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A brief history of British-German Football |
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The history of British and German international football enmity goes back to the aftermath of the Great War (1914-18), when wartime memories still coloured all kinds of interaction between the German and the British nations.
Before that, friendlies were friendlies. The matches were played in great spirits and sportsmanship, and the German sides who entered the competitions usually knew from the outset that they had no real chance of winning over British elevens. After World War II (1939-45), the tables began to turn as Continental and Latin American teams were attaining levels of technical and tactical skill that allowed them to more and more frequently outshine British teams on the pitch. And Britain's former enemy Germany was among them.
Old wartime enmity, hurt pride, envy, arrogance … – whatever the contributing factors were, soon after the Second World War, England and (West) Germany found themselves pitched as main contenders in a British-German football drama.
But whatever the press would make of their footballing encounters, this was mainly about sports or was it?
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At the turn of the 20 th century, England was uncontested as a football nation. England had established association football ("soccer") in the 1860s and laid down the first proper football rules. Popularity spread fast and within a mere 15 years, the other British nations had set up their own FAs and teams. Though the game was also introduced on the Continent, it should take much longer here until football would gain wider acceptance.
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- 1871 – England establishes the first cup, the English Football Association Cup
- 1872 – Scotland and England play the first international match, which ends in a draw (0–0). 4,000 spectators attend the match – a record for the time.
- 1873 – Scotland founds the Scottish Football Association (SFA), more or less as a direct consequence of the 1872 match against England.
- 1876 – the Welsh found the Football Association of Wales (FAW)
- 1880 – the Irish Football Association (IFA) is set up. After formation of the Irish Free State (later Republic of Ireland) the Football Association of the Irish Free State (FAIFS) is formed in 1921 (later renamed Football Association of Ireland, FAI), while the IFA continues to represent Northern Ireland.
- Football takes much longer to gain wider acceptance on the Continent.
- In the 1870s, football is introduced in selected German schools. Moreover, popularity of the game slowly spreads from regions with strong traditional links to Britain, such as Hanover, and regions with sizeable expatriate communities.
- 1900 – the Germans found the German Football Association (Deutscher Fußballbund, DFB)
- 1903 – the first German Cup ends with a 7–2 victory of VfB Leipzig over DFC Prague
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First Internationals
The first "international" match between a German and a British team was played in the course of a four-game tour of an English football party. On 23 November 1899, the English played a "German" scratch team in Berlin. Hopelessly outclassed, the German side lost 2–13 to the English. Nevertheless, the game was played in good spirits, and the Germans entertained their guests at dinner after the game.
- The second match against a slightly altered German team on the following morning came to similar results, ending with an English 10–2 victory. Later in the day, the English team travelled to Prague to play (and defeat) a German-Austrian team. The final match of the tour took place in Karlsruhe ending 8–0 for England. While the German players where full of admiration for the English way of playing the game, the matches also left them with a clear idea of what to aspire to.
- In 1901, a German party travelled to England to play amateurs and professionals in two matches. The match against the English amateurs took place at the new White Hart Lane on 21 September 1901, ending in a crushing 0–12 defeat. The match against the professionals four days later at Manchester's Hyde Road came to a similarly devastating 0–10.
- Over the following years, the German military picked up the game and football became central to German military culture. Football was considered an ideal means for "cultivating the character and courage" of the soldiers. At the same time, however, there is a growing enthusiasm for football in German civilian life. By 1914, Germany boasted over 400 football clubs with around 25,000 players.
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Over the years until 1914, German-British relations began to sour considerably as the two Empires became direct competitors for world leadership and economic dominance. Germany and England had never fought each other until 1914. They were sibling nations with plenty of shared history and much mutual respect, even admiration. The First World War would taint that mutual perception, but while nationalists and press on both sides did their worst to actively stoke the fire, the Christmas Truce of 1914 showed how many common British and German soldiers really felt about each other.
- The truce had broken out spontaneously, in some places on Christmas Eve and in others on Christmas Day, at several spots along the British and German frontline. Remarkably, the truce sprang up in each place spontaneously and independently, eventually covering as much as two-thirds of the British German front in Northern France and Belgium. Initially, soldiers were merely shouting messages across the trenches, they began singing Christmas songs and soon enough troops climbing out of there trenches, walking into no-man's land to meet, share cigarettes, exchange souvenirs, sit around quickly built fires. Several units engaged in impromptu kick-abouts on the shell-holed, littered ground while others arranged proper matches. Sadly, higher officers soon put an end to this unwanted fraternisation, rightly fearing that it would take the fighting spirit out of their men.
- World War I also showed one of the most horrible abuses of the sporting spirit of common soldiers. In 1915, British officers began to adopt the idea of enlivening advances by dribbling a football across no-man's land. The idea became so fashionable that it was exported as far as Gallipoli. Probably the best known such abuse of football took place during the Battle of the Somme, in which a Capt. W. P. Nevill of the 8 th East Surrey gave a football to each of his four platoons, offering a prize to those who would first kick the football up to the German trenches.
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The legacy of war and the demonised images of the enemy were so deeply entrenched in the public mind that the British associations decided not to play against their ex-enemy nations. There was little support for the embargo in the other European FAs, however, and after further squabbles the British FAs simply withdrew from FIFA. In 1924, they rejoined, only to withdraw again four years later. They did not join again until 1946, and as a result, British teams did not compete in the three interwar World Cup competitions.
As a further sign of the zeitgeist, the English Football Association issued a ban on women's football in 1921, popularity of which had surged during World War I. The ban outlawed the playing of the game by women on association members' pitches. The sport was considered "unsuitable for females," and football as played by women was deemed distasteful. In response, several clubs formed the English Ladies Football Association, playing on rugby instead of football pitches. In Germany, women's soccer was also banned in the 1920s, and gymnastics clubs refused to accept women footballers.
As in England, women began to set up their own independent teams and clubs and organising their own matches.As relationships between the British FAs and the German DFB improved in the mid-twenties, Scotland and Germany arranged the first official international between a German and a British team. The match took place in Berlin in 1929 and ended in a draw.
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Friendly, 1 June 1929, Berlin, Grunewaldstadion
Half Time Score: 0 – 0; Final Score: Germany 1 – Scotland 1
Germany :
- Hans Ruch 49' |
Scotland :
- William Noble Imrie 87' |
Attendance : approx. 40,000
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Managers: |
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Otto Nerz |
(Team chosen by the SFA's International Selection Committee) |
Referee: Otto Olsson ( Sweden) |
Teams: |
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1 Heinrich Stuhlfauth
2 Franz Schütz
3 Hans Brunke
4 Hans Geiger
5 Hans Gruber
6 Conrad Heidkamp
7 Hans Ruch
8 Johannes Sobeck
9 Josef Pöttinger
10 Richard Hofmann
11 Ludwig Hofmann
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1 Alexander McLaren
2 Douglas Gray
3 James Crapnell
4 Hugh Morton
5 William Imrie
6 Thomas Craig
7 James Nisbet
8 Alexander Cheyne
9 David McCrae
10 Robert Rankin
11 James Fleming
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Only one year later, Berlin hosted the first official international between Germany and England. The match also ended in a draw, but the second half was played by a depleted English side. Billy Marsden had clashed with a teammate before half time and got so badly injured that he did not come out for the second half. He never played football again. In the match, Germany's Richard Hofmann scored a hattrick.
Friendly, 10 May 1930, Berlin, Grunewaldstadion
Half Time Score: Germany 1 – England 2; Final Score: 3 – 3;
Germany :
- Richard Hofmann 21'
- Richard Hofmann 49'
- Richard Hofmann 60'
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England :
- Joe Bradford 8'
- Joe Bradford 30'
- David Jack 78'
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Attendance : approx. 50,000
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Managers: |
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Otto Nerz |
(Team chosen by the FA's International Selection Committee) |
Referee: Johannes Mutters (Holland) |
Teams: |
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1 Willibald Kress
2 Franz Schutz
3 Hans Stubb
4 Konrad Heidkamp
5 Ludwig Leinberger
6 Hugo Mantel
7 Josef Bergmaier
8 Josef Pottinger
9 Ernst Kuzorra
10 Richard Hofmann
11 Ludwig Hofmann
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1 Henry Hibbs
2 Roy Goodall
3 Ernest Blenkinsop
4 Alfred Strange
5 Maurice Webster
6 William Marsden (inj., didn't play 2 nd half)
7 Samuel Crooks
8 David Jack
9 Victor Watson
10 Geoff Bradford
11 Ellis Rimmer
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By the time of the next international between England and Germany, five years later, Germany was firmly in the grip of the Nazis, suppressing dissenters and persecuting the Jewish population. Nevertheless, the FA arranged a match to take place at White Hart Lane on 4 December 1935. When the English press and the Trade Unions caught wind of the fixture, they responded with wave of protest. Over a thousand Germans had come over to watch the game, which ended with a clear defeat of the German side.
Friendly, 4 December 1935, London, White Hart Lane
Half Time Score: England 1 – Germany 0; Final Score: England 3 – Germany 0
Germany :
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England :
- George Camsell 42'
- George Camsell 66'
- Cliff Bastin 69'
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Attendance : approx. 54,000. |
Managers: |
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Otto Nerz |
(Team chosen by the FA's International Selection Committee) |
Referee: Otto Olsson ( Sweden) |
Teams: |
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1 Hans Jakob
2 Siegfried Haringer
3 Reinhold Münzenberg
4 Paul Janes
5 Ludwig Goldbrunner
6 Rudi Gramlich
7 Ernst Lehner
8 Fritz Szepan
9 Karl Hohmann
10 Josef Rasselnberg
11 Josef Fath
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1 Henry Hibbs
2 George Male
3 Edris Hapgood
4 William Crayston
5 John Barker
6 John Bray
7 Stanley Matthews
8 Raich Carter
9 George Camsell
10 Raymond Westwood 11 Cliff Bastin
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One year later, a German national team went to Glasgow to play Scotland. While the German players and, much to the bemusement of the Scottish reporters, the entire German press contingent gave the Nazi salute during both national anthems, the Scottish team refrained from any gestures that could be interpreted as an acknowledgment of Nazi Germany.
Friendly, 14 October 1936, Glasgow, Ibrox Park
Half Time Score: 0 – 0; Final Score: Scotland 2 – Germany 0;
Germany: |
Scotland :
- James Delaney 66'
- James Delaney 83'
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Attendance : approx. 60,000 |
Managers: |
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Josef Herberger |
(Team chosen by the SFA's International Selection Committee) |
Referee: Harold Nattrass (England) |
Teams: |
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1 Hans Jakob
2 Reinhold Münzenberg
3 Andreas Munkert
4 Paul Janes
5 Ludwig Goldbrunner
6 Albin Kitzinger
7 Franz Elbern
8 Rudolf Gellesch
9 Otto Siffling
10 Adolf Urban
11 Fritz Szepan
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1 James Dawson
2 Andrew Anderson
3 George Cummings
4 Alexander Massie
5 James Simpson
6 George Brown
7 James Delaney
8 Thomas Walker
9 Matthew Armstrong
10 Robert McPhail
11 Douglas Duncan
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In 1938, the year of the next international footballing encounter between Britain and Germany, war was once again looming over Europe. Germany had re-occupied the Rhineland, Italian and German troops were supporting Franco's fascists in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), Germany had forced Austria into the Third Reich (March 1938), and invasion of Czechoslovakia was imminent. Inside the Reich, meanwhile, persecution had reached unprecedented heights. As two years before, the FA solely focussed on arranging the fixture leaving politics aside while German officials and papers were busy stoking up expectations and using the match for propaganda purposes. Committed to the official "policy of appeasement," Foreign Office and FA officials decided that the England team should perform the Nazi salute during the pre-game ceremonies.
Friendly, 14 May 1938, Berlin, Olympiastadion
Half Time Score: Germany 2 – England 4; Final Score: Germany 3 – England 6;
Germany :
- Rudolf Gellesch 20'
- Josef Gauchel 44'
- Hans Pesser 77'
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England :
- Cliff Bastin 16'
- Jackie Robinson 26'
- Frank Broome 28'
- Stanley Matthews 42'
- Jackie Robinson 49'
- Len Goulden 80'
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Attendance : approx. 105,000 |
Managers: |
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Josef Herberger |
(Team chosen by the FA's International Selection Committee) |
Referee: John Langenus ( Belgium) |
Teams: |
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1 Hans Jakob
2 Paul Janes
3 Reinhold Münzenberg
4 Andreas Kupfer
5 Ludwig Goldbrunner
6 Albin Kitzinger
7 Ernst Lehner
8 Rudolf Gellesch
9 Josef Gauchel
10 Fritz Szepan
11 Hans Pesser
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1 Victor Woodley
2 Bert Sprotson
3 Edris Hapgood
4 Ken Willingham
5 Alfred Young
6 Donald Welsh
7 Stanley Matthews
8 Jackie Robinson
9 Frank Broome
10 Len Goulden
11 Cliff Bastin
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