I said in this column last week that I thought England could get a result against Turkey on Saturday and I was very pleased we got the point to take us to Euro 2004.

The match showed the character and the togetherness in the England camp, and that is something I want to get in the York City dressing-room.

It is something you want in your team. When the players go on to the field of play you want them to be together and pulling in the same direction, with everybody wanting the same result at the end of the exercise.

There were several other talking-points from the game.

The incident in the tunnel at half-time is one. It is the sort of thing that can happen from time to time. The public don't often get to hear about these things - it doesn't happen often but when it does it sometimes gets swept under the carpet. This time it didn't.

However, it was noticeable that it was three blacks lads involved - Emile Heskey, Ashley Cole and Sol Campbell - and I hope and pray there has not been any sort of racist remarks, which has been mentioned.

Racism is something that has thankfully been going out of football and I for one don't want to see it come back in any way, shape or form.

To see somebody like Emile Heskey react in that manner suggests something was said out of turn. He's normally quite reserved off the field of play; he's a bit rough and tumble on the pitch but he's a gentleman off it, so it surprised me that he would get involved like that and it makes you wonder what actually happened.

Another talking point was that penalty. David Beckham clearly slipped when taking it, but it's just one of those things. Ninety-nine times out of 100 he will strike it sweetly and it was unfortunate that, in such a crucial game and with such a big spotlight on him, he missed it.

But there are things we could learn from what he did afterwards.

Firstly, people will always make mistakes. Throughout the course of a match you could well make more mistakes than do good things but you have to have the character to put the mistakes to one side and rectify it with your next pass or your next tackle.

Beckham showed a lot of character and it showed just how focused he was to do so well to bounce back and play like he did. Lesser men might have crumbled and gone out of the game, but he didn't. In fact, he was probably more determined to make sure England got the result.

He knew that if he had scored the penalty, the pressure would have been off, but as it was, if Turkey had scored what could well have been the winner, he would have felt terrible -- and that drove him on.

That sort of character is what I'd want from my players.

The other thing about the penalty was the reaction from Turkey defender Alpay, to confront Beckham in the manner he did.

When someone steps up to take a penalty against you, you want them to miss. That bit is obvious. But it was very disappointing to see the way Alpay reacted. The type of unsporting behaviour he showed was ridiculous really but thankfully Beckham rose above it.

He probably learnt a lot from his experience a few years ago in the World Cup in France when he petulantly kicked out atArgentina's Diego Simeone and got himself sent off.

He's matured a lot since then and he did well to stay focused, get on with the game and help England get the result.

Updated: 10:14 Thursday, October 16, 2003