October 26, 1938: England vs. The Rest of Europe & Hockey Comes to TV

Tommy Lawton

October 26, 1938: The Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury after its North London neighborhood, hosts a match between the England national team and a team representing "The Rest of Europe." The game commemorates, on the actual anniversary day, the 75th Anniversary of the founding of the Football Association. A crowd of 40,185, including King George VI, sees England win 3-0. It was the 2nd full England match to be shown live on British television.

The England team consisted of Arsenal's left back Eddie Hapgood (Captain) and left half Wilf Copping, Chelsea's goalkeeper Vic Woodley, Tottenham's right back Bert Sproston and inside right Willie Hall, Huddersfield's right half Ken Willingham, Wolverhampton Wanderers' centre half (and future title-winning manager) Stan Cullis, Stoke City's outside right Stanley Matthews, Everton's centre forward Tommy Lawton and outside left Walter Boyes, and West Ham United's inside left Len Goulden. Hall, Lawton and Goulden scored.

The Rest of Europe team included 5 players from recent World Cup winners Italy, 2 Germans, a Frenchman, a Belgian, a Hungarian, and a Norwegian. Only 1 of the 5 Italians was on the forward line, so even then, Italy was a defense-first footballing nation. It was Silvio Piola, considered too young for their 1934 World Cup winners, but starred on the 1938 version while playing his club soccer for Lazio in Rome. The Belgian, Ray Braine, was his country's 1st professional footballer, when he signed for Sparta Prague -- not in his own country, which had yet to allow professionalism, but in Czechoslovakia -- in 1930.

Ray Braine

The last survivor of each team was Cullis, who lived until 2001; and Pietro Rava of Italy and Juventus, who lived until 2006.

Also on this day, for the 1st time, an ice hockey match is televised. Oddly, this does not occur in Canada, or in America, or in any of the European nations that we now associate with the game, such as Russia or Sweden. It is in England, on the BBC, between Harringay Racers of North London and Streatham Redskins of South London. The broadcaster, at least, was a Canadian: Winnipeg-born Stuart MacPherson.

I don't have a record of the result, although Harringay finished ahead of Streatham in the English National League in the 1938-39 season. Harringay won it the preceding season, 1937-38, and Streatham had won it in 1934-35. Harringay folded in 1957, and have since been replaced by a new team using the name. Streatham are still in business.

In 1940, New York station W2XBS (forerunner of WNBC-Channel 4) would become the 1st TV station to broadcast an NHL game, a 6-2 New York Rangers win over the Montreal Canadiens at the old Madison Square Garden. Just 3 days after that, they would broadcast the 1st televised basketball game, also at the old Garden. That station had already done, all in New York City in 1939, the 1st TV broadcasts of baseball, at Ebbets Field; college football, at Columbia University's Baker Field; and the NFL, at the Polo Grounds.

In 1952, CBC would bring Hockey Night In Canada from radio to TV, and it quickly became, and remains, Canada's favourite (that's how it's "spelt" up there) TV show. But the U.S. -- ABC/ESPN, NBC and Fox have all tried -- has never really gotten hockey broadcasts right. "Glow puck," anyone?

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October 26, 1938 was a Wednesday. Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL season wouldn't start for another 8 days. So there were no other scores on this historic day.