Alan Rowlands - Trautmann: The Biography

About the Book

In April 1945 a group of bedraggled, weary German prisoners of war landed at Tilbury after being captured during the last days of the war. They were dispersed to prison camps throughout England, and one of their number, a confused 22-year-old veteran of some of the harshest conditions and hardest battles experienced by the German forces, found himself in south-east Lancashire. His name was Bernhard Carl Trautmann, later to become famous as Bert.
This book is the complete story, from his early life in Bremen where he was born and raised in the seething political climate of the 1920s, his involvement with the Hitler Youth movement and extraordinary war experiences, to his often hilarious intern-ment at prisoner of war Camp 50, until his signing by Manchester City in 1949 amid a barrage of controversy and prejudice.
Trautmann ran the gauntlet of racial hatred to become, without doubt, one of the greatest goalkeepers ever seen. He played in two successive FA Cup Finals, 1955 and 1956, the latter year bringing him into world focus when he sustained a broken neck. Yet he continued in the game. Within weeks of that Cup Final he suffered further appalling personal tragedy, amid turmoil in his home life, as he fought to regain his fitness.
The book has been updated to include details of the Trautmann Foundation and Trautmanns OBE.

The Author

ALAN ROWLANDS was born in Patricroft, Manchester. He spent two years researching and writing Trautmann, travelling extensively within the United Kingdom and Germany. He has been a contributor to numerous football magazines, radio broadcasts and worked with The Footballers Football Channel. He has also contributed to a documentary about the life of Bert Trautmann

TRAUTMANN
The Biography

Alan Rowlands

First published in Great Britain in 1990 by
The Breedon Books Publishing Company Limited
Breedon House, 3 The Parker Centre, Derby, DE21 4SZ.
Paperback edition 2005. Hardback edition 2009

Kindle edition published in Great Britai in 2010 by
The Derby Books Publishing Company Limited
3 The Parker Centre, Derby, DE21 4SZ.

Alan Rowlands, 2010
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the copyright holders, nor be otherwise circulated in any form or binding or cover other than in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.

ISBN 978 1 85983 886 0

Dedication
For Jo
Acknowledgements
Manchester Evening News; The St Helens Reporter; Gordon Banks; Central Library Staff, Manchester; Bobby Charlton, Deutscher Fuball-Bund; Tommy Docherty, English Football Association; Tom Finney, Tony Gleave and the staff of the St Helens Reporter; Jimmy Hill; Jack Kelsey; Nat Lofthouse; Sir Stanley Matthews; Jackie Milburn, Manchester City FC; Trevor Porteous, Public Records Staff, Kew; Bobby Robson, St Helens Town FC; Bob Wilson and Lev Yashin.

Special Acknowledgements
Marlis Trautmann for her knowing understanding.
B.C. Trautmann for his inspiration and friendship.

Contents

North-West England, 1949

HE was in a deep sleep when Jack Friar peered around the bedroom door. A sleep induced by Beechams Powders and whisky to help sweat out his illness. Friar closed the door quietly and returned to the living room. He looked at the newspaper report again. Most of the content was speculation, but he had to face up to the fact that his goalkeeper would be leaving St Helens by the end of the week.
Friar and the team manager, George Fryer, had built a successful side in the Lancashire Combination. Attendances had increased to around 2,000, which was phenomenal for such a small club in a town that was dominated, in sport, by Rugby League.
St Helens Town, holders of the Mahon Cup, had started this new season with great anticipation of more success. Football League scouts had been present at their matches for a while now, and they had all been impressed by the labourer, who was showing such astonishing form in the St Helens goal. Friar, however, knew the reason why no one had rushed in to sign him: regardless of his ability, the accompanying problems of his background would present a great dilemma.
Burnley had made the first official approach and in a couple of days Jack would talk over a possible transfer with their officials. Having resigned himself to losing the player, he now had to consider what monetary advantage, if any, he could get for St Helens, particularly as his man was on amateur forms. Jacks immediate plan was to keep his appointment in Manchester that evening.
Meanwhile, Jock Thompson, the manager of Manchester City, had made a decision. His scouts report had so astounded him that he had gone to watch the player himself. The news of Burnleys approach had increased the urgency of moving, and that move would be made tonight.
There was an early autumn chill in the air as Thompson looked around the huge, empty Maine Road stadium. Rain clouds were building up into a grey mass as they bounced off the Pennines, that greyness unique to Manchester. It was on a day such as this that Frank Swift had told him he would be retiring.
Swift was a supreme goalkeeper. The crowds revered the man. They loved his eccentric mannerisms and his spectacular dives into territory where most mortals would have held back. They laughed at his nonchalance as he sat at the foot of a goal post while play was up field.
Thompson, as ever pragmatic, also knew that Swifts immense ability instilled so much confidence into the rest of the team. He had the knack of keeping them amused in those taut moments before a game and helped to relieve the boredom when on the road. He had been persuaded to stay on for the start of the season until the problem of a replacement had been resolved. That problem had now developed into a crisis. Alex Thurlow, who had been showing so much promise as Swifts successor, had developed a serious chest complaint he later died from tuberculosis and the two other goalkeepers on the playing staff were both raw and inexperienced youngsters. Thompson thought Swift had two or three years to offer yet, but felt that the goalkeeper had lost his enthusiasm for playing and wanted to concentrate on his developing business interests.
When he returned to his office Thompson looked at his files again, making notes for Walter Smith, one of the club directors, who would be joining him later. The registration papers had been prepared earlier in the day and he was checking through them when Smith arrived. Smith seemed mysteriously confident of making the signing that night, but Thompson, having spoken to Jack Friar at St Helens, thought it more likely to be in a week or so. He had prepared the papers just in case. In view of the controversy that might surround the signing, Smith said that the board would handle the Press interest, but his judgement that it would represent only a novelty value for a few days was seriously underestimated.
Smith and Thompson set off along the East Lancashire Road as Jack Friar arrived for his appointment at the Kingsway Hotel, Manchester. They arrived in Marshalls Cross Road, St Helens, just after eight oclock. It was 6 October 1949. In the house, a recently released German prisoner of war lay in bed, suffering from influenza.

Bremen, Germany, 19181933

Children of every age are adventurous and their favourite games are always games of adventure, and do not change very much with the passing of the years. Boys climb trees now just as they always did, and march their armies to victory and sail upon voyages of exploration.
ELIZABETH GOUDGE

WHEN the Allied soldiers arrived home from the battlefields of France and Belgium in 1918, victory parades and celebrations were held for the returning heroes. Carl Trautmann had returned to Bremen without fuss or ceremony. No flags or people lined the streets to welcome him home that November, just a few days before his 20th birthday. He had been away for two years fighting the war, and as he returned to be reunited with his parents and brothers and sisters their faces reflected only the abject misery and humiliation of defeat.