Derby County: Players saw Nazi war preparations

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Anton Rippon describes the impact of the tension-filled years of the 1930s on the Rams and the Football League, as the war clouds gathered over Europe.

May 1934 and Rams players give the Nazi salute in Dusseldorf. Note goalkeeper Jack Kirby, far left, who is turning his back on the officials in the stand and is not saluting

Billy Redfern, a new signing for the Rams, whose career with them was expunged from the records because of the Second World War

The Rams’ last pre-war squad, pictured at the start of the 1938-39 season. Back row (from left): Sullivan, Hann, Wilcox, Travis, Smart, Alton, Parr, Nicholas. Second row: Dave Willis (trainer), Bailey, Bell, Bramley, Boulton, Wright, Wood, King, Barker, Howe, Bill Bromage (assistant trainer). Seated: McLachlan, Jones, Jeffries, Hagan, Dix, Astley, Eggleston, Musson, Bradbury, Ward. On ground: Johnson, Brinton, Crooks, Stockill, Lisle, Mee, Jones, Duncan, Thompson

THERE should have been plenty to talk about as football supporters headed for the exits on September 2, 1939. On the second Saturday of the new season, Derby County had beaten Aston Villa by the only goal of the game – a Jack Nicholas penalty – and Ted Drake had scored four times in Arsenal’s 5-2 win over Sunderland.

Blackpool, who had beaten Wolves 2-1 at Bloomfield Road, led the First Division with maximum points.

Yet, on the trams and buses taking supporters home for their tea on that stifling afternoon, no-one said very much. It was the same in every dressing room.

At the Baseball Ground, the Derby players, who had just defeated Villa, decided to meet again that evening in a Spondon pub, to discuss what the future might hold.

The mood of the Chesterfield players, who had just lost to Manchester City, was not helped by the sight of barrage balloons on the skyline around Maine Road. For once, the result of a football match seemed unimportant.

The previous day, Germany had invaded Poland. In Britain, military service had been made compulsory for fit young men between the ages of 18 and 41 and, for the second time in a generation, a world war appeared inevitable.

At 11am the following day, at London’s Russell Hotel the defeated Sunderland team, with future Rams’ star Raich Carter, gathered around a wireless set to hear the Prime Minister’s broadcast to the nation.

Neville Chamberlain’s announcement that “...this country is at war with Germany” came as no surprise.

The whole of the previous season had been played out against a backdrop of almost unbearable tension as diplomats bluffed, bargained and threatened. It had been the same for years, one international crisis after another.

Like the rest of Britain, football had tried to carry on as normal. Yet, as far back as 1934, footballers had been one of the first sections of British society to see for themselves what was happening in Germany.

In May that year, Derby County made a four-match visit there. When they eventually reached the German border it was to find a country swathed in swastika emblems.

After Hitler’s success in the elections of 1933, the Nazi State was firmly established. Dave Holford was a 19-year-old outside-left from Scarborough, excited to be included in the tour party, despite his lack of experience: “Everywhere we went, the swastika was flying. If you said ‘Good morning,’ they’d reply with ‘Heil Hitler’. If you went into a cafe and said ‘Good evening,’ they would respond with ‘Heil Hitler’. Even then, you could see this was a country preparing for war.”

On the pitch, Derby lost three times and drew once. Twice they conceded five goals in a match and were surprised by the standard of their hosts’ game.

All agreed, however, that if the football had been hard work, overall the tour had been an enjoyable one with good hotels and plenty of time to relax and enjoy the scenery.

There was, however, one overriding blot on the collective memory. Just as the England team would be obliged to do in Berlin, four years later, these Derby players were ordered to give the Nazi salute before each game.

Full-back George Collin, who captained the side when Tommy Cooper left for England duty, remembered their dilemma: “We told the manager, George Jobey, that we didn’t want to do it. He spoke with the directors, but they said that the British ambassador insisted we must.

“He said that the Foreign Office were afraid of causing an international incident if we refused. It would be a snub to Hitler at a time when international relations were so delicate.

“So we did as we were told. All except our goalkeeper, Jack Kirby, that is. Jack was adamant that he wouldn’t give the salute.

“When the time came, he just kept his arm down and almost turned his back on the dignitaries. If anyone noticed, they didn’t say anything.”

Thereafter, every British team which visited Germany had a similar story to tell, although, when Manchester City went there in May 1937, at the end of a season in which they had won the Football League championship, they decided on a collective response to Hitler’s regime. City, like Derby, found it hard going in Germany and won only one of their five matches. Peter Doherty, their inside-forward who, thanks to the coming war, would eventually become one of Derby County’s greatest stars, brought back vivid memories of the trip: “Most of their players seemed to be in the German army already and were sent away to special camps to prepare for the games.

“One of the games was against a German representative team in the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, which had just staged the 1936 Games.

“The entire stadium was swarming with armed guards, all wearing swastikas. We knew we’d be expected to give the Nazi salute before the kick-off, but when the time came we just stood to attention.

“Afterwards, we were treated with enormous kindness, though, and the Germans just seemed to want to send us away with a favourable impression of their country.

“But you couldn’t fail to see the military preparations everywhere. The whole country seemed to be one huge armed camp.”

Another future Rams player, Frank Broome of Aston Villa, had the unusual experience of being required to give the Nazi salute twice in as many days in May 1938.

“The Germans had invaded Austria the previous March and now there wasn’t a separate Austrian international team, just one for ‘Greater Germany’.

“England were due to play in Berlin, but the FA told the Germans that they couldn’t include any Austrian internationals. They agreed on the proviso that Villa would play a German XI the following day, and that could include Austrians.

“What struck me, though, was how the military was everywhere.”

(In fact the full England team were forced to give the Nazi salute, but Villa refused.)

Thus, 16 months later, the nation’s footballers could hardly have been surprised when their livelihood was interrupted by war.

The 1939-40 football season was about to be interrupted, but it was surprising that the previous season had itself been completed. The international skies were already darkening as the first games were played on August 27, 1938, when Arsenal began their defence of the Football League Championship with a home win over Portsmouth.

By the time Derby County scored a surprise victory at Highbury on September 14, the world already knew that Hitler would invade Czechoslovakia if the Sudetenland was not annexed to Germany.

The fourth and fifth Saturdays of the new season were played out as Prime Minister Chamberlain visited Hitler in Berchtesgaden and Bad Godesberg.

There was enormous tension throughout the country. Gas masks were distributed, air-raid shelters dug in public parks and, around London, anti-aircraft batteries were sited to defend the capital in case of air attack.

There was now every possibility that the next Saturday of the football season would see Britain at war. On September 27, the Royal Navy was mobilised. The following afternoon, the Football League announced that the weekend’s fixtures would be fulfilled unless the worst had happened by then.

Few people would have put money on the matches taking place, but Chamberlain returned home from a hastily arranged meeting in Munich, clutching a piece of paper.

He had agreed to all Hitler’s demands. It was to be “peace in our time”. The immediate crisis had passed and football could continue.

On Saturday, October 1, before the start of every Football League game, a service of thanksgiving was held “to express thankfulness for the preservation of peace”.

That afternoon, the Rams beat Blackpool 2-1 at the Baseball Ground with goals from Sammy Crooks and Dally Duncan.

By the following Easter Hitler had occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia, and Everton were on their way to winning the First Division title, with the Rams finishing sixth.

While football was settling its own issues, Hitler had turned his attention to Poland.

On March 24, 1939, Britain and France had agreed to resist any German aggression against Belgium, Holland and Switzerland. One week later, Britain announced that she would stand by France in guaranteeing Poland’s frontiers.

Football, however, had to go on. As soon as the 1938-9 season was over, the England team went on a three-match tour, drawing 2-2 in Italy, losing 2-1 in Yugoslavia and beating Romania in an ill-tempered affair in Bucharest.

Just as the players of 1938 had seen for themselves the mood in Germany, so the 1939 team had, as they made their way through the streets of Milan towards the San Siro, witnessed the huge support for Mussolini.

Back in Britain, the Air Raid Precautions Department at the Home Office considered plans for closing all forms of entertainment upon the outbreak of hostilities.

The FA, meanwhile, decided to convene a joint FA-League meeting as soon as war was declared.

An FA circular exhorting footballers to join the Territorials had already been doing the rounds towards the end of the 1938-9 season. On the eve of the 1939-40 campaign, the FA waived their rule which stated that no player serving in the Armed Forces could be registered as a professional footballer. The game was going on a war footing.

The new Football League season kicked-off on schedule on August 26 when a goal from Tommy Lawton earned the reigning champions, Everton, a 1-1 draw with Brentford at Goodison Park. The Rams started badly, crashing 3-0 at Sunderland. There was the usual crop of early-season midweek games and, on the following Wednesday, Portsmouth, the FA Cup holders, lost 2-0 at the Baseball Ground, where Dally Duncan and new signing Billy Redfern, from Luton Town, both scored.

Some 900 miles away, the Polish were preparing for war. On September 1, the Luftwaffe bombed Warsaw as German tanks crashed their way over the country’s border.

In Britain, theatres were closed, cricket matches abandoned, greyhound racing cancelled and the BBC wireless service changed to two wavelengths only.

Many amateur football matches were cancelled, but the Football League pressed on for one more Saturday.

The public were not sure what to do. Everywhere attendances were down. The first Saturday of the new season had attracted a total of 600,000 spectators to 44 Football League games; seven days later, with the world teetering on the brink of war, the figure had slumped to well under 400,000. Villa’s visit to the Baseball Ground attracted 8,039 spectators.

Because of the impending war, hundreds of footballers would see their careers cut short, some before they had hardly begun. Redfern was one of those unfortunates.

Rams’ manager George Jobey had signed him on the eve of the new season. Although Redfern would play for Wales in a wartime international, by the time the conflict was ended, his League career was over.

There was one other “forgotten man” in Derby’s last pre-war season. Inside-right Jim Wilson, signed from Lincoln City, played at Roker Park on the opening day of 1939-40. Like Redfern, his name disappeared from the Rams’ records. This was their only season – and it was about to be obliterated.

When the Derby players met at the Anglers’ Arms in Spondon, a violent thunderstorm was raging and one of the barrage balloons defending the Rolls-Royce works near the Baseball Ground was struck by lightning.

It seemed an appropriate, almost apocalyptic, backdrop. “We’re out of a bloody job,” growled Derby centre-forward, Jack Stamps. No-one disagreed.

Adapted from Anton Rippon’s book Gas Masks For Goal Posts: Football In Britain During The Second World War, published by Sutton, priced £16.99.

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