in Italy and opened by Pavarotti singing 'Nessun Dorma' - and suddenly it was OK to like football again.
There was David Platt’s goal against Belgium, the emergence of 'Gazza' and the first of what seems like an eternity of tournament losses to Germany.
England reached the semi-finals and were knocked out by West Germany in a penalty shoot-out, something that was to be repeated six years later in the semi-final of Euro '96.
Those two games, along with a semi-final in the 2018 World Cup in Russia and now a final in 2021, are the scarce highlights in supporting a team that has, on so many occasions, managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
In my career as an England supporter, I have seen them booted out of tournaments by teams such as Iceland - and I mean no disrespect to Iceland, they played a great game.
I have trudged down the old Wembley Way in the rain to watch them lose 1-0 to Germany in a crucial World Cup qualifier. Sure, they went on to win the away fixture 5-1, but displays like that were few and far between.
I have seen them capitulate in knockout games, when David Beckham got sent off in a World Cup game against Argentina in France '98. Wayne Rooney did the same thing against Portugal in 2006.
England getting thrashed 4-1 by Germany in the South Africa World Cup in 2010 was another low point.
In every tournament, England have played in since 1966, players have been talked up as the ones who will finally end years of hurt and win, but every tournament they have been found wanting.
This England team is on the verge of achieving what so many teams in the past have promised, but failed to deliver.
England will face Italy on Monday morning (NZ time) for a chance to end 55 years of tournament failure.
Is football coming home? Not yet, but it is on the bus, with one more stop.
I am really hoping England win, so we can stop saying '55 years of hurt'. It makes me feel old.
Mark Longley is Newshub Digital’s managing editor.
