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-- Fri Mar 19, 2010 10:15 pm --
It is dangerous to know too much about one’s boyhood sporting heroes. Growing up in Manchester in the 1950s and Sixties, supporting Manchester City and Lancashire, I idolised three men: Brian Statham, the Lancashire and England fast bowler, whom I never knew; then there was Colin Bell, whom I am lucky enough to know a little. But first there was Bert Trautmann, who retired in 1964, a couple of years before Bell joined the team. I saw him only late in his career, when City were struggling, so my memory is of heroic performances in hopeless defeats. City teams then were short of stars and characters. Trautmann was different. He was a German, when they were unknown in the league, and famous for having played on in an FA Cup Final with a broken neck.
My father — a D-Day veteran — told me all about Trautmann. I have a very clear recollection of the story he recounted. How Trautmann was a good German, not a Nazi, how he had been captured early in the war and spent a long time in a prisoner-of-war camp on the Isle of Man. How he was a gentle giant who never hurt a fly. These are the memories I have carried with me for half a century, reinforced by occasional glimpses of Trautmann — who is still with us — on the side of the pitch from time to time during City’s past 34 years without a trophy.
The only problem is that none of the above description of his life is true. Catrine Clay tells us that he was from a family with Nazi links. His father was a member of the Nazi Party. Trautmann joined the junior branch of the Hitler Youth as early as possible. He was an enthusiastic member, and volunteered for the Luftwaffe at 17. So, he fought from 1940 onwards, initially as a mechanic in the air force, but later as a paratrooper on the Eastern Front. He was not a member of the SS, but he did witness the Einsatzgruppen killing Jews and dumping their bodies in trenches in Ukraine.
He began the long retreat from Moscow but was then moved to the Western Front, where he was eventually captured, quite close to the end of the war, and was transported to a prisoner-of-war camp west of Manchester — not part of the Isle of the Man. In the camp Trautmann was classified as “black”, which suggested that he was a keen supporter of the Nazi regime.
RELATED LINKS
When the Whistle Blows: The Story of the Footballers' Battalion in the Great War by Andrew Riddoch and John Kemp
The “gentle giant” tag is also hardly justified. Trautmann was involved in a series of violent incidents at school and in the army. As a prisoner of war he was imprisoned for assaulting a Jewish sergeant, before driving off and leaving him lying by the side of the road. He did eventually get on much better with locals who befriended him. Indeed, he got on so well with one of them that he got her pregnant, and then promised to marry her. But he left without explanation or a forwarding address and met the child only some 50 years later.
Such is the story Clay tells. It is based almost entirely on conversations with Trautmann, so she presents it sympathetically, with little in the way of perspective from others. There is historical colour, and many pages of padding, which tell us the story of the Second World War. She is not much interested in football. Trautmann does not join Manchester City until page 273. There is only a perfunctory review of the broken-neck incident, and his last six years with City, playing for a team in decline, are passed over.
So there is no rewriting of my personal memories of him. I prefer it that way. There are some parts of one’s mental universe that are so set that it is idle to think of refreshing them. This book is an interesting tale. But I wish that I had never read it
-- Fri Mar 19, 2010 10:15 pm --
It is dangerous to know too much about one’s boyhood sporting heroes. Growing up in Manchester in the 1950s and Sixties, supporting Manchester City and Lancashire, I idolised three men: Brian Statham, the Lancashire and England fast bowler, whom I never knew; then there was Colin Bell, whom I am lucky enough to know a little. But first there was Bert Trautmann, who retired in 1964, a couple of years before Bell joined the team. I saw him only late in his career, when City were struggling, so my memory is of heroic performances in hopeless defeats. City teams then were short of stars and characters. Trautmann was different. He was a German, when they were unknown in the league, and famous for having played on in an FA Cup Final with a broken neck.
My father — a D-Day veteran — told me all about Trautmann. I have a very clear recollection of the story he recounted. How Trautmann was a good German, not a Nazi, how he had been captured early in the war and spent a long time in a prisoner-of-war camp on the Isle of Man. How he was a gentle giant who never hurt a fly. These are the memories I have carried with me for half a century, reinforced by occasional glimpses of Trautmann — who is still with us — on the side of the pitch from time to time during City’s past 34 years without a trophy.
The only problem is that none of the above description of his life is true. Catrine Clay tells us that he was from a family with Nazi links. His father was a member of the Nazi Party. Trautmann joined the junior branch of the Hitler Youth as early as possible. He was an enthusiastic member, and volunteered for the Luftwaffe at 17. So, he fought from 1940 onwards, initially as a mechanic in the air force, but later as a paratrooper on the Eastern Front. He was not a member of the SS, but he did witness the Einsatzgruppen killing Jews and dumping their bodies in trenches in Ukraine.
He began the long retreat from Moscow but was then moved to the Western Front, where he was eventually captured, quite close to the end of the war, and was transported to a prisoner-of-war camp west of Manchester — not part of the Isle of the Man. In the camp Trautmann was classified as “black”, which suggested that he was a keen supporter of the Nazi regime.
RELATED LINKS
When the Whistle Blows: The Story of the Footballers' Battalion in the Great War by Andrew Riddoch and John Kemp
The “gentle giant” tag is also hardly justified. Trautmann was involved in a series of violent incidents at school and in the army. As a prisoner of war he was imprisoned for assaulting a Jewish sergeant, before driving off and leaving him lying by the side of the road. He did eventually get on much better with locals who befriended him. Indeed, he got on so well with one of them that he got her pregnant, and then promised to marry her. But he left without explanation or a forwarding address and met the child only some 50 years later.
Such is the story Clay tells. It is based almost entirely on conversations with Trautmann, so she presents it sympathetically, with little in the way of perspective from others. There is historical colour, and many pages of padding, which tell us the story of the Second World War. She is not much interested in football. Trautmann does not join Manchester City until page 273. There is only a perfunctory review of the broken-neck incident, and his last six years with City, playing for a team in decline, are passed over.
So there is no rewriting of my personal memories of him. I prefer it that way. There are some parts of one’s mental universe that are so set that it is idle to think of refreshing them. This book is an interesting tale. But I wish that I had never read it