October 20, 1945: It was a good idea for the England national football (soccer) team to play a series of "Victory International" matches against the national teams of Great Britain's other "Home Nations" following World War II. But it might not have been a good idea to play the match they played on this day.
They had begun on September 15, a month after V-J Day, beating Ireland -- a combined Republic and Northern Ireland team -- 1-0 at Windsor Park in Belfast, on a goal by Stan Mortensen. But, on this day, they played Wales at The Hawthorns, in West Bromwich, outside Birmingham, home ground of West Bromwich Albion, and lost 1-0, in front of 54,611.
This is the greatest victory that Wales has ever had over their far more storied neighbors, and would have remained their greatest victory ever so had they not done well in the 1958 World Cup and Euro 2016. The goal was scored by Aubrey Powell, a forward who played most of his career for Yorkshire team Leeds United, and turned out to be the last survivor of this Wales team, living until 2009.
England would go on to play 5 more Victory Internationals in 1946. On January 19, they beat Belgium 2-0 at the old Wembley Stadium in London. On April 13, they were stunned 1-0 by Scotland at Hampden Park in Glasgow. On May 11, they beat Switzerland 4-1 at Wembley. On May 19, they lost to France 2-1 at the Stade Colombes in Paris. (That's the main stadium from the 1924 Olympics, and it still stands.)
And on August 24, they played Scotland to a 2-2 draw at Maine Road in Manchester, then the home of both big clubs in Manchester, as Manchester City had invited Manchester United to "groundshare" while Old Trafford was repaired following the Nazis bombing it. Other stadiums, including Arsenal's Highbury in North London, had sustained Luftwaffe damage, but none nearly as bad as Old Trafford.
The last survivor of the England players from these Victory Internationals was Bert Williams, who went on to star as goalkeeper for the great Wolverhampton Wanderers teams of the 1950s, and lived until 2014.
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October 20, 1945 was a Saturday. Baseball season was over. The NFL played the next day. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL season wouldn't start for another 4 days. But there were a lot of college football games, and here were some of the bigger ones:
* Number 1 Army beat the Melville PT Boat crew, 55-13 at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York. At the end of the season, the polls patriotically named Army the National Champions.
* Number 2 Navy beat Georgia Tech, 20-6 at Municipal Stadium, in Baltimore, which they frequently used for games too large for Thompson Stadium on their campus in nearby Annapolis, Maryland. From 1950 to 1954, Municipal Stadium was reconstructed and turned into Memorial Stadium. Navy took a 7-0-1 record into their season finale with Army, but lost.
* Number 3 Notre Dame beat the University of Pittsburgh, 39-9 at Pitt Stadium in Pittsburgh. The Fighting Irish would lose their perfect record 2 weeks later in a tie with Navy in Cleveland, lose their unbeaten status the next week against Army at Yankee Stadium, and end the season with a loss to the Great Lakes Naval Training Station on their ground in Chicago.
* Number 4 Ohio State lost to Number 9 Purdue, 35-13 at Ohio Stadium in Columbus. Ohio State's only other loss would be in their season finale against Michigan. Purdue would fall from the ranks of the unbeaten a week after this, against Northwestern.
* Number 5 Minnesota beat Northwestern, 30-7 at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis. The Golden Gophers were 4-0. But they lost their last 5 games, though it should be noted that the next 3 were all against ranked teams.
* Number 6 Alabama beat Tennessee, 25-7 at Legion Field in Birmingham. 'Bama finished undefeated, won the Southeastern Conference title, and beat USC in the Rose Bowl. But they only finished Number 2 in the final polls.
* Number 8 Indiana beat Iowa, 52-20 at Iowa Stadium (later Kinnick Stadium) in Iowa City. The Hoosiers finished 9-0-1, and won what remains their only outright Big Ten Conference title. But they were not invited to a bowl game, and finished the season ranked Number 4.
* Number 10 Texas beat Arkansas, 34-7 at the old Memorial Stadium in Little Rock, Arkansas. Texas' only loss came the next week, 7-6 to Rice. They went on to win the Southwest Conference title, and beat Missouri in the Cotton Bowl.
* Number 12 Georgia were upset by Louisiana State, 32-0 at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia. The Bulldogs would lose the next week, too, 28-14 to Alabama in Birmingham. Those would be their only losses that season.
* Number 14 USC beat the College of the Pacific, 52-0 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Southern Cal would win the Pacific Coast Conference title, but lose to Alabama in the Rose Bowl.
* Number 15 Oklahoma A&M, between back-to-back National Championships by their basketball team, beat Utah, 46-6 at Ute Stadium in Salt Lake City. A&M would beat St. Mary's, of California's East Bay, in the Sugar Bowl, finish ranked Number 5, and change their name to Oklahoma State in 1958.
* Number 19 Holy Cross beat Brown, 25-0 at Brown Stadium in Providence, Rhode Island. Holy Cross went to the Orange Bowl, but lost it to the University of Miami, who were idle on October 20.
* In New York City, Number 17 Columbia beat Colgate, 31-7 at Baker Field in Manhattan. The Lions went 8-1, their only loss to Penn at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.
* New York University beat their arch-rivals, City College of New York. It was NYU 47, CCNY 0 at Ohio Field, NYU's home field, in The Bronx.
* Fordham University suspended its program for the 1943, '44 and '45 seasons, restarting in 1946.
* Among New Jersey teams, Princeton beat Cornell, 14-6 at Schoellkopf Field in Ithaca, New York.
* And Rutgers beat Rhode Island State, 39-7 at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway.
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