Walther Bensemann

Maybe you will recognize this. I know that I do. You get a team together, inspired by a love of the game that far outstrips your abilities as a player. Having put in so much effort when the fixtures are finally arranged you are determined to play, even though you know your shortcomings will be readily seen. All of your teamamtes are far better than you, there are those on the sidelines who could do far better in your place, but you deserve it, that 90 minutes of glory.
Walther Bensemann did something like this, but whereas you or I might do it in some works or pub side the team that Bensemann formed and led was representing Germany...
Berlin born Bensemann spent six years studying in English public schools. He fell in love with football, and on moving to Switzerland he founded Montreux F.C. when he was just 14.
 Returning to Germany in 1889, he founded International Football Club, the first football club in southern Germany, and two years later Karlsruher F.V. He was still only 18 years old. His associates there thought he was an Englishman. Sometime later Bensemann's enthusiasm for football got him expelled from  Freiburg university. He was considered guilty of inducing pupils of Freiburg secondary schools to play football, and to go drinking in pubs after matches. Bensemann was also instrumental in the formation of Frankfurter Kickers, who would later become Eintracht Frankfurt. In 1900 he was among the founders of the German Football Association.
Bensemann had begun to organize international matches as early as 1893, between teams from Lausanne and southern Germany.

He attempted to set up international matches between German and French teams in 1894. At the time he was based at Strasbourg and was organizing Strasbourg F.C.  The Union des Sociétés Françaises deSports Athlétiques (USFSA)  rejected his overtures.

Undaunted Bensemann put together a combined Berlin / Karlsruher squad in the hope of representing Germany at the 1896 Olympics, but this never came to fruition and there was no recognized football tournament at the Olympiad. 

In 1898, Bensemann  arranged two matches of an All Germany team; one against White Rovers, a team mainly consisting of Englishmen living in Paris, and another against a scratch

team called Tout Paris. Bensemann met the expense of arranging these fixtures and captained the German side. 

So, on the 12th December 1898 a crowd of less than 600 witnessed the first outing of a team representing  All Germany- White Rovers winning by 7-0. The following day 300 people witnessed Tout Paris' 2-1 win over the Germans.  

Andrew Pitcairn-Knowles, the editor and proprietor of Sport im Bild, Germany's first illustrated sporting journal, uncharitably described Bensemann as an international football clown.


Bensemann abandoned any pretensions of being a top level player, but he did launch Germany onto the international football stage. In 1899 he was responsible for inviting the FA to send a team to Germany.

In 1920, Bensemann founded Kicker, which became Germany's leading football magazine, a status which it still enjoys today.

In 1933, the political climate in Germany compelled Benseman to move to Montreux where he died in relative obscurity.

Ethnikos Gymnastikos Syllogos

Before 1908 football at the Olympic Games was merely an exhibition, played, if at all, between
club sides. The decision of the IOC to retrospectively publish 'medal tables' based on the outcome of these matches is frankly absurd.
The attempts to include football at the 1906 Intercalated Games offered no real encouragement for the prospects of a meaningful international tournament developing. On their foundation in 1904 FIFA had stated  their intention to introduce an international tournament in 1906, but nothing came of it.
What the 1906 tournament did give us though is the first seeds of a Greek national team. 
The Thessaloniki selection was largely made up of ethnic Greeks, but the Athens selection, effectively Ethnikos Gymnastikos Syllogos, is the team from which the 2004 European Champions  trace their descent. 
Ethnikos Gymnastikos Syllogos were primarily a gymnastic squad, and they had participated in the 1896 Olympics. At the time Greek football had no independent governing body. Football, along with other sports, was administered by the Hellenic Gymnastic Federation. 
The only non- Ethnikos Gymnastikos Syllogos member of the Athens selection was Georgios Kalafatis of Panellinios Gymnastikos Syllogos.  Kalafatis later founded Panathinaikos and coached the Greek team in their first official international at the 1920 Olympics.
Sadly Ethnikos Gymnastikos Syllogos did not display the sort of sportsmanship that one associates with the Olympic ideal. 9-0 down to Denmark at half time in the final, they refused to take the field for the second half, and were promptly expelled from the tournament.

Il Mister-William Garbutt

William Garbutt

In Italian football parlance the manager is il mister- The Mister- even today the men in charge are referred to as il mister- an Italian version of the gaffer. This practice dates back to the prominent position held by an Englishman in the development of the role of the manager/coach/trainer in early 20th century calcio.

Garbutt and son, Italy.

Italian football was nominally amateur until 1926. However, players and coaches were financially well rewarded before that. One club who seem to have been particularly adept at circumventing the rules regarding professionalism were Genoa.

The appointment of William Garbutt as coach of Genoa in 1912 is shrouded in mystery. Why a 29 year old retired professional footballer from Stockport should relocate to northern Italy to work as a stevedore has never been clear, however, soon after he made this improbable move, Genoa appointed William Garbutt as their coach.

An outside right, William Garbutt played football for the Royal Artillery, On leaving the service in 1903 he joined Reading as a professional. In 1906 he moved to Woolwich Arsenal , for whom he played until 1908 (52 league appearances, 8 goals). Garbutt then joined Blackburn Rovers (82 games 10 goals).

The connection with Italy seems to have been established whilst Garbutt was at Blackburn. Vittorio Pozzo was in England at the time- an avid admirer of the English game, Pozzo later claimed to have been at the very game in which Garbutt sustained the injury that effectively ended his playing career. There is one theory that it was Pozzo who suggested Garbutt as a coach to Genoa.

Garbutt took charge in Genoa in the summer of 1912. English professionals were, at the time, exposed to cutting edge practices in terms of fitness and tactical training (they do not compare well to modern standards but were far in advance of any such methods on the continent). 

Garbutt introduced fitness training and tactical awareness to the Italian game. Genoa were also the first club in Italy to 'buy' players from other clubs.

Garbutt was in charge at Genoa until 1927. The club won the Italian championship 3 times under his leadership.

When, on the initiative of the Fascists, AS Roma were formed in 1927 Garbutt became their fist manager. He enjoyed 6 successful years with Napoli  before moving to Athletic Bilbao in 1935, winning La Liga. With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1937 he returned to Italy ( a brief spell at AC Milan and then back to Genoa).

Mr Garbutt with Genoa's 1924 scudetto winning team.

Scotland abroad!

Were the Scottish FA conservative?
There's a strong case for Scotland having been the strongest team in World football for much of the period before 1930. And yet they were slow to take any interest in continental opposition.  When one considers the influence that Scottish football and footballers had on the development of the game on the continent (particularly central Europe) you can't help thinking that people in Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia or Germany would have packed out any ground where the Scots appeared had they gone to Europe.
Scottish clubs, of course, were another matter: There were club tours by
Queen's Park to Denmark in 1898; Celtic and Glasgow Rangers to Vienna and Prague in 1904; Aberdeen to Prague and Poland 1911; Heart of Midlothian to Denmark in 1912; Third Lanark to Portugal in 1914 (Third also toured North and South America in the 1920s)
Select Scottish Juniors played Brann Bergen (Norway) in 1920.


But the national team played 143 internationals without meeting anyone other than England, Wales or Ireland (admittedly Wales and (Northern) Ireland were even slower to take to continental fixtures, but they would never have held the mass appeal that Scottish football enjoyed).

The delayed entry onto a broader stage could be attributed in part to the political climate in the post 1914-19 era, which was not conducive to the 'Home Nations' playing in Europe. This was due to the firm stance that they took on sporting relations with their recent enemies.

Scotland had become affiliated to FIFA in 1910 ( five years after England). In 1919 the four 'home' associations withdrew from FIFA. There is a  modern version of events that this was to do with amateurism, whereas in fact it was in order to sever sporting contacts with teams from the countries that had comprised The Central Powers during the 1914-18 war ( Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia).

The rigor with which the home FAs pursued this policy can be seen in the fact that it extended to not playing against teams who had links with these nations ( see - British Football's Post-War Ostracism of The Defeated Powers in Scoring for Britain: International Football and International Politics, 1900-1939  by Peter J. Beck).

The Home Associations did not renew their affiliations to FIFA until 1946, but in the interim Great Britain had competed in an Olympic tournament (1920- despite the protests of the USA that as England was not a member of FIFA they should not be allowed to enter theOlympic football tournament) and both England and Scotland played full internationals against a number of nations who had been part of the Central Powers. In 1930 England visited Berlin and Vienna , and were in Prague and Budapest 4 years later. Also Belgium and France readily played matches against the non FIFA England during the decade in which FIFA threatened sanctions against teams playing the non FIFA Soviet Union.

But this is a digression. what I originally intended to write about was Scotland abroad. The tour of 1929. 

26.05.1929 Norway 3 Scotland 7  (Bergen)

Imrie was  actually the scorer.
 01.06.1929 Germany 1 Scotland 1      (Berlin)

04.06.1929 Holland 0 Scotland 2   (Amsterdam)

 Scotland selected an inexperienced squad for the tour, including 9 uncapped players in the party of 14.
There were 3 survivors from April's 1-0 win over England. All three of these players (Crapnell, Nibloe and Cheyne) had been debutants in the England game.
Squad: 
Sandy McLaren* (St Johnstone) 
Jimmy Crapnell (Airdrieonians)
Joe Nibloe (Kilmarnock)
 Dougie Gray (Rangers) 
Willie Imrie* (St Johnstone) 
Hugh Morton* (Kilmarnock) 
Allan Craig* (Motherwell)
 Tully Craig [c] (Rangers)
  Jimmy Nisbet* (Ayr United) 
Alex Cheyne (Aberdeen)
 David McCrae* (St Mirren) 
Bobby Rankin* (St Mirren) 
Jimmy Fleming* (Rangers) 
Bobby Howe* (Hamilton Academical) 
 *9 men made their debuts on this trip.

McLaren and Imrie- St Johnstone legends...  

Sandy McLaren remains the youngest goalkeeper to play for Scotland, as he made his debut aged 18 years and 152 days. Willie Imrie remains the only St Johnstone player to score for Scotland. 

Wembley 1930

In the early years of its existence the FA tended to use The Empire Stadium Wembley only for the FA Cup Final, which was played there every year from 1923 onwards. 1930 was the 3rd time that the England v Scotland match had been held there. Less lucrative games against Wales and Ireland were still played at league grounds. Remarkably the England Scotland game was only the tenth football match played at Wembley in 7 years.

 Wembley Stadium ltd, (managing director the noteworthy entrepreneur Mr Arthur Elvin) was a private company. Mr Elvin had shrewdly developed the company and effectively saved the stadium from demolition following the Empire Exhibition of 1924. He was always on the lookout for attractions to maximize the use of the stadium, leading to the introduction of speedway, greyhound racing and the construction of the Wembley Arena.

In 1930 there were 4 matches played at Wembley Stadium:

5th April 1930: British Home Championships

 England 5 Scotland 2 

                                                                 (87,375)

In the previous decade England had only won 2 matches against Scotland (1920 & 27) and had not won the British Home Championships outright since 1913. The previous 2 meetings of the old rivals had seen Scotland's famous Wembley Wizards' 5-1 victory in 1928 and a 1-0 win for Scotland at Hampden in 1929. 

For the 1930 fixture England fielded 4 debutants (Strange,Webster, Crooks and Rimmer). England controlled the game. They were 4-0 up at half time thanks to Watson (2), Rimmer and Jack. Fleming pulled 2 goals back for Scotland in the second half but these were separated by Rimmer's  2nd and England's 5th. 

Line ups:

England: Harry Hibbs  (Birmingham City); Roy Goodall  (Huddersfield Town); Ernie Blenkinsop; Alf Strange  (both Sheffield Wednesday); Maurice Webster  (Middlesbrough); Billy Marsden  (Sheffield Wednesday); Sammy Crooks  (Derby County); David Jack (Arsenal(c)); Vic Watson  (West Ham United); Joe Bradford   (Birmingham City); Ellis Rimmer  (Sheffield Wednesday).

Scotland: Jack Harkness (Heart of Midlothian); Dougie Gray (Glasgow Rangers); Tommy Law (Chelsea); Jock Buchanan; Davie Meiklejohn (c); Tully Craig (all Glasgow Rangers); Alex Jackson (Huddersfield Town); Alex James (Arsenal); Jimmy Fleming (Glasgow Rangers); George Stevenson (Motherwell); Alan Morton (Glasgow Rangers).  

26th April 1930: FA Cup Final

 Arsenal 2 Huddersfield Town 0 

(92,499)

Herbert Chapman's Arsenal faced his former charges Huddersfield Town in the 1930 Cup Final. It will sound strange to modern fans that Huddersfield were the more successful of the two clubs at the time. In the six seasons from 1922 they had finished in the top 3 of the first division (winning the title three years in succession) and were appearing in their 4th Cup Final in 10 years.  Arsenal , on the other hand, had appeared in one FA Cup Final and had yet to claim any silverware of note.
Their 2-0 win thanks to goals by Alex James and Jack Lambert  was the beginning of an episode in the club's history that saw them permanently elevated to the ranks of the greats. 
Line ups:
Arsenal: Charlie Preedy; Tom Parker (c);  Eddie Hapgood;  Alf Baker;  Bill Seddon;  Bob John;  Joe Hulme;  David Jack;  Jack Lambert;  Alex James; Cliff Bastin (Manager: Herbert Chapman)

Huddersfield Town: Hugh Turner; Roy Goodall; Bon Spence; Jimmy Naylor; Tom Wilson (c); Austen Campbell; Alex Jackson;Bob Kelly; Harry Davies; Harry Raw; Billy Smith (Manager: Clem Stephenson)

So, England and Scotland, two of the World Football Superpowers, and Arsenal and Huddersfield Town, the eras most prolific club side and the rising stars in by far the most superior league in the world.
What next...
Clapton Orient versus Brentford?
Yes.
The idea of Wembley being used by the lesser lights was not a new one.
A prospective London based club (that never really existed) called Argonauts were  able to give assurances that Wembley would be their home ground when they unsuccessfully applied to the Football League in 1928, 1929 and 1930.
So, why Clapton Orient?
Orient (today's Leyton Orient) had moved into a new ground at  Lea Bridge Road (Hackney, London) at the beginning of the 1930 season. There was a problem , however. The speedway track was too close to the pitch and the pitch was already the minimum permitted width. Restructuring was necessary. Orient unsuccessfully approached both Leyton FC and Walthamstow Road about temporarily using their grounds. So Wembley it was.

22nd November 1930: League Division Three (Southern Section)

Clapton Orient 3 Brentford 0

sources vary: 8,319 (enfa.co.uk), 10,300 (Inglis)

Clapton Orient: Arthur Wood; Ernie Morley;Tom Evans; Eddie Lawrence; Jack Galbraith; Jimmy Bolton; Rollo Jack; Arthur Cropper; Reg Tricker; Jack Fowler; Charlie Fletcher.

Brentford: Fred Fox; Alex Stevenson; Tom Adamson; Reg Davies; Jimmy Bain;Harry Salt; Jack Lane; Jackie Foster; David Sherlaw; Cecil Blakemore; Bill Berry.

goals: 

Tricker

Cropper (2)

Before this game Orient were 17th and Brentford 3rd.

The Daily Herald commented unfavourably on the 'quagmire' of a pitch. There was no Zeppelin and no King George.

Orient's next game was an FA Cup replay against Luton Town that was played at Highbury, but they returned to Wembley for their next home league match:

6th December 1930:League Division Three (Southern Section)

Clapton Orient 3 Southend United 1.

(1,916)

Clapton Orient:Harry Blackwell; Ernie Morley; Billy Broadbent; Eddie Lawrence; Jack Galbraith; Jimmy Bolton; Rollo Jack; Arthur Cropper; Reg Tricker; Jack Fowler; Charlie Fletcher.

Southend United: Billy Moore; Jackie French;  Dave Robinson; Bob Ward; Joe Wilson; Bill Johnson; Fred Barnett; Mickey Jones; Jimmy Shankly; DickieDonoven; Arthur Crompton.

goals: 

Fowler (2)

  Jones  

Tricker

Before this game Orient were 16th, Southend 4th.

Reg Tricker

Following the Wembley adventure Orient's next home game, a 2-0 win over Norwich City back at Lea Bridge,was watched by 3,359.

By the by:

Both David and Rollo Jack made 2 Wembley appearances in 1930.

David Jack and Alex Jackson played on the opposing team in both the FA Cup Final and the England Scotland game.

Alex James and Alex Jackson played alongside each other and against each other-

as did Alex James and David Jack.

Superclásico

As local rivalries go the Buenos Aires Superclásico is possibly the most notoriously intense in World football.

02.08.08 *	Boca Juniors	2	1	River Plate
15.12.12*	Boca Juniors	1	1	River Plate
24.08.13	Boca Juniors	1	2	River Plate
25.10.14	River Plate	0	0	Boca Juniors
02.05.15 c	Boca Juniors	1	1	River Plate
09.05.15 c	River Plate	4	2	Boca Juniors
20.06.15	Boca Juniors	0	2	River Plate
10.12.16	River Plate	2	1	Boca Juniors
24.06.17	River Plate	2	2	Boca Juniors
30.08.18c	Boca Juniors	0	1	River Plate
18.09.18	River Plate	0	1	Boca Juniors
27.07.19	Boca Juniors	0	0	River Plate
04.12.27	Boca Juniors	1	0	River Plate
23.12.28	Boca Juniors	6	0	River Plate
04.05.30	River Plate	3	2	Boca Juniors
20.09.31	Boca Juniors	1	0	River Plate
06.01.32	River Plate	0	3	Boca Juniors
19.06.32	River Plate	1	1	Boca Juniors
30.10.32	Boca Juniors	2	1	River Plate
02.07.33	Boca Juniors	1	1	River Plate
19.11.33	River Plate	3	1	Boca Juniors
17.06.34	Boca Juniors	4	1	River Plate
16.09.34	River Plate	0	1	Boca Juniors
04.11.34	Boca Juniors	2	0	River Plate
21.04.35	Boca Juniors	1	0	River Plate
01.09.35	River Plate	1	1	Boca Juniors
11.01.36 *	Boca Juniors	3	3	River Plate
19.04.36	Boca Juniors	2	3	River Plate
30.08.36	River Plate	2	1	Boca Juniors

 River Plate wins- 9  goals- 35

Boca Juniors wins- 11 goals- 44

Draws- 9

All matches in Primera División except *= Friendlies ^C=Copa Competencia.

River debuted in the Primera División in 1909,  Boca in 1913.
League positions 1909-1937:

	River Plate	Boca Juniors
1st*	4**	9**
2nd	5	4
3rd	7	4

·         * In 1920 during one of the periodic schisms in the Argentine game  the clubs played in different leagues and both won their respective championships.

·         ** River won 1 championship in the amateur era (pre 1931) and Boca 6.

    In the professional era 1931-1937 (when our coverage ends)  the clubs won 3 titles each in 7 seasons.

1919- Boca wins 4 trophies, draws 0-0 with River.

Los Millonarios 1932