I don’t often say this, but three cheers to the Football Association (FA) for signalling its desire to continue sending teams to the Olympic football tournament. I just hope that at some point it becomes possible once again for a Great Britain Olympic squad to be genuinely British.
Prior to London 2012, no British team had played in an Olympic football tournament for more than half a century, since Rome 1960. And yet the country has a proud Olympic record, having taken the gold medals on the first three occasions it entered, in 1900, 1908 and 1912.
To my mind, though, it was another London Olympic tournament – the exciting and diverse 1948 competition – that best illustrates what the country has been missing out on by not regularly trying to get a genuinely British group to the world’s greatest multi-sports festival.
The Official Olympic Report for those so-called Austerity Games described the competition as “the most varied and colourful ever staged in England, the home of the game”. Afghanistan were represented, as were China, just a year before the Communist takeover, and Korea, two years before the outbreak of the Korean War.
The United States were blitzed 9-0 by Italy, just two years before sensationally beating a star-spangled England at the 1950 World Cup; Egypt created a good impression – “[they] would be very hard to beat on their own grounds” – before going down to Denmark, eventual bronze medallists, after extra time.
Nine of the Indian team, which lost only 2-1 to France, played without boots. “Several had their feet bound in bandages to make up for lack of footwear,” notes the Report, “but not one shirked even the heaviest tackle”.
The eclecticism of the competition was further enhanced, meanwhile, by staging games not just at Arsenal, Tottenham and Wembley, but Ilford, Dulwich and Walthamstow, where Turkey beat the close-passing Chinese team 4-0.
The deserved gold medallists were Sweden, whose powerful side included probably the competition’s best player: Gunnar Nordahl. Within months of the final, in which Sweden beat Yugoslavia 3-1, Nordahl found himself at AC Milan, where he was soon joined by two of the Olympic champions’ other stars, Gunnar Gren and Nils Liedholm. In eight seasons with Milan, Nordahl – whose two brothers played alongside him in London – was the league’s top scorer no fewer than five times, eventually finishing with 225 Serie A goals.
Amongst other all-time greats to feature in the competition was Austria’s Ernst Ocwirk, an attacking centre-half of the old school – although Austria had the misfortune to encounter Sweden in their one and only match, which they lost 3-0.
A measure of how good this Swedish Olympic side was is that, two years later, Sweden finished third at the same World Cup where the USA beat England – a placing obtained without their three Milan-based stars who, as professionals, could not turn out for their still amateur national team.
Into this eclectic mixture strode a Great Britain squad coached by the great Matt Busby.
The Official Report’s verdict on the team’s unexpected run to fourth place could apply to many British sides’ performances in many major international competitions since: “The side’s lack of technical ability was made up by team spirit and enthusiasm.”
It went on: “Few, even in England, expected Great Britain to reach the last four. That she did so was due largely to coach Matt Busby.”
Where Sweden had the Nordahl brothers and the future so-called Gre-No-Li trio of AC Milan, Great Britain’s “backbone” comprised the two Erics – Lee of Chester City and Fright of Bromley. The Report also comments with approval on the play of Denis Kelleher, “a quick, clever inside-forward” who had spent part of the decade as a German prisoner-of-war after being captured at Tobruk.
The team also included Scotsman Dougie McBain, one of a sizeable Queen’s Park contingent, who went on to become a legend with the Dumfries club Queen of the South. Other notables were John ‘Bob’ Hardisty, who won the FA Amateur Cup three times with Bishop Auckland, and Frederick ‘Peter’ Kippax of Burnley and, for one solitary match – on March 12, 1949 – Liverpool.
In some ways, it was the two goalkeepers who had the most remarkable stories of all, though. Scot Ronnie Simpson was not yet 18 when he helped Great Britain to overcome a technically more accomplished Dutch side in a thrilling opening match at Highbury. The game went to extra-time, with Great Britain prevailing by the odd goal in seven.
Nineteen years later, Simpson found himself feted as one of the Lisbon Lions, after his Glasgow Celtic side upset Milan’s Internazionale to become the first British team to win the European Cup.
Kevin McAlinden, who took over for the 1-0 quarter-final victory at Craven Cottage over France and the 3-1 semi-final defeat by Yugoslavia, was also a Celtic man – Belfast Celtic. As such, within months of playing in the Olympics, he found himself present for one of the dark days of Belfast football history – the Boxing Day 1948 derby with Linfield.
A 2009 Belfast Telegraph article described how fans invaded the pitch after an explosive match capped by an improbable last-gasp equaliser for Linfield, who were playing, in effect, with eight men. “Celtic centre-forward Jimmy Jones was chased by a mob,” author Malcolm Brodie wrote, “forced over a parapet between the running track and reserved enclosure, landed on his hands and knees and then received a broken right leg when kicked as he attempted to get up”.
Celtic withdrew from football at the end of the season, although they embarked on an American tour in 1949, during which they recorded a surprise 2-0 win over Scotland, the reigning Home International champions, with McAlinden outstanding.
McAlinden and his team-mates narrowly missed out on an Olympic medal. What a moment it would be if a similar, genuinely British, squad could make it on to an Olympic football podium for the first time since 1912, be it next year at the Maracanã or subsequently.
David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. Owen’s Twitter feed can be accessed at www.twitter.com/dodo938.