I gave you the story of Gaelic Football briefly yesterday and mentioned Michael Cussack; a very influential man. So this afternoon, since the ferry does not leave till nearly 9pm and it is barely 6pm now, I have managed to pass a bit of time typing this lot so far!
England play Sweden soon and we would all like to think that this is going to be a relatively easy path to the semis, think again. Sweden joined the World Cup in 1934, long before the England FA decided to go to the party. The finals were hosted by Italy and Uruguay the holders did not fancy a long trip to Europe. This is the only time that the holders have not tried to defend the trophy. Mind you not many European countries contested the 1930 tournament, so tit for tat and na na nya na.
There was some "pre-qualification" for the first time and this included hosts Italy making a gesture by playing Greece which the the Azurri won; not sure what would have happened if Italy had lost and Mussolini did not have the chance to show off his Fascism. Another "qualification" was between the USA and Mexico, sort of representing the Americas, the match played in Rome. Mexico lost and were fed up having travelled all that way across the Atlantic. In the end there were 16 countries making this a straight forward knock out. On May 27th all last 16 matches were played at the same time and by the end Brazil, Argentina and the USA were packing their bags. The other quarter-final teams came from Europe. Italy unsurpringly beat Czechoslovakia in the final 2-1.
Egypt turned up, the first African country to get that far. They played the great Hungarians and lost 4-2 having been 0-2 down and then getting back to 2-2. They next played 56 years later, coincidentally when Italy were hosts again. Egypt then qualified again in 2018 in Russia, when Italy failed to get through to the finals.
Sweden of course hosted the finals in 1958, following on from Switzerland and you know they played each recently in the latest finals. Sweden went on to reach the final losing to Brazil and Pele, 5-2. An extraordinary achievement.
All four home nations qualified, the first and only time this had happened, The British teams were considered strong so were allocated their own Draw Pot for seeding purposes and England eventually lost to debutants Russia. In a group game England drew 0-0 with Brazil, their first goaless draw in 109 World Cup matches. The excuse was that their squad had been affected by the Munich air disaster that took Tommy Taylor and Duncan Edwards out of contention and Bobby Charlton sadly was not fit to play.
Wales and Northern Ireland beat Hungary and the Czechs respectively, having a reasonable tournament. Another United player involved in the air crash was Harry Gregg who had a very influential tournament in goal for the Irish.
Just Fontaine of France scored 13 goals and holds the record for most goals scored in the finals. Watch this!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ibbmjIqLss
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