How Denmark made England

International football is good for many things other than the sport itself. Politics, culture and history are all in play in the best matches. I’m hardly a football fan but I’d watch, say, Spain vs Portugal just for the spectacle. And who could turn away from Serbia vs Croatia, or Finland vs Russia?

Like a lot of countries, England fixtures are often seen through the prism of the country’s history of conflict. So far, Euro 2020 has heard echoes of battles ancient and modern, as England played Scotland then Germany. And everyone knows the history of those meetings.

But what about England and Denmark? How many people know that this is about as old a rivalry as nations can have, one that goes back to before there really were nations? Who now knows the story of how the Danes inflicted a 9 /11 moment on what passed for the West at the time?

Well, I’m from a place that remembers.