Above: England’s Wayne Rooney nd Ashley Cole yesterday

THE England players lay in their hotel beds and watched the drama unfold into the early hours of Tuesday ­morning they knew there would be no game.

At breakfast they ate in ­silence as TV pictures again filled their heads with the ­brutal acts of criminality spreading across the country.

It was captain John Terry and vice captain Rio Ferdinand who told the FA the squad wanted to show unity in appealing for calm.

They didn’t want to play against a backdrop of so much pain for so many. The decision to call off ­tonight’s international against Holland is absolutely the right one.

Of course it is. This is a football match for heaven’s sake – and a friendly one at that.

How could a crowd of 70,000 ­celebrate in the capital when all around them people are losing their homes and livelihoods?

This is a unique situation for football and never before have I seen the England coach and ­entire squad attend a press c­onference.

They all filed in behind ­chairman David Bernstein and managing director of Club ­England, Adrian Bevington.

The players listened intently and looked bewildered by a ­situation that has so quickly ­engulfed sport, indeed the country.

When the briefing was over they got up and left to return to their clubs to prepare for the start of the Premier League ­season, a weekend that could be decimated by the trouble.

How sad it was yesterday. To see football cowering behind a ­barricade built against mob rule. To have a big game called off and so many good people trying to make sense of a situation they had not faced before.

By late on Monday night FA ­officials had been in touch with their counterparts in Holland.

There was a promise to make a decision before the Dutch left for Amsterdam Airport at 9.30am.

That deadline was met after ­discussions with the Government, the Met Police and Brent Council, who issue the safety ­certificate for Wembley each time a game is played at the national stadium.

It didn’t take long for the ­answer to be no and Holland were told not to travel.

The bottom line for football ­yesterday was that a stretched police force could not guarantee the safety of the supporters or the players from England and Holland.

The yobs and thugs will not give a damn because they care not about anything in life.

“We had to help the authorities in any way we could,” said ­Bevington.

England coach Capello was asked whether he would like to play the game behind closed doors but turned it down to stage a full scale practice match ­instead.

It doesn’t seem to matter much that late call-up Tom Cleverley of Manchester United partnered West Ham’s Scott Parker in ­midfield during the competitive game.

The behind-closed-doors idea also dissolved when the FA ­realised the prospect of hundreds of fans turning up to wait outside Wembley.

There were also issues round the security of the players. ­Holland were due to have stayed in Bayswater before and after the game.

Bevington insisted: “Not once did any club put us under ­pressure not to play the game.”

A friendly match behind closed doors would have achieved ­nothing. I once watched West Ham play in Europe at an empty Upton Park and it was an eerie, unreal occasion.

All Wembley tickets sold will be refunded and the FA intend to ­re-schedule the game later in the season.

They would have taken around £1.5m from the match but this was never about money. It was about safety.

Despite it being a low-risk match to police, the Met could not guarantee ­safety.

Had tonight’s game been a ­competitive one then things might have been different although, again, the FA would have been in the hands of the police.

“You can not play a game ­without a safety licence, that is the bottom line,” said Bevington.

They deny the Dutch want ­compensation. “They completely understand our difficult ­situation,” Bevington added.