THIS YEAR IN 1950
Wing commanders, bandits, barroom brawls – the 20th century’s second half got off to quite a start
THE BOGOTA BANDIT
With the maximum wage limiting players to a measly £12 a week, Manchester United winger Charlie Mitten pens a deal with Santa Fe in the loudly moneyed, but not Fifa-recognised, Colombian Dimayor league. The £50-a-week wage and £10,000 signing-on fee means Mitten strikes gold, but the football “outlaw” returns after only a season due to his family’s homesickness.
MARACANA HEADACHES
As the Yugoslavian World Cup team exit the tunnel to face hosts Brazil, star player Rajko Mitic cuts his head open after colliding with an iron girder. Construction detritus is strewn across the still-unfinished Maracana and the Yugoslavs start the game with 10 men while Mitic’s head is seen to, before losing 2-0. A few weeks later at the same venue, the headaches are Brazil’s as Uruguay beat them 2-1 in the final.
BIRTH OF LONG BALL
At precisely 3.50pm on March 18, former RAF wing commander Charles Reep begins to form statistics on the number of passes it requires for Swindon Town and Bristol Rovers to reach each other’s penalty area. Convinced that the majority of goals are scored from three passes or fewer, Charles’ numbers dominate English tactical thinking for decades. Ball, meet mixer.
POMPEY PLAY UP
Reigning champions Portsmouth defend their crown in a sensational finale to the First Division campaign in May. Pompey’s 5-1 demolition of Aston Villa – inspired by left-half ‘Gentleman’ Jimmy Dickinson (above) – means Wolves’ 6-1 victory is to no avail. They become only the second team to lose the title on goal average.
THE BAYERN GIANT
Not even towering defender Jakob Streitle (above) can lift the sense of gloom at Bayern Munich, who finish a miserable 13th – out of 16 – in Oberliga Sud. The Bavarians decide to appoint English coach David Davison, but by November he drinks himself into a barroom brawl and is fired by the club. Streitle is then put in charge.
BELFAST BOTHER
In March, a Belfast-based IFA XI plays Wales in the British Home International Championship, drawing 0-0. The team includes four players – Tom Aherne, Reg Ryan, Davy Walsh and the skipper, Con Martin of Aston Villa – who were born in the Republic. Since they’d also played for a Dublin-based FAI XI, they had effectively represented North and South in what doubled up as World Cup qualifiers. FIFA intervened, making it the last time the IFA fielded an ‘all-ireland’ side.
AVERAGE JOE DESTROYS AVERAGE ENGLAND
Haitian-born dishwasher Joe Gaetjens scores the only goal as 500-1 tournament underdogs USA beat an England team containing Tom Finney, Billy Wright and Wilf Mannion at June’s World Cup finals. Such is the sense of incredulity that some publications mistakenly claim England had won the tie 10-1, but the Three Lions’ first World Cup disaster is very real. “It’s taken a lot of forgetting as far as I am concerned,” goalkeeper Bert Williams later says on the 60th anniversary in 2010.