“Sport and time can be great healers”, is how Geoffrey Green – somewhat naively – closed his pre-match report in The Times ahead of the first encounter between England and Germany in December 1954. The question that many asked themselves was whether or not the English would show their emotions at a football match. Memories of the war were still fresh, and those fears were not entirely unjustified.
Excuses and Accusations
Germany, the world champions, had their own worries: the team that won them the World Cup in July 1954 never played again in this formation; in fact only three of the team were available for the trip to England: Kohlmeyer, Liebrich and Posipal. They were not at full strength, and Green noted that “England to be sure would have had it rather otherwise.” A more aggressive tone was used in the middle market papers, Daily Mirror and Daily Express. In particular, in the latter, its main writer, Desmond Hackett, accused Germany of having their excuses ready beforehand, by stating the reasons “sickness, injuries and all that.” However, he was sure that “England will beat the World Soccer champions.” Bob Ferrier, his colleague at the Daily Mirror, added that England were in an unfortunate position, for if they beat Germany, they only beat the b-team; if they fail to beat them, they could not even beat Germany’s reserves.
Things got worse for Germany as Desmond Hackett had picked up a story according to which the German players were unavailable because of jaundice which they picked up as a consequence of taking performance-enhancing substances during the World Cup, using the same syringe. This is a hotly debated topic as it blemishes the hitherto spotless image of the players from Berne. Already, perceptions of Germany had formed and they were not positive. This was exacerbated when Hackett reported that Germany would try substitutes, something that in England was not yet used. Since it was something unknown and came from the continent, the English football establishment was highly suspicious; worse, the Germans were to try it which made them cheats in the eyes of the English.
England took this game seriously. Since autumn 1953 their performances were not convincing: the 6-3 defeat at Wembley against Hungary, the 7-1 in Budapest and an early World Cup exit had left the country longing for footballing success.
England 3 Germany 1
All this pre-match talk was soon forgotten as England beat Germany convincingly 3-1. The goals came from Roy Bentley, Ronnie Allen and Len Shackleton while Alfred Beck scored for Germany. The line-up for England had the highest average age: 31.24 years. Bob Pennington described this as “form before future promise” and it underlined how important this game was for England. It meant that Stanley Matthews, already 38 years of age as well as Tom Finney and Bert Williams would be brought back into the squad. It was Len Shackleton’s first goal for England in his last game for his country.
On the day after the match, the Daily Express headlined, “England win 3-1 but should have won 9-1.” Desmond Hackett praised Stanley Matthews for his “one-man Blitzkrieg” against Germany and added that England should have beaten Germany by a much higher margin. The Daily Mirror asked why “England did not finish off the Germans?” Were England too gentlemanly? A somewhat more measured assessment was provided by Geoffrey Green in The Times. For him, England’s performance had been impressive, yet they failed to reap their fair reward, i.e. more goals. However, the Germans were not bad as he observed some “cleverly angled and quick triangular movement in midfield”, and they displayed “youthful determination, speed and spirit”. He concluded that England had only beaten an under-strength German team which “does not by any means elevate England to the topmost heights among the nations.”
Some years later, the captain on the day, Billy Wright criticized the English papers by stating that beating Germany for them meant that England were world champions. This is interesting since the match reports were not overly aggressive or chauvinistic towards Germany. The autobiographies and their own accounts of events past must be regarded with care.
The first match since 1938 and since the end of the Second World War was a rather amicable affair compared to later coverage for this fixture. However, it would be interesting to see the press reactions had England lost the match.
Note: This is an extract from my book, “Crossing the Line? The Press and Anglo-German Football Rivalry” which was published 2023 by Peter Lang.
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