Biggestshow onearth..just ashamewe weren’tthere

NINETY years ago this month the world of football – outside the British Isles – was preparing itself for the first World Cup.

It’s just a shame Scotland weren’t there in Uruguay as the 1920s had been a most fruitful time in the Home International Championship.

England had been beaten six times and drawn with twice in 10 head-toheads. Wales had only got the better of Scotland twice in their 11 encounters in the ‘20s, while they inflicted nine defeats on Ireland in 10 games.

In 1929, the national team embarked on a first continental tour, drawing 1-1 with Germany in Berlin before beating Holland 2-0 in Amsterdam and Norway 7-3 in Bergen.

Then, in May 1930, they paid a visit to Paris and beat France 2-0. It all goes to suggest the national team might have done well in those finals.

In fact, there was no representative from Britain and Ireland in Uruguay as the four associations had pulled out of FIFA earlier in the decade.

Initially it was over the issue of so-called broken-time payments as compensation for loss of earnings before a series of disputes over how the word “amateur” was regarded.

Uruguay were one of five to put their name forward to host the finals and they had a strong case.

Besides being Olympic champions at the past two Games, authorities had agreed to build a 100,000-seat stadium as the centrepiece of the tournament and even offered to cover the expenses of every competing nation.

It was a long way to Montevideo, though, and just 13 nations entered, only four of which were from Europe – France, Belgium, Romania and Yugoslavia.

Curiously enough, both semi-finals ended 6-1 – Argentina over the USA then Uruguay overcoming Yugoslavia.

A crowd of just under 70,000 gathered in the Estadio Centenario for the Final, a repeat of the 1928 Olympic showdown and a head-to-head in which there would be no love lost.

Indeed, to avoid any accusations of bias, the referee used a ball by an Argentinian manufacturer in the first half and after the break one from Montevideo.

The hosts came from behind in what proved to be a fine performance, adding the crown of world champions to their existing Olympic one.

And yet, due to the lack of interest from Europe in 1930, no British newspaper sent a reporter to Montevideo. Sure enough, the overall coverage of all 18 matches amounted to a handful of paragraphs.

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