A brief history of British-German Football

1871 - 1938 The Fifties The Sixties The seventies The eighties the nineties 2000 & beyond


The Fifties

It took several years after the war until British and German national teams should meet again on the pitch. In 1946, England is the first British nation to adopt the idea of installing a team manager, a concept embraced by Northern Ireland in 1951, Scotland in 1954, and Wales only in 1958. During the same year, the British associations had rejoined FIFA where they soon spoke out in favour of readmitting Germany to international competitions.

In 1952, the East German proto-association "Football Committee" ("Fachausschuss Fussball," established 1950) from the Soviet-occupied zone joined FIFA but the team failed to qualify for the 1954 World Cup. England, West Germany and Scotland, however, did qualify. During the Cup, both, Scotland and England were taught football lessons at the hands Uruguay, Scotland losing 0–7 in round 1 and England 2–4 in the quarterfinals. Germany meanwhile somewhat luckily went on to win the Cup, after an unexpected 3–2 win over Hungary, who had already seen them off the pitch with a crushing 8–3 defeat in the first round.

When the freshly baked World Cup holders arrived in London for their first post-war international with England, they did so with a considerably depleted team and duly lost.

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The mid-fifties saw neither British nor German deliver convincing results in international competitions, which tended to be dominated by technically and tactically superior southern European clubs.

In 1955, the German FA felt compelled to ban the formation and admittance of women's teams by association members, ruling that this combative sport was essentially incompatible with female nature.

In 1957, East Germany hosted its first international with a British team, a qualifier for the 1958 World Cup. Much to the excitement of the 100,000 crowd in Leipzig's Zentralstadion, Germany defeated Wales 2–1, but were dealt a crushing defeat in the rematch in Cardiff, four months later. Losing 3–1 and 4–1 in their other qualifiers to Czechoslovakia, East Germany were out of the World Cup.

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In the run-up to the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, West Germany played a friendly with Scotland.

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While West Germans and host country Sweden qualified automatically, all four British national teams make it through the qualification!

But while preparations for the World Cup were in full progress, British football suffered a terrible loss in a disaster which came to be known as the Munich Air Crash. On 6 February 1958, a British European Airways charter carrying players and staff of Manchester United as well as journalists and supporters, crashed in a blizzard on its third attempt to take off from Munich airport. 23 of the 43 passengers died, among them eight Manchester United players, four of whom were members of the English national team (Byrne, Edwards, Taylor, Pegg). Manchester United and newly appointed Scotland manager Matt Busby got seriously injured in the crash.

After their failure to qualify for the 1958 World Cup, East Germany founded their own FA on 17 May 1958 to look after footballing matters (Deutscher Fussball-Verband, DFV).

In 1958, Wales and Northern Ireland progressed into the Cup's quarterfinals. England and Scotland dropped out in round 1, and West Germany went on to compete for third place, but lost to France. The Cup also saw the first international between Germany and Northern Ireland as both teams had been drawn into the same group.

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Regarding German-British football, the 1950s fizzled out with a friendly between Germany and Scotland, in which Scotland secured a 2–0 lead in the 7 th minute, defeating Germany 3–2 after a goal-less 2nd half.

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1871 - 1938 The Fifties The Sixties The seventies The eighties the nineties 2000 & beyond


   
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