Don't Mention the World Cup: A History of England-Germany Rivalry from the War to the World Cup

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Author: Ed West

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Dont Mention The World Cup_INSID1 1

08/03/2006 09:17:25

DON’T MENTION THE WORLD CUP Copyright © Summersdale Publishers, 2006 Condition of Sale This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher. Summersdale Publishers Ltd 46 West Street Chichester West Sussex PO19 1RP UK www.summersdale.com Printed and bound in Great Britain ISBN 1 84024 521 2


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With thanks to: Emma Grove, Patrick West, Adam Beecher of www.foot.ie, Mathijs van der Kooi of www.voetbalforum.nl, Michael C. Yates of www.myfootballforum. com, and the people at www.tamb.net


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INTRODUCTION ‘Football,’ Gary Lineker once remarked, ‘is a game played by 22 players. And then the Germans win.’ It’s been a century since England and Germany first met on the football pitch and, despite brief flirtations with Argentina, France and Scotland, the Germans remain England’s number one rivals. English football supporters love above all else to beat the


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INTRODUCTION

Germans, and not even that 5–1 dream win in Munich has cured this complex. This summer, Sven’s boys go to Germany, the nation still obsessed with the idea that through efficiency, discipline and even some mystical pact with Satan himself, the Germans are destined always to triumph over a morally superior English side. The painful World Cup and Euro Championship defeats of 1970, 1972, 1990 and 1996 have shown us that.


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DON’T MENTION THE WORLD CUP

As a Guardian writer once put it, ‘England and Germany are in an S & M relationship, and no prizes for guessing who is the dominant partner.’ And despite the current German side being, in the words of former Bayern Munich manager Uli Höneß, ‘a catastrophe’, you can’t keep a good people down, and at 7/1 they’re second favourites to take the World Cup for the third time. If they win it this summer, it’s theirs forever. 6


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INTRODUCTION

So this June, make friends with some Germans, enjoy a drink and a joke (they do have a sense of humour, remember), but please – don’t mention the World Cup.


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CHAPTER

1

ENGLAND VS GERMANY – 100(ISH) YEARS OF SPORTING CONFLICT


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ENGLAND VS GERMANY

1880s British academics and businessmen attempt to convert the Germans to football, rugby and cricket, but only the beautiful game takes hold, the German royal family admiring its manliness. The Germans’ public school-based British teachers, with remarkable foresight, declare that football will provide ‘an education in that spirit of chivalry, fairness and good temper’.


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1899 An England team made up of gentleman amateurs and ghastly ‘trade’ professionals tour Germany for the first time, winning 13–2 and 10–2, the games covered by a British press eager to patronise the plucky Germans. When the English side beat a combined German/Austrian team 8–0, the Manchester Guardian commends their ‘excellent’ goalkeeping. Bless.

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1901 The Germans arrive in England for a return series, where an amateur English side beat them 12–0 at White Hart Lane. The tourists then go off to West Bromwich, where a team of professionals squeeze past 10–0.


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Christmas Day, 1914 British and German soldiers on the Western Front take a break from the slaughter of the trenches to play a game of football in noman’s-land, the truce initiated by a group of soldiers from Saxony. Local commentators refer to the Germans’ ‘discipline’ but the game finishes Lancashire Fusiliers 3 Saxons 2. Though, technically, noman’s-land – covered with shell holes, dead bodies and landmines – does not meet FIFA pitch criteria. 12


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1915 Some British units begin the disastrous attack on Loos by kicking footballs over the top and chasing them. To the amazement of British military experts, these prove no match for the Germans’ machine guns.


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1916 The football craze takes off. At the Battle of the Somme, the clearly insane Captain W. P. Neville gives his men four footballs, one of which bears the inscription ‘The Great European Cup-tie Finals, East Surrey v Bavarians’, and offers a prize to the first platoon to dribble all the way to the German lines, not understanding that English footballers have trouble dribbling at the best of times, let alone when they’re getting shot at. 14


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1920 The FA withdraws from FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association), refusing not only to play Germany or Austria but any other team that plays them, or any team that plays a team that has played Germany.


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1924 Arsenal tour Germany, the first English club to do so.

1930 The first official match between the two sides ends with a 3–3 draw in Berlin. The amateur Germans are impressed that their visitors do not drink before the games, but the English also learn a bit about foreign culture, noting that the Germans tend to whistle 16


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rather than boo. There is mutual admiration, the English media impressed that the Germans do not let their Continental emotions run away with them by congratulating the goalscorers, as has been observed with Italian teams. Out of respect for the hosts, English players refrain from shoulderbarging the German goalkeeper, as is the custom among English gentlemen.


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1935 The countries meet for a friendly at White Hart Lane, which is appropriately refereed by a neutral Swede. The game, which England win 3–0, is played with an air of sporting chivalry, despite protests by many anti-Nazis. Almost 10,000 German fans make the trip over, but there is no trouble, hardly surprising with the Gestapo in charge of public order back home. An English journalist, ever insightful, observes: ‘Football is a 18


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ENGLAND VS GERMANY

game more suited to the AngloSaxon and the Teuton than to the Latin race.’


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1938 England play Germany in Berlin and the Foreign Office forces the players to give the Hitler salute, in a ‘friendly’ that England win 6–3 in front of 110,000 people. Stanley Matthews says afterwards that the players are ‘livid’ about the gesture, mainly because they aren’t allowed the comic bonus of making Hitler moustaches with their other fingers.

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1941 In February Old Trafford is bombed, forcing United to share with City for the next ten years. According to City folklore, one of the Luftwaffe crew goes on to be the grandfather of their mid-90s centre forward Uwe Rösler, inspiring the popular Tshirt bearing the slogan ‘Uwe’s Granddad Bombed Old Trafford’. Sadly there appears to be no truth in the legend.


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1945 German soldier Bert Trautmann escapes from the American, French and Soviet Red armies, only to be captured by a British soldier with the immortal words ‘Hello Fritz, fancy a cup of tea?’ and forced to endure ‘a fate vorse than death’ – playing for Manchester City. Trautmann overcomes prejudice to take the number 1 shirt and helps City win the FA Cup in 1956, despite playing for most of the game with a broken neck. After the 22


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game Trautmann is congratulated by Prince Philip, who asks, ‘Why is your neck so crooked?’ Bert becomes the first foreigner (and last for four decades) to win Footballer of the Year, and is made an OBE in 2004. To this day he is the only man to hold both the Iron Cross and an FA Cup winner’s medal, a record he is likely to hang onto for some time.


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1945– 49 The English FA takes the lead in encouraging West Germans to play football, setting up most of the German FA’s infrastructure, and organising Anglo–German youth tournaments. Stanley Rous, head of the FA, is awarded the West German Grand Cross of the Order of Merit, something which nowadays would have his head superimposed on a Gestapo uniform by one of the tabloids. 24


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1950 A shell-shocked German nation misses the World Cup finals for the last time, while England wish they hadn’t bothered. In their first outing on the biggest stage, they lose to a USA team who had been partying all night. England’s coaching system is still quite archaic, with the team picked between manager Walter Winterbottom and a fish-processing magnate from Grimsby.


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1954 The sides meet for a friendly at Wembley, which England win 3–1. Later in 1954, at the comically named Wankdorf Stadium in Switzerland, West Germany beat Hungary to lift the World Cup for the first time.

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1956 England beat Germany 3–1 in Berlin, and still manage a lap of honour before running up four flights of stairs to their dressing room. The German FA’s president declares them ‘supermen’, a compliment that would make anyone uncomfortable on the Führer’s old turf.


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1961 Commando comic is launched, providing English football fans with enough of the basics of the German language to get by, namely ‘schnell ’, ‘achtung ’ and ‘for you, Tommy, ze war iz over ’.

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1962 The start of West Germany’s economical miracle: the Daily Mirror declares that the Germans are building fantastic businesses from the ruins of the war, they produce faultless merchandise, and their women have the biggest breasts in Europe.


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1965 England beat West Germany 1–0 in Nuremburg, the Sun commenting that their visit has created ‘the biggest buzz since the War Crimes Tribunal’.

1966 England win the World Cup, helped by a third goal that never was, and a Russian linesman – Tofik Bakhramov – who is actually an Azeri. The Azerbaijan national stadium is later named after the 30


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country’s greatest ever assistant referee, suggesting a nation desperately in need of heroes. Three decades later technology proves that it wasn’t in fact a goal: still, from the angle we see on TV, it looks as though had Roger Hunt just kicked the ball rather than run back to claim a goal, none of this controversy need ever have happened. A fourth goal is scored, despite people being on the pitch, which strictly speaking should have caused the referee to blow the whistle. Sir Geoff’s


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hat trick is accompanied by the commentary of BBC One’s Kenneth Wolstenholme, and his immortal words ‘They think it’s all over – it is now’, which echo down the years, much to the annoyance of everyone in Scotland who is forced to listen to endless accounts of the triumph.

1968 In a bad-tempered friendly in Hannover, Germany win 1–0, the start of three decades of dominance. 32


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1970 Gerhard Müller scores the winner as the Germans come from two behind to beat England 3–2 in the quarter-finals. England blame it on Gordon Banks’s diarrhoea. On his return home, England manager Alf Ramsey declares their chances of winning the next World Cup ‘very good indeed’.


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1972 In April the two sides meet in a European Championship qualifier and an economically unstoppable, reborn West Germany win 3–1 against an England of power shortages, industrial disputes and Spinal Tap-esque dinosaur rock. The Germans triumph at the next World Cup, while England fail to qualify in either 1974 or ’78.

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ENGLAND VS GERMANY

1974 In the World Cup final, an ultraefficient West German team led by Franz ‘Kaiser’ Beckenbauer grind out a 2–1 victory against the flamboyant Dutch side that gave the world total football. The Dutch press are less than magnanimous in defeat, bringing up a load of unpleasant recent history between the two nations as proof that their neighbours ‘have done it again’.


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1981 Bobby Moore and Mike Summerbee lead an allied POW team to an impressive 4–4 draw with the German national side, despite having Sylvester Stallone in goal, in Escape to Victory .

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1982 England draw with West Germany and exit the World Cup in Spain, having previously overcome the mighty Kuwait. The Germans eventually progress to the final. But England, it is agreed by everyone, have a much better kit and World Cup anthem, ‘Back Home’.


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1989 In a beer advert, the boys of the 617 Squadron attack a German dam with bouncing bombs, but much to their surprise, the German soldier saves each of their shots, leading one airman to comment, ‘I bet he drinks Carling Black Label.’

1990 England play West Germany in the World Cup semi-final and go out on penalties. Gazza cries when a booking prevents him from 38


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ENGLAND VS GERMANY

playing in the final, and Gary Lineker motions to the bench with a strange look in the young Geordie’s direction. Several BMWs are vandalised after the final whistle, and apparently a dachshund is verbally abused. England’s penalty failures Chris Waddle and Stuart Pearce go on to appear in a Pizza Hut advert. West Germany go on to beat Argentina in the final, in possibly the most boring game of football ever played. Germany is reunited later in the year.


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1993 A friendly held in Germany is postponed for security reasons after organisers realise that the date – 20 April – is the birthday of former German gaffer Adolf Hitler. The two sides meet Stateside for the US Cup, where England lose to both Germany and the USA.

1994 Jürgen Klinsmann joins Spurs and instantly becomes the most 40


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ENGLAND VS GERMANY

popular German in English history, for his deft touches, modesty (he drives a VW) and sense of humour, demonstrated by how he follows his first goal with a celebratory dive. In subsequent opinion polls Klinsmann consistently takes second place as the most famous German, after You Know Who.


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1996 England play a united Germany for the first time at a competitive level, for a European Championship semi-final at Wembley. England score early, but Germany level it at 1–1 and it goes to penalties. Cue predictable ending, with this time Gareth Southgate cast as the villain. While the Germans have spent months and hours practising penalties, Southgate last had a go three years previously, for Crystal Palace, and he’d missed 42


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that. Attempting to escape it all, Southgate immediately heads for a holiday in a remote region of the Peruvian Andes, where a local goatherd asks him, ‘You Mr Penalty Drama?’ Germany go on to win the final, while Southgate is later seen in an advert for Pizza Hut. The Baddiel, Skinner and Lightning Seeds song, ‘Three Lions’, is the anthem of the tournament, and later becomes as big a hit in Germany.


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1997 The English FA, having allegedly promised Germany their support for the 2006 World Cup, launches its own bid. Franz Beckenbauer, in full Red Baron mode, laments the days when he shook hands with ‘honourable’ Englishmen like Bobby Moore.

1998 A World Cup in France featuring every major nation in the Second World War inspires everyone to 44


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go into Battle of Britain cliché overdrive. Eighty-four years after the 1914 Christmas Truce, English and German hooligans arrange to meet for a fight in Flanders, therefore interrupting a football tournament with a mini war, just as their forefathers interrupted a war with a mini football tournament.


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2000 England beat Germany 1–0 at the European Championships in Charleroi, Belgium, after a competitive wait of 33 years, 10 months, 18 days, 4 hours and 17 minutes, not that anyone’s been counting. England are awful, but their old rivals have become indescribably bad, with secondrate players sporting names like Hans Nomark. Both teams go out in the group stages. 46


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ENGLAND VS GERMANY

Later that year, England play their last ever game at the old Wembley stadium, and manage to lose 1–0 to Germany on a rainy, miserable afternoon of bad football and worse facilities. National selfesteem reaches its lowest point, and England look set to have to endure a play-off in ‘some muggy gaff like Ukraine’, as Ian Wright puts it.


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2001 The greatest ever moment in modern English football: England thrash Germany 5–1 in Munich, and John Motson’s outburst ‘This gets better and better and better’ becomes a standard motif for any English football fan for use on the pitch, in front of an Xbox, or while making love.

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2002 Despite having one of their worst sides in history, the Germans still manage to make it to the World Cup final, largely due to the freakish exit of most major nations early on. They lose to Brazil in the final, having beaten South Korea in the semis.


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2005 The Football Association commissions a series of TV adverts featuring David Beckham, Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney pleading that English fans ‘Don’t mention the war’ in a fruitless attempt to get the visiting supporters not to be beastly to the Germans. A message about anti-German songs will also be sent out with each ticket.

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ENGLAND VS GERMANY

A survey of countries participating in World Cup 2006 finds that only two nations feel negative about the Germans, England being one of them.


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2006 According to Nostradamus’s Third Book (fourth quatrain), ‘In the sixth season after the third age (2006) the people of the triple lion (England) will go to the father’s land (Germany), where the Knights of the Black Eagle (the German team) will send them packing early, through an ordeal of nets (penalties).’* *I might have made this up. The rest of the timeline is true. 52


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CHAPTER

2

THE IDIOT#S GUIDE TO THE GERMANS Forget Bach, Beethoven, Marx and Kant, there are only two types of Germans you need know about: footballers and Prussian warlords.


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Ballack, Michael German captain and voted ‘Germany’s Sexiest Footballer’ in 2002, Ballack single-handedly took the team to the World Cup that year, but is still criticised for being lazy in his own country.

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THE IDIOT]S GUIDE TO THE GERMANS

Beckenbauer, Franz Captain of the winning side of 1974 and manager of the 1990 champions, ‘The Kaiser’, as the British press affectionately call him (perhaps even they thought ‘The Führer’ was too much), is the greatest German footballer of all time.


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Klinsmann, Jurgen Intelligent, articulate and sober – no wonder he stood out like a sore thumb in the Premiership. German manager from July 2004, despite having no previous qualification, Klinsmann was once seen as the archetypal German player by the English press: blond, disciplined, and likely to turn the slightest challenge into the agonising death throes of a tragic opera star. Then he signed for Spurs and became the most popular Teuton in English history. 56


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Kuntz, Stefan The man who broke English hearts by equalising in the Euro 1996 semi-finals is no longer a great force in German football, but his name continues to provide much mirth. In the re-issued ‘Three Lions’ video in 1998, all the German fans sported Rudi Völler haircuts and ‘Kuntz’ on their shirts.


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General von Moltke Prussian strategist responsible for beating France in the 1870 war, Helmuth Carl von Moltke only laughed twice in his life; the first time when told the French fortress Metz was ‘impregnable’; the second when given the news that his mother-in-law had died.

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Rahn, Helmut Scorer of the 1954 World Cup final winner, the famous victory that lifted German spirits after the war. The tournament is the subject of the film The Miracle of Bern, a big hit in Germany in 2003. At a private viewing of the film, director Sonke Wortmann and Rudi Völler decided it would be a nice gesture to invite Rahn to the premiere. That same day, Rahn died of old age.


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Rommel, Erwin Even during the war, the leader of the German Afrika Korps was a hero in England. The ‘Desert Fox’ was everything the British wanted in a German: an officer of the old school, who led the ‘gentlemen’s war’ in North Africa, where the Brits and Jerries fought a bloody good battle in the desert, the two sides burying the enemy’s dead with full military honours and every POW receiving a cup of tea. He was accused of plotting 60


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against Hitler, and killed himself to save his family, being a man of honour to the end.

Völler, Rudi Klinsmann’s predecessor, and one of the victors of 1990, Völler is remembered mostly for his mullet and moustache combo, the look that was de rigueur in Germany throughout the 1980s and ’90s.


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CHAPTER

3

DON#T MENTION THE HEADLINES The English tabloid press is unique in the world in having the forthright courage to say exactly what it thinks, even when it thinks like a dementia sufferer who#s just spent ten hours in the pub after losing


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DON]T MENTION THE HEADLINES

his wife and job in the same day. Here are some of the tabloids# greatest moments of Jerry baiting.

It was the Sun what started the current trend, with some now classic headlines ahead of Anglo–German clashes. In 1982 it was ‘ACHTUNG STATIONS’; for the 1987 friendly it was ‘THE BATTLE OF THE KRAUTS’; while three years later, during Italia 90, they pleaded: ‘HELP OUR BOYS CLOUT THE KRAUTS’.


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Before the Euro 96 semi-final, the Mirror printed the headline ‘ACHTUNG SURRENDER, FOR YOU, FRITZ, ZE EURO 96 CHAMPIONSHIP IS OVER’ with a picture of Stuart Pearce and Paul Gascoigne wearing WW2 helmets. It followed this with ‘WATCH OUT, KRAUTS, ENGLAND ARE GONNA BOMB YOU TO BITS AT WEMBLEY’.

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Piers Morgan wrote an editorial for the 1996 clash that began: ‘Last night our ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a note,’ going on to paraphrase Neville Chamberlain’s declaration of war in 1939, adding, ‘We are at soccer war with Germany.’ When the former Hamburg and Liverpool player Kevin Keegan had tipped Germany to win the Championship, the Mirror criticised his disloyalty by declaring, ‘KEEGAN KRAUT OF ORDER’.


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The Sun gave us ‘BLITZ FRITZ’, while the Daily Star ran with ‘BRING ON THE KRAUTS’, with manager Terry Venables done up as Lord Kitchener. Both the Sun and Mirror ‘invaded’ Germany during the tournament, turning up in the country decked with England flags and banners stacked with war references, the latter announcing, ‘MIRROR INVADES GERMANY: WE DARED TO TEACH THE HUN A LESSON’. While one Mirror reporter was sent to 66


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Berlin to distribute ‘propaganda leaflets’, another went to Cheshire, where the German team was staying, to change the road directions around, Home Guardstyle, so the team would drive to Scotland by mistake. A third was sent to their hotel in London to place British towels on their sunloungers.


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The Mirror headlines were so unpopular with the readers that the paper was forced to issue an apology, and sent a Harrods hamper to Jürgen Klinsmann, reporting it with the headline ‘PEAS IN OUR TIME’. It also abandoned its latest stunt idea – a Spitfire flypast over the England team hotel. After UEFA backed Germany’s bid for the 2006 World Cup in 1997, the Sunday People moaned, ‘HUN-BEARABLE’. 68


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After England’s 5–1 win in September 2001, the headline ‘DON’T MENTION THE SCORE’ was used by the News of the World and, of all places, the Independent on Sunday.


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When England were drawn against Germany in the World Cup 2002 qualifying group, having already been paired off for Euro 2000, the Star ’s headlines were ‘HUN-CANNY!’, ‘HUN, DRAWN AND SLAUGHTERED!’ and ‘VE’RE OVER ZE MOON’. The Sun gave us ‘KEVIN LANDS IN DER SCHMIDT’ while the Daily Mirror, perhaps still stunned by the 900 complaints they received for ‘ACHTUNG FRITZ!’, could only offer ‘HERR WE GO AGAIN’. 70


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After England beat Germany in Euro 2000, the Sunday People reported ‘HUN-NIL! THE WORLD IS IN OUR HANS!’ England went out three days later. After Frank Skinner had expressed his support for the Germans at the last World Cup final, the Sun renamed him ‘Franz’ and superimposed some lederhosen onto the comedian.


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In December 2005 the Sun announced the use of mini ‘tanks’ in monitoring football fans at the World Cup with the headline ‘BRITSKRIEG!’

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On page 9, they published a list of German war jokes. This followed Sun columnist Jeremy Clarkson making a Hitler salute on Top Gear to illustrate how a BMW-owned Mini’s indicators worked, and the subsequent complaint from the German Embassy. At the top of the piece was a picture of the world’s most famous German, next to the caption ‘One ball’.


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But none of this is entirely new: in 1956 England beat West Germany 3–0 in the Olympic Stadium, Berlin, the first meeting of the two nations since the war. A news commentator, focusing on a couple of miserable-looking German fans, pronounced: ‘Donner und blitzen! Zees Englanders have us outschnitzled!’ And the Sun had written on the eve of the 1966 final: ‘As the Fatherland are embarrassingly aware, England have never lost to Germany – at soccer either.’ 74


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CHAPTER

4

GERMAN BITE While the English seem to see football matches between the countries as another El Alamein, the Germans just seem confused by the whole thing. Here are some headlines and extracts from the other side.


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‘YUK, ENGLAND, COME OFF IT! YOU ARE JUST AN EMBARRASSMENT. Somewhere along the line the English seem to have forgotten that this is just about football’ – Bild Zeitung, on 31 August 1996, after the Daily Sport had told Germans ‘to stick their beach towels up their arse’.

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GERMAN BITE

‘The fatal defect in cows’ brains seems to have transferred to the twolegged inhabitants on the island’ Cologne-based Express after the Daily Mirror’s 1996 outburst.

‘ENGLAND DECLARES FOOTBALL WAR ON US’, said Bild Zeitung, splashing the Mirror’s picture of Gazza and helmet on its front page. ‘Where did they find a helmet big enough?’ asked German keeper Andy Kopke (that may sound funnier in the original German).


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The Bild added: ‘11 Questions to the English – 11 jibes designed to send Fleet Street’s most scurrilous scribes running for their Biros.’ Here is a small sample: ‘Why do you wear your swimming costumes in the sauna?’ ‘How can your former colonies beat you at cricket?’ ‘When did an Englishman last win at Wimbledon?’ All valid points, it has to be said, apart from the sauna one. 78


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GERMAN BITE

‘A year’s work improving Anglo– German relations can be undone by a single England–Germany match’ a British diplomat in Berlin, to the Observer in September 2001

‘FOOTBALL’S COMING HOME – THANK YOU SOUTHGATE’ popular German T-shirt slogan seen after the 1996 match


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When England drew Germany in the 2002 World Cup, the front page of Hamburg-based tabloid Bild announced ‘SORRY ENGLAND’ in English, alongside pictures of German victories in the World Cups of 1970 and 1990, and the European Championships in 1972 and 1996. Under a picture of Geoff Hurst’s controversial 1966 goal, it added: ‘Unless we are sh*t on again.’ 80


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And to show that they can fight back using our favourite weapon, here are some German jokes about the English:


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How do you double the value of a new Rover? Fill it up with petrol. Why didn’t the sun set on the British Empire? Because not even God would trust an Englishman in the dark. What do you call an Englishman who lies around in bed all day in the cold and dark? An NHS patient. 82


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CHAPTER

5

ANGLO– GERMAN FOOTBALL TRIVIA


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The German side that played at White Hart Lane in 1930 was the first football team to arrive by aeroplane. England’s Gordon Banks has a German wife, Ursula, whom he met while doing National Service. They were already married by 1966, when Banks won his World Cup winner’s medal.

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ANGLO - GERMAN FOOTBALL TRIVIA

Germany never got revenge for their 1938 defeat in Berlin; a return match in England was scheduled for late 1939, but for some reason was never played. On their 1938 tour, England legend Stanley Matthews came within a whisker of Adolf Hitler, when the dictator drove past the England striker, on walkabout with teammate Bert Sproston. Sproston was way ahead of most when he told Matthews he thought Hitler ‘an evil little twat’.


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When England played Germany in 1956, they were most worried about right-half Robert Schlienz, but only because they were embarrassed; the Stuttgart player had only one arm.

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The same match produced the first mass following of English fans abroad; 10,000 in the stadium, most of them from the Royal Cheshire Regiment, stationed in Berlin at the time. England also played four matches against East Germany, all friendlies, of which three were won by England, and the other match a draw.


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Pity ITV’s anchorman Hugh Johns, rival to the BBC’s Kenneth Wolstenholme, whose commentary from the 1966 World Cup final has been all but forgotten: ‘Here’s Hurst, he might make it three. He has! He has! So that’s it! That is IT!’ But somehow ‘He Has! He Has! ’ wouldn’t make quite such a catchy quiz show title.

88


08/03/2006 09:18:01


When the England and West Germany teams met in a Hannover friendly in 1967, a supporter ran onto the pitch, probably expecting to be chased away by police. Instead he was pushed in the face by the no-nonsense referee, and to add indignity to the proceedings, knocked down by a linesman before having the humiliation of being rescued by the police.


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After 1966, England would not finish above Germany in any European Championship or World Cup for the next 34 years. But when the day of glory did come, in the Low Countries Euro 2000 tournament, celebrations were slightly muted – England were knocked out by Romania and not even the nation’s triumphalist press could claim Germany edging us for the wooden spoon was a cause for champagne-popping. 90


08/03/2006 09:18:01


Modern football boots were invented in 1920 by German Adi Dassler who, along with brother Rudi, formed Adidas in 1924. The pair split in 1948, when Rudi went off to start Puma. The FA used The Farm’s ‘All Together Now’ as their 2004 anthem. The lyrics, which refer to the hopelessness of trench warfare in the First World War, could equally apply to England’s performances in major tournaments.


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The Christmas Truce of 1914 is also the inspiration for Truce International, a peace charity set up by Sven Goran Eriksson and girlfriend Nancy Dell’Olio. The organisation helps children in war zones to learn football. (Details can be found at www.truce.net.)

92


08/03/2006 09:18:02


In 1996 the German squad inspired some grumblings from English fellow guests at their hotel in Macclesfield after going au naturel in the sauna. Coach Berti Vogts was baffled at the Brits’ modesty: ‘In Russia you just need a hat.’ Boris Becker had trials for Bayern Munich before choosing tennis.


93

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As if the new stadium hasn’t enough problems, Wembley ran an online poll last year to name a footbridge at the rebuilt stadium, assuming that Bobby Moore or some other English gentleman player of yesteryear would top the ballot. Instead the vote was almost won by Dietmar Hamann, scorer of the last ever goal at the old ground, with a suspiciously large amount of cyber traffic coming from Germany and, of course, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Australia. 94


08/03/2006 09:18:02


The German team in Escape to Victory was actually made up of Ipswich Town’s reserve side, as manager Bobby Robson was a good friend of director John Huston.


95

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CHAPTER

6

FANS SURVEY Just what do supporters think? The author asked English fans on website www.myfootballforum. com, and football supporters in other countries, what they thought of the great Anglo– German rivalry.


08/03/2006 09:18:03

FANS SURVEY

Who do you think are historically England’s greatest football rivals? Country

%

Holland

0

Italy

0

France

8

Argentina

16

Germany

78


97

08/03/2006 09:18:04


What attributes do you associate with German football? Attribute

%

Flair

4

Luck

8

Success

11

Poor quality hairstyles

19

Teamwork

27

Efficiency

30

98


08/03/2006 09:18:05

FANS SURVEY

Do you find the constant references to the war found in newspapers every time England play Germany an embarrassment? Yes 54%

No 46%

Would you prefer Germany to win the final if it was against France or Argentina? Yes 43%


No 57%

99

08/03/2006 09:18:05


And finally, supporters of Ireland, Scotland and Holland were asked which they’d prefer to win in a final between the two nations. The Dutch voted 83–17% in favour of the English, while the Scots wanted the Germans to win by 94– 6%, and the Irish opted 84–16% for the Germans, proving there’s nothing like good neighbours.

100


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CHAPTER

7

YOUR GUIDE TO GERMANY If you#re lucky enough to visit Germany in the summer of 2006, here is an easy guide to the cities you#ll be visiting.


08/03/2006 09:18:07


Frankfurt venue for Paraguay game

Bear in mind Germany has two Frankfurts, and this one is London’s main rival as economic capital of Europe, so ‘in your Frankfurt slums’ is never going to work.

102


08/03/2006 09:18:08

YOUR GUIDE TO GERMANY

Nuremburg venue for Trinidad and Tobago game

The city greets England’s fans with leaflets giving a frank description of its role in Nazi days, pre-empting inevitable English war-based faux pas. Many fans will probably recognise the grand approach to the stadium from footage of Hitler’s famous rallies. The Führer planned to build the largest stadium in the world in Nuremburg, with a capacity of 400,000, so it’s a shame that


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other matters diverted his plans, as that might have actually seated all the England fans wanting to go to the game.

Cologne venue for Sweden game

Don’t ask any tour guide why most of the architecture post-dates 1945; Cologne, Latin for ‘colony’, had a long and rich history before it was firebombed in 1944, but like an urban phoenix it has risen from the ashes. 104


08/03/2006 09:18:08

YOUR GUIDE TO GERMANY

Munich possible round two venue

The capital of Bavaria is arguably the world capital of beer, with respectable Bavarians seeing nothing uncivilised about having a brew over a 9 a.m. business meeting. They don’t, however, tend to finish a third bottle by 10 a.m., nor urinate in the street at the same time, so some English behaviour may still seem a little eccentric.


105

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Berlin venue for the final

Don’t worry, there’s about as much chance of Englishmen drinking beer in Berlin in 2006 as there was in 1914. But if they do, Berlin is famed as the party capital of Europe, making Amsterdam look like an annoying teenaged brother, and is home to the highest number of punks, hippies, techno freaks and acid casualties in all of Europe, who will no doubt get on with the England fans like a house in a flood. 106


08/03/2006 09:18:09

CHAPTER

8

SHADES OF

1966 And finally, as any Scotsman will tell you, it really doesn#t take much for a football commentator to make comparisons to 1966. If any of these spooky parallels crop up, you can bet the spirit


08/03/2006 09:18:12


of Sir Jeff etc. will quickly be evoked, or else that phrase so beloved of John Motson: #And of course, the last time that happened, you know how the tournament ended, don#t you?#

England playing in red a Russian linesman, or any official from the former Soviet Union

108


08/03/2006 09:18:13

SHADES OF 1966

England going 1– 0 down England equalising any player from West Ham, like the trio of Moore, Peters and Hurst any player who grew up in the same borough as one of the 1966 team


109

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any sightings of one of the 1966 team in the crowd playing against Germany, or any other team that England beat in 1966

110


08/03/2006 09:18:14

SHADES OF 1966

any member having their suit made by Burton – #the England team#s outfitters in 1966# any dodgy team selection, since #Geoff Hurst was left out of England#s first game#


111

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some vague social, political or spiritual parallel with the mid 1960s – Labour in power, same animal in the Chinese zodiac, Venus and Saturn being in alignment

112


08/03/2006 09:18:14

SHADES OF 1966

With any luck, another 40 years down the line and an elderly John Motson will be banging on about the spirit of 2006.


113

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CHAPTER

9

ENGLAND VS GERMANY RESULTS


08/03/2006 09:18:15


Overall statistics – England vs Germany (or West Germany): Games England wins Draws Germany wins

24 11 3 10

In the following breakdown, note below what the abbreviations stand for:

F = friendly WC = World Cup EC = European Championships (Result given with England score first)


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08/03/2006 09:18:16


10.05.30

F

Berlin

3–3

04.12.35

F

White Hart Lane 3–0

14.05.38

F

Berlin

6–3

01.12.54

F

Wembley

3–1

26.05.56

F

Berlin

3–1

12.05.65

F

Nuremberg

1–0

21.02.66

F

Wembley

1–0

30.07.66

WC

Wembley

4–2

01.06.68

F

Hannover

0–1

14.06.70

WC

Mexico

2–3

29.04.72

EC

Wembley

1–3

13.05.72

EC

Berlin

0–0

12.03.75

F

Wembley

2–0

116


08/03/2006 09:18:17


22.02.78

F

Munich

1–2

29.06.82

WC

Madrid

0–0

13.10.82

F

Wembley

1–2

12.06.85

F

Mexico

3–0

09.09.87

F

Dusseldorf

1–3

04.07.90

WC

Turin

11.09.91

F

Wembley

0–1

09.06.93

F

Detroit

1–2

26.06.96

EC

Wembley 1–1 (5–6 pens)

17.6.00

EC

Charleroi

1–0

07.10.00

WC

Wembley

0–1

01.9.01

WC

Munich

5–1


1–1 (3–4 pens)

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THE TEUTONIC STEREOTYPES DRINKING GAME Whenever a group of Germans set foot on a field, a barrage of cliches are sure to follow. Down a pint of Becks every time a commentator uses one of these words or phrases in reference to the Germans.


08/03/2006 09:18:18

THE TEUTONIC STEREOTYPES DRINKING GAME

disciplined ordered efficient grind out results they fight to the end/the last man any reference to battle


119

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anything relating to their lack of flare anything which is the opposite of being Latin and fanciful

120


08/03/2006 09:18:20


blitzkrieg (when describing an attacking football) vague allusions to the 1940– 44 Atlantic Wall (when talking about their defence)


121

08/03/2006 09:18:21


When Germany meet Poland in their group stage, you can down three shots in one go if someone like Big Ron makes a reference to lebensraum , or that most famous match between the countries. 122


08/03/2006 09:18:21


Sung to ‘Who Do You Think You Are Kidding, Mr Hitler?’ Who do you think you are kidding Michael Ballack? If you think we’re on the run We are the boys who will stop your little game We are the boys who will make you think again ’Cos who do you think you are kidding Michael Ballack? If you think old England’s done?


123

08/03/2006 09:18:21


Sung to ‘Daydream Believer’ Cheer up Jürgen Klinsmann Oh what can it mean? To a sad German b***ard And a s*** football team

124


08/03/2006 09:18:21


08/03/2006 09:18:22


08/03/2006 09:18:22

THE LITTLE BOOK OF

ESSENTIAL FOOTBALL SWEAR WORDS Jeffrey Zwanka £2.99 P/B 1 84024 514 X

This must-have little book for serious fans of the beautiful game contains all of football’s favourite swear words and insults – all translated into four languages for use at most major international matches! Featuring classic football wit and cheap shots to put you at the top of your game, it has all you need to impress friends and guarantee enemies.


08/03/2006 09:18:22

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08/03/2006 09:18:22

Don't Mention the World Cup: A History of England-Germany Rivalry from the War to the World Cup

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German Football: History, Culture, Society and the World Cup 2006

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Don't Mention the World Cup: A History of England-Germany Rivalry from the War to the World Cup