Råsunda, 1937

Right at the end of the pre 'D' era England undertook a 3 match tour, playing Norway, Sweden and Finland. England, wearing numbered jerseys for the first time, racked up 18 unanswered goals. Purists and nostalgists note that England lined up by squad number rather than 1-11!

The postcard above shows the Sweden team. The Sweden - England  match marked the inauguration of the Råsunda stadium at Solna, although AIK had beaten Malmö FF 4-0 there on April 18th

. 

England won 4-0 with goals from Freddie Steele (3) and Joe Johnson.

GK	Gustav Sjöberg	A.I.K. Solna
RB	Nils Axelsson	Hälsingborgs I.F
LB	Walter Sköld	A.I.K. Solna
RH	Fritz Berg	I.F.K. Göteborg
CH	Sven Andersson   ©	A.I.K. Solna
LH	Ernst Andersson	I.F.K. Göteborg
OR	Gustaf Josefsson	A.I.K. Solna
IR	Erik Persson	A.I.K. Solna
CF	Sven Jonasson	I.F. Elfsborg
IL	Karl-Erik Grahn	I.F. Elfsborg
OL	Axel Nilsson	A.I.K. Solna

Russia 1 Sweden 4 1913

Sweden on the attack

04.05.13
Russia 1 Sweden 4 
Moscow,  Sokolnocheki Stadium 
Attendance: 8000
Referee- A.N Schultz (Russia)

Russia			Sweden
Dmitri Matrin (c)	Union Moscow	G	Knut Gustavsson	Mariebergs
Mikhail Yakovliev	Unitas	FB	Todde Malm	AIK Solna
Vladimir Mishin	Orekhovo	FB	Konrad Törnqvist	IFK Göteborg
Andrei Akimov	Orekhovo	HB	Fridolf Pettersson	Örgryte IS
Nikita Khromov	Unitas	HB	Knutte Nilsson	AIK Solna
Alexei Karakasov	Narva	HB	Sigurd Petersén	IFK Stockholm
Ivan Egorov	Sport	F	Harry Hellberg	IFK Göteborg
Pavel  Zolkin	Novogirievo	F	Iffa-Sven Swensson	IFK Norrköping
Vasili  Butusov	Unitas	F	Settan Howander	IFK Uppsala
Vasili Zhitariev	Sporta Moscow	F	Köping Gustafsson	Köpings IS
Leonid Zolkin	Orekhovo	F	Karl Ansén	AIK Solna

This was Russia's 5th international. Their previous 3 outings had seen them ship 37 goals without reply.

Was there cause for optimism when Vasili Zhitariev scored in the very first minute? 

Settan Howander equalised in the 36th minute and the second half belonged to Sweden. Howander added a second and Gustafsson and Swensson finished the Russians off. 

In 8 internationals in the pre revolutionary era Russia never tasted victory. 

Russia

Fred Spiksley

In a twenty year career as a professional, Fred Spiksley played for Gainsborough Working Men's Club, Gainsborough Wednesday, Gainsborough Trinity, The Wednesday, Glossop North End, Leeds City, Southern United and Watford.  He was capped 7 times by England, scoring 5 goals.
During a 11 year period with The Wednesday he scored 100 goals in 293 league games and 14 goals in 28 FA Cup appearances. He scored twice in the Wednesday's 1896 FA Cup Final triumph.
He was noted for his dribbling and close control and is said to be the the first player to use the 'back heel' as a regular part of his repertoire. 

After retiring as a player Spiksley went abroad to coach. He managed the following sides:
AIK Stockholm (Sweden)- champions 1911
Sweden national team
 TSV 1860 München (Germany)
1. FC Nuremberg (Germany)
 Reforma AC (Mexico)
 Real Club España (Mexico)- Primera Fuerza winners 1924 
Fulham (England- assistant coach)
1. FC Nuremberg -  during his second spell with Nuremberg he led them to the German national football championship in 1927.

Spiksley, of Sheffield Wednesday... delights to dribble the ball into the corner and then centre across, and it is seldom he fails to place the ball in the goal mouth for his fellow forwards to put through. He is about ten stone, but what he lacks in weight he makes up in speed. He can play the combination game to perfection, and I can state this at first hand, as I have often had the pleasure of playing with him. When he finds himself in difficulties he will try to give the ball to someone better placed - a form of unselfishness which a good many well-known players might copy. Instead of this, many men would rather lose the ball by trying to beat one or two opponents, than give it to a partner; not so Spiksley.
Ernest Needham 


Fred Spiksley could do almost anything he wanted with either foot, and was a sure marksman. Spiksley as a football player was a wonder.
J. A. H. Catton

Conjurers have sleight of hand. Let me vary the phrase and say that Spiksley had sleight of foot. He did most of his dribbling with the outside of the right foot. I do not like making sweeping statements, but I have never seen so thoroughly competent an outside-left as Spiksley, who relied not on weight, or even on speed alone, but upon his craft and power over the ball.
Sir Frederick Wall



Here's a link to a YouTube clip featuring Fred Spiksley going through some drills with a couple of Fulham players in 1931.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tMsFmXtN74

All-Americans 1916

Soccer Champs Will Not Tour Sweden

The Bethlehem Steel Company decided today that it would not take the chance of sending its champion soccer team across the ocean to Norway and Sweden in these war time [sic] to play a series of games with elevens in those countries. Therefore, the Sweden Football Association was cabled that its invitation would not be accepted, although that organization had posted $4000 in this country to defray expenses.

Philadelphia Inquirer  11.6.16

Tommy Swords

In 1916 the Swedish Football Association invited the United States Football Association to send a team to play a series of matches in Norway and Sweden. When the owners of the strongest club side of the day, Bethlehem Steel, declined the invitation, the USFA instead  assembled a representative team from the Northeastern states.
The squad, named All-American Soccer Football Club, was managed by Thomas Cahill, secretary of the USFA. Mr Cahill had visited Sweden during the 1912 Olympics to campaign for the USA's inclusion in FIFA . The coach was Harry  Davenport of Newark, New Jersey. All-Americans were  captained by Tommy Swords of the Fall River Rovers, who was elected democratically by the other players on the outward voyage. 
Although at this time the USA was a neutral in the War, transatlantic voyages were a hazardous undertaking due to the actions of German U-boats. 

The Americans opened their tour on August 15th 1916 against Stockholm Tigarna . The 1-1 draw attracted a crowd of 20,000.
On August 17th The All Americans took on Sweden in what is recognized as being the USA's first full international, and the first ever intercontinental international.  Accounts of the attendance at the Olympic Stadium range from 16,000 to 21,000 according to various sources. 
The USA lined up as follows:

Goalkeeper: George Tintle (Brooklyn Celtic) 
Right back: James M. Robertson (Yonkers)
Left back: Dick Spalding (Philadelphia Disston A.A.)
Right half: Thomas Murray (Bethlehem Steel) 
Centre half: Neil A. Clarke  (Bethlehem Steel)
Left half: Clarence Smith (Bayonne Babcock & Wilcox FC)
Outside right: James Ford (Kearny Ryerson Juniors)
Inside right: Charles H. Ellis (Brooklyn Celtic) 
Centre forward: John “Rabbit”  Heminsley (Newark Scottish-Americans)
Inside left: Tommy Swords (Fall River Rovers) 
Outside left: Harry Cooper (New York Continental)

Sweden took the lead in the 7th minute but the USA then took a 3-1 lead with goals by Swords, Ellis and Cooper. They resisted late pressure to hold on for a 3-2 victory.

On August 24th the tourists were defeated 3-0 in Stockholm by a combined team of AIK Stockholm/Djurgårdens IF.  This was followed three days later by a 2-1 win over Örgryte IS in Gothenburg.  Örgryte were expected to avenge the defeat of the national team, and following the All Americans' win there were scenes of disorder, with several USA players being assaulted by local supporters.

The All Americans then  traveled to Oslo (which was then known as Kristiania) for a match against the Norwegian national team. It was Norway's 20th international, and they had yet to register a victory. A crowd of 12,000 were present on September 3rd. The USA were reduced to 10 men before half time (through an injury to Diederichsen), and finished the game with 9 players.  The tourists were able to secure a 1-1 draw thanks to a 75th minute goal by Ellis.
The USA line up was: 

Goalkeeper: George Tintle 
Right back: James M. Robertson 
Left back: Dick Spalding 
Right half: Thomas Murray 
Centre half: Neil A. Clarke  
Left half: Clarence Smith 
Outside right: James Ford 
Inside right: Charles H. Ellis  
Centre forward: John “Rabbit”  Heminsley 
Inside left: Matthew B. Diederichsen (Innisfails FC Saint Louis)
Outside left: Tommy Swords 


The All Americans  returned to Stockholm for a rematch with the AIK Stockholm/Djurgårdens IF combined team . This resulted in a 2-1 win for the tourists.
 Charles Ellis and Harry Davenport stayed on in Sweden to take up coaching positions in Stockholm.

Jubilæumspokal- Nordic Championship 1924–28

After the conclusion of the war in 1919 Louis Østrup, chairman of the DBU, put forward the notion of a Nordic Championship between Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Nine years elapsed before Denmark lifted the Jubilæumspokal to become the first Nordic champions. The initial plan did not until 1923 when the DBU celebrated its 35th anniversary. They again put forward the notion of a Nordic Championship, providing a trophy, the Jubilæumspokal (Anniversary Trophy). Norway and Sweden signed up to the idea. The tournament that the three FAs then came up with was somewhat protracted. It would be a league system and would run over 5 years.
So, the tournament kicked off in Copenhagen on June 15th 1924 with Sweden beating Denmark 3-2 and concluded there on October 7th 1928 with Denmark winning 3-1. 
In the meantime 3 matches were played each summer/autumn. 
Norway had a thoroughly miserable time as outsiders, as their -26 goal difference suggests. Their best result was a 2-2 draw at home to Denmark in September 1926.

For Sweden the legendary Sven Rydell was in his usual remarkable goal scoring form throughout the tournament, getting 15 goals in 10 matches. He is still Sweden's all time leading scorer with 49 goals in 43 matches (he scored in the first minute of his debut).

Norway's Finn Berstad managed 8 goals for a struggling team.

Denmark's top scorer was Michael Rohde, with 7.

The week before the tournament opener against Denmark, Sweden had won the bronze medal at the Paris Olympics, playing Netherlands on successive days. 


Final table:

	P	W	D	L	F	A	Pts.
Denmark	10	7	2	1	25	11	16
Sweden	10	6	1	3	31	19	13
Norway	10	0	1	9	17	43	1

РСФСР: Moscow Petrograd vs Sweden, Norway and Estonia -1923

Following the October Revolution of 1917 and the conclusion of hostilities between Russia and Germany in March 1918, the Russian Constitution renamed the country the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. 

During 1923 a series of matches was played by a team from the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. The team was a combined Moscow / Petrograd (St Petersburg) squad. They toured Sweden, Norway, Germany and Estonia, playing 18 matches resulting in 15 wins and 3 draws, with 75 goals scored and 23 conceded.  

The hosts and the media in the RSFSR regarded the team as the successors of the Russian national team of 1914. In the countries visited they were seen to represent either the menace of Bolshevism of the triumph of the proletariat  depending on where the commentator stood on the political compass.

 Estonia count their match with the RSFSR on 21.9.23¹ as a full international. Prior to this the RSFSR played 2 matches that have been considered by some historians of the game to be of the same status as full internationals.

Sweden.

A Swedish newspaper associated with the Communist Party, Folkets Dagblad Politiken, initially invited the RSFSR to play one match in Gothenburg. Folkets Dagblad Politiken sought to stimulate interest in the game by extending an open invitation to other clubs that might be interested in playing the RSFSR. A dozen clubs from across Sweden responded and a tour was organised. 

Following 9 games undefeated on the tour of Sweden, concern was expressed by both the Swedish media and  the Swedish football authorities that the tour had been a pro Soviet pr excercise organized by communist sympathisers.  Nya Dagligt Allehanda newspaper described the tour as Bolshevik propaganda.
The Swedes were keen to emphasize that the teams that the RSFSR had beaten were not top class. In response, Comrade Medvedev , Chairman of the Committee of Physical Culture and leader of the tour party, wrote to the Swedish Football Union stating that the RSFSR team was prepared to play any side that the Swedish Football Union chose to field. 
According to Folkets Dagblad Politiken,Medvedev wrote:  We want to meet with the strongest.

Consequently on 23.08.1923 Moscow / Petrograd played a Team Stockholm. Contemporary posters billed the match as Sweden vs RSFSR. The match was delayed when the 'Soviets' insisted on their red flag being flown, declining to take to the pitch until it was (they made sure they brought at least one with them!). Team Stockholm, although acknowledged by the home press as not being the strongest team available to the selectors, were expected to be too strong for the RSFSR, but the visitors won 2-1. Grigoriev and Butusov were the RSFSR goalscorers.

Team Stockholm:

U. ​​Andersson, J. Andersson, S. Andersson, Hemming, Fredlund, Krantz, Sandberg, Olsson, Palm, Karlberg Johansson. 

 Moscow/Petrograd (RSFSR):
Sokolov  (Yacht Club Raikomvoda, Moscow),Gostiev (Kolomyagi, Petrograd), Ezhov  (Sport, Petrograd),Vonog  (Putilovski Kryzhok Petrograd),Baturiev (Sport, Petrograd), Karniev  (Kolomyagi, Petrograd), Grigoriev (Mercury, Petrograd), Butusov  (Unitas , Petrograd), Isakov  (Krasnaya Presnya, Moscow), Kanunnikov (Krasnaya Presnya, Moscow), Artyomiev   (Krasnaya Presnya, Moscow)

Norway.
Following the game in Stockholm  the RSFSR moved on to Norway, where having beaten a succession of club sides they faced a selection called Team Club Norway on 30.08.1923. This was a hotly contested match that the visitors won 3-2. The RSFSR scorers were Isakov, Kanunnikov and Butusov.

Team Club Norway:
Arnt Simensen (Sarpsborg), Trygve Aasen (Moss), Arne Ludvigsen (Sarpsborg), Reidar Høilund (Ørn), Alf Flinth ( Kvik Halden), Fritz Amundsen (Ørn), Ole Grasto (Sarpsborg), Johnny Helgesen ( Kvik Halden), Wilhelm Nielsen (Kvik Halden), Arne Andersen (Kvik Halden), Arthur Eriksen (Strømsgodset). 

 Moscow/Petrograd (RSFSR):
Sokolov  (Yacht Club Raikomvoda, Moscow),Gostiev (Kolomyagi, Petrograd), Ezhov  (Sport, Petrograd),Vonog  (Putilovski Kryzhok Petrograd),Baturiev (Sport, Petrograd), Karniev  (Kolomyagi, Petrograd), Grigoriev (Mercury, Petrograd), Butusov  (Unitas , Petrograd), Isakov  (Krasnaya Presnya, Moscow), Kanunnikov (Krasnaya Presnya, Moscow), Artyomiev   (Krasnaya Presnya, Moscow)


The RSFSR then traveled on to Germany. Other than the fact that they played  matches in Berlin and Stettin I know nothing of how their exploits there. 

Estonia.
On 21.9.23¹ the RSFSR team played the Estonian national team in Tallinn. The Estonians count this as an official international.  RSFSR won 4-2.  Butusov scored a hattrick and  Isakov scored the other. Kalot got two penalties for Estonia.

Estonia:
 Lass , Pihlak, Silber, Kalot, Rhine (Vine, 51), Kaarman, Vali, Paal, Yurpaus, Joll, Brenner. 

 Moscow/Petrograd (RSFSR):

Polezhaev (Kolomyagi, Petrograd) ,Gostiev (Kolomyagi, Petrograd), Ezhov  (Sport, Petrograd),Vonog  (Putilovski Kryzhok Petrograd), Baturiev (Sport, Petrograd), Karniev  (Kolomyagi, Petrograd), Grigoriev (Mercury, Petrograd), Butusov  (Unitas , Petrograd), Isakov  (Krasnaya Presnya, Moscow), Kanunnikov (Krasnaya Presnya, Moscow), Artyomiev   (Chiornov (Krasnaya Presnya, Moscow),15)

Mikhail  Butusov,  Pavel  Baturiev, Peter Ezhov, Peter Isakov

Peter Sokolov, Valdimir Vonog 

The argument against the games in Sweden and Norway being considered full internationals can be summarized as follows:
1. The RSFSR was never a member of FIFA.
2. The Swedish and Norwegian teams were not billed as 'Sweden' and 'Norway'. 
3. The Swedish and Norwegian teams were not full international strength.

That the games were of an equal status to full internationals could be supported by the following:
1. The teams fielded by Sweden and Norway featured a number of previously capped players.
2.  Given Russia's lowly pre war standing in the football order and the fact that they had not played club teams of 'the first order' during the tour, Sweden and Norway fielded representative sides that should have been equal to the visitors.

3. The RSFSR media and public considered the team sent on tour to be a representative of the RSFSR and the ideals that it represented.

4. Sweden and Norway hesitated to bill their select teams as national sides for fear of FIFA reprisals.

^{1- there has been conjecture over the date of the game and even as to whether one or two Estonia v RSFSR matches were played.}  For confirmation from contemporary sources see http://roonba.20.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=2279