Was Cullis really dropped for refusing a Nazi salute?

STEVE GORDOS looks into a long-established football tale, and discovers that all is not what we’ve been led to believe ...

NEVER spoil a good story for the facts, so the saying goes.

Search the internet with “Cullis Nazi salute” and you’ll find many claims that Stan Cullis was dropped from the England team for refusing to give the Nazi salute before the game against Germany in Berlin in 1938. It’s an urban myth. Firstly, the Wolves man was not even selected for the game. He had lost his place after the England team were beaten 1-0 by Scotland at Wembley, in what in those days was the showpiece international of the domestic season.

Having beaten Wales and Ireland, England had already clinched the International Championship as the British four-nation tournament was then pretentiously known. However, defeat at the hands of the Scots was a humiliation, as the Auld Enemy were without a win going into the game, having lost to Wales and been held by Ireland.

Preston centre-forward Frank O’donnell proved quite a handful for the Wolves centre-half as the Dundee Evening Telegraph report confirmed: “O’donnell was a constant worry to the English defence. Cullis never mastered him.”

When the team were announced for the game against the Germans at the Olympic Stadium, Stan was one of five players dropped. He was named as a travelling reserve. As there were no subs allowed, Stan and the other three reserves did not line up with the team before the kick-off.

Yet still you will find assertions that when the England eleven were infamously instructed to give the salute, Stan refused and was promptly thrown out of the team. It’s just not true.

In Stan’s place at centre-half, the selectors had decided to recall 32-year-old Huddersfield skipper Alf Young, who two weeks earlier had led his club in an extra-time FA Cup final defeat at the hands of Preston at Wembley. The pair were two disappointed club captains as Stan saw his Wolves side fail to become champions of England when they lost their final game of the season (at Sunderland). A win would have brought them the title, which instead went to Arsenal.

When the England players were told about the request to do the Nazi salute, Stan, though a reserve and not directly involved, might have had his say on the subject. Always forceful, always erudite, he would almost certainly have had strong views. Yet did he air them? Stan does not even mention the incident in his autobiography, All for the Wolves.

References to the shameful negotiations that led to the infamous salute can, however, be found in the autobiographies of the three best known members of the England side – skipper Eddie Hapgood, his Arsenal teammate Cliff Bastin and wing legend Stanley Matthews. Hapgood recalled that British Ambassador to Germany Sir Nevile Henderson had made the request for the salute. Sir Nevile – yes, he did spell his name with only one L – approached FA secretary Stanley Rous and FA committee man Charles Wreford Brown, who were in charge of the team. “We were all pretty miserable about it,” recalled Hapgood. “Personally, I felt a fool heiling Hitler but Mr Rous’s diplomacy worked, for we went out determined to beat the Germans. And after the salute had been received with tremendous enthusiasm, we settled down to do just that.” Bastin wrote: “We had been requested to give the salute in accordance with the insipid policy of appeasement which was being pursued by the British Government at the time. We gave our own salute afterwards, and it seemed to me that this palliated any indignity there might have been in stretching out our right arms in Nazi fashion.” It was easy to tell from the style, with words like “palliated”, that Bastin’s book, Cliff Bastin Remembers, had been ghosted by a budding young sportswriter by the name of Brian Glanville.

I felt a fool heiling Hitler, but we went out determined to beat the Germans Eddie Hapgood

Matthews recalled it a little more angrily in his book, Stanley Matthews the Way it Was. “All the England players were livid and totally opposed to this, myself included,” he wrote. “I sat there crestfallen, thinking what on earth my family and the people back home would think if they saw me and the rest of the England team paying lip service, so to speak, to the Nazi regime and its leaders.

“We were told that the political situation between Great Britain and Germany was now so sensitive that it needed only a spark to set Europe alight. Faced with the knowledge of the direst consequences, we had little choice in the matter.”

So the players did as they were told before crowd of 110,00 with Nazi leaders Goebbels and Goering among them. Then England, fired up, hammered the Germans 6-3. England gave a sparkling display with Matthews, Leeds inside-forward Jackie Robinson, Charlton left-half Don Welsh and Villa’s Frank Broome playing at centre-forward, leading the way. The last two were making their England debuts.

Arsenal left-winger Bastin gave England a 16th-minute lead with his tenth international goal only for Germany inside-right Rudi Gellesch to level four minutes later. The fired-up visitors then took control, Robinson scoring from a corner on 26 minutes and Broome making it 3-1 three minutes later outpacing the German defence to latch on to a Welsh through ball. Matthews then beat three men before firing in the fourth goal on 42 minutes. On half-time Jupp Gauchel reduced the arrears.

Four minutes into the second half Robinson’s low drive made it 5-2 and England ought to have added to their total. However, on 78 minutes Germany scored again through leftwinger Hans Pesser, the only Austrian in the side, Germany having annexed Austria earlier in the year. West Ham inside-left Len Goulden had the final say, beating Hans Jakob with a 30-yard shot. It was a memorable victory and a display that was at times scintillating. The pundits agreed afterwards that, if anything, the scoreline flattered the Germans.

Young held on to the centre-half berth for the other two games on the tour and was in the opening game of the 1938-9 season in Cardiff. It was a good game to miss as Wales ran out 4-2 winners. That meant a recall for Stan and he was back to stay. It was clear he was not only the best man for the centre-half spot but also the obvious choice to eventually succeed Hapgood as England skipper.

Without doubt, Stan was a man to salute.