RELIEF FROM WAR

As the Second World War ended and England got back to playing international football. Competitive football started again in 1945. The FA Cup was to resume, as the 1945-6 season "restarted" full time and regional "leagues" continued but reverted to the four-tier system with 22 clubs in each division, on August 31st 1946. 

Tommy Lawton was the only England player to start the last game in 1939 v Romania, a 0-2 loss and England's first post-war game, a 0-2 loss. Prior to this England teams were run by committee from the FA, but post-war, here was a new England coach-Walter Winterbottom (below), very much an "FA Man", though charming. He handed over the reigns to Alf Ramsey in 1963.

England returned to "action"in September 1946. At this time, all European nations, of course, were suffering from "post war blues". However, on the 28th September, England met Ireland in Belfast and won 7-2. They then met an FA of Ireland XI (actually this team was the Republic of Ireland team) on Sept 30th and won 1-0 in Dublin, with a goal from Tom Finney.

Next came Wales in November at Maine Road, a 3-0 win and on November 27th at Leeds Road Hiddersfield, the Netherlands were beaten 8-2. Tommy Lawton scored 4, Horatio Carter 2, Wilf Mannion and Tom Finney one each. Proper christian names then!

On the 25th May 1947, England beat Portugal 10-0 in Lisbon (att:65,000) with Stan Mortensen of Blackpool, scoring 4 on his debut. Tommy Lawton scored 4, the first after just 17 seconds. Tom Finney and Stanley Matthews added one each. I promise I haven't made that up - England did that sort of things in those days! 

Football On This Day – 25th May 1967
Celtic beat Inter Milan 2-1 in Lisbon, becoming the first British club to win the European Cup, the cup for winners of each national league in Europe. 

The Italians, twice European Cup winners in the previous three seasons, took the lead from a Sandro Mazzola penalty after just seven minutes before Tommy Gemmell and Stevie Chalmers scored second half goals to take the trophy to Glasgow. 

The victorious Celtic team became known as the Lisbon Lions and given the international nature of players in the top European teams nowadays it's hard to believe that every one of those Lisbon Lions were born in Scotland. In fact, every member of Celtic's 15 man first team squad was born with 30 miles of Celtic Park.