City Signed Bert Trautmann OTD 07/10/1949

HowleyBlue

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OTD 7 October 1949: City Signed Legendary Keeper Bert Trautmann:

Appearances: 545:
FA Cup 1955-56:
FWA Footballer of the Year 1956:
OBE: 2004:
English Football Hall Of Fame 2005:
Order Of Merit Of The Federal Republic Of Germany 1997:
Germany Sports Hall Of Fame 2011:
Germany Hall Of Fame Posthumously 2025:

Against All Odds The Bert Trautmann Story:


FA Cup: Breaking Your Neck To Win It​

https://nationalfootballmuseum.com/stories/fa-cup-trautmann/

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1956: Bert Trautmann & Don Revie Celebrate With The FA Cup After City Beat Birmingham 3-1 In The 1956 FA Cup Final:​

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1956: Bert Trautmann Footballer Of The Year Award:​

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He didn’t play for Germany as their policy was not to select players who played abroad. He did, however, make an appearance for a Football League XI.
Lev Yashin said “There are only two world class goalkeepers, myself and the German boy.”
(Mind you, he’d never seen Perry Suckling.)
 
He didn’t play for Germany as their policy was not to select players who played abroad. He did, however, make an appearance for a Football League XI.
Lev Yashin said “There are only two world class goalkeepers, myself and the German boy.”
(Mind you, he’d never seen Perry Suckling.)
Or Ike Immel???
 
I met Bert once; at Maine Road.

I saw this old gentleman signing an autograph for a young lad, and wondered who he was.

As I approached him, I suddenly realised that it was the great man.

After he’d signed my autograph book, I was so dumbstruck that I didn’t know what to say, apart from, "Thank you," of course.

A true legend of not only football, but sport.
 
Trautmann and Revie pictured in the same FA Cup winning team - 2 absolute icons of the footballing world.

I saw him in his testimonial. My dad would often tell me, as a boy, about Trautmann and Frank Swift, and how we'd never see their like again.

(Dad died in 1989 - I wish he'd lived long enough to see the modern-day City, and the Etihad.)
 
76 years ago! I don't know if kids have a hero these days but he was my first. Bert was a great goalkeeper, great man, and proud to be a Manc by adoption.
 
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Trautmann and Revie pictured in the same FA Cup winning team - 2 absolute icons of the footballing world.

I saw him in his testimonial. My dad would often tell me, as a boy, about Trautmann and Frank Swift, and how we'd never see their like again.

(Dad died in 1989 - I wish he'd lived long enough to see the modern-day City, and the Etihad.)
I've mentioned this before, but it’s worth repeating.

Before I moved away from Cornwall, I knew an old guy from South London.

He told me he used to watch Charlton one week, and Millwall the other.

He never thought he’d see a better goalkeeper than Frank Swift, until he saw Bert Trautmann.
 
I've mentioned this before, but it’s worth repeating.

Before I moved away from Cornwall, I knew an old guy from South London.

He told me he used to watch Charlton one week, and Millwall the other.

He never thought he’d see a better goalkeeper than Frank Swift, until he saw Bert Trautmann.
And now we've got The Don.
 
My father watched City from the 1920's, when he was a young boy, right up until just before the takeover when he sadly passed on.

I asked him not too long before he died who he thought City's greatest ever player was, and without hesitation he said Trautman.

I never saw him play, but I remember in 1973 when City had been at Maine Rd for 50 years, the club held a survey of the supporters, asking who they considered the best player they had seen. Trautman won it by an absolute landslide. There must have been something very special about him for so many to regard him with such esteem.
 
Bert's list of Honours is modest by our current standards but the fact that the big lad is held in such high regard over 60 years since he hung up his gloves.... he's got to be more than a bit special.

That 56 Cup Final, Bert's heroics, it's almost like we've always had a great and varied history. Who'd have thunk?
 
Bert was my hero as he was for hundreds of young boys who watched City in the '50s. A lot of this was because he played on for the last stages of the cup final in and out of consciousness due to a broken neck but much was because he was a great bloke who loved his adopted home and had a areal rapport with the fans. I remember his first match back after his broken neck - a 4-3 home win against Leicester - and the phenomenal reception he got as he ran onto the pitch. The old magic was still there and it remained until and beyond his retirement. A great 'keeper, a top man and a tireless worker for Anglo-German reconciliation. But one thing I'll never forget is the way this blond giant would come out for crosses and bring them down one-handed, like a waiter with a tray of drinks.
 

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