It was the night Carlo Weis wishes had never happened. The scoreline still eats into his pride: England 9 Luxembourg 0. The date: December 15, 1982.

The tiny country's last visit to Wembley ended in failure and humiliation for Weis - the star midfielder and one of only two professionals in the side.

Thirteen months earlier he had played in Belgian club Winterslag's UEFA Cup victory over Arsenal, yet, if that is one of his sweetest reflections of his life as a footballer, the 9-0 thrashing is the worst.

Luther Blissett scored a hat-trick, while Steve Coppell, Tony Woodcock, Phil Neal, substitutes Mark Chamberlain and Glenn Hoddle and an own goal completed the rout.

'Playing at Wembley was very difficult for us,' said Weis 'because the pitch was so big. England had a good team, too.

'They kept up the pressure for the whole 90 minutes,' added the former player, now 40 and owner of the La Tub, a pizzeria near Luxembourg's national stadium.

'I remember looking over to the bench five minutes from the end and our coach told me how long was left. It was 6-0 at the time, which was a fair reflection of the game, and we would have been more or less satisfied with the result if the match had ended at that moment.

'Our keeper had the ball, but he made a hash of his clearance and suddenly it was 7-0. Then it was 8-0, then 9-0. If the match had gone on another five minutes, we would have lost 15-0. It was like a boat which had slowly been sinking and then went down like the Titanic at the end. There was nothing left.

'The dressing room afterwards was like being at a funeral. It was very difficult for me as one of the two professional players in the team. The others were amateurs and they had a different mentality to us.

'I played 88 matches for Luxembourg and I had never lost 9-0 and never been battered like that. It's the worst memory I have from the whole of my football career. I'm a winner and I couldn't take that experience and scoreline.

'After the game I had a drink with Kenny Sansom, England's left-back. That was hard, too, because of how proud he was of the result.

'I know people say what an honour it is to play at Wembley, and it was for me, too. But, on balance, I would have preferred not to have played at Wembley if I had known we were going to lose 9-0. You feel so worthless.'