Flying Down to Rio - Flight Twelve

1954 and the World Cup arrives in Switzerland. Tottenham did not have any players at these finals. George Robb was named in the Preliminary squad for England but did not make the final 22. Ivan Boardis of Newcastle was in the England side and had played for us as a guest during World War2.

England had qualified having won the Home International tournament played over the previous season. Scotland as runners up also took part for the first time but would quickly depart after losing 7-0 to Uruguay.

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In the  qualifying competition there was a preliminary round in South America for the first time though Argentina yet again declined to participate. In Europe the German's, back in the competition after being banned in 1950, qualified beating Norway and the Saar Territory. At this time Saar was a small independent state but in 1957 would become part of Germany. In Asia, Japan also returning from a ban, lost to in their games with the Korea Republic who were in the middle of their civil war. 

The Finals were arranged into yet another new format. The sixteen qualifying teams were again divided into four groups of four at the draw in Zürich, in November 1953. Each group contained two seeded and two unseeded teams. Only four matches were scheduled for each group, with a seeded team verses an unseeded team. The seeded teams would not play each other. Thus for example England were drawn with Switzerland, Belgium and Italy who they did not play. To prevent draws, any game level after ninty mintues would have extra time, and only then would a draw be declared if the scorces were still equal.  Another feature of the 1954 format was that the four group-winning teams were drawn against each other in the knockout stages to provide one finalist, and the four runners-up played against each other to provide the second finalist. Simple really. England finished second in their group with three points from two games whilst Switzerland finished with 4
from 3.

Uruguay having won the 1930 and 1950 Competitions in South America but having failed to compete in the other two competitions in Europe. Won both their group games without conceding a goal and then beat England 4-2 in the quarters. Then having won the trophy twice previously lost their first ever game in the tournaments history to Hungary in the semi final.

1. Hungary 9 Korea 0

2. West Germany Captain looking over excited

The quarter finals saw the ‘Battle of Berne’ When Hungary met Brazil. The English ref sent off three players in a bad tempered game which saw the fighting carry on in the tunnel and into the Hungarian dressing room after the final whistle.

 The final was a repeat of the group game when Hungary had beaten West Germany  8-3. In the final the German’s were two down but came back to win 3-2. Their performance was so much improved after half time that there were allegations that they had been given performance enhancing drugs. This competition produced a total of 140 goals in 26 games and is the highest scoring finals. There were 12 goals in one game in the quarter finals Switzerland were 3-0 up inside the first 19 minutes. They then conceded five in ten minutes and lost 7-5. Another tournament record. This was the first finals to be televised. 

Meanwhile back in N17 - Tottenham were back in Division 1 and finished 16th and reached the 6th Round of the FA Cup.

Images - top - FIFA,  1- Daily Mail, 2- BBC, Thanks also  - FIFA, Englandonline, The Telegraph, Planet World Cup, ESPN, Daily Mirror, World Cup History,

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Keith Harrison, Nilgiris, TN
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