Tuesday's game between Germany and Republic of Ireland in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, is the 19th encounter between the two sides. There have been a couple qualifiers among them; there was even a proper World Cup match. (A 1-1 draw in Kashima, Japan, in 2002.) However, the most momentous game remains a friendly that was played more than 60 years ago.
In fact, the game between the two countries, staged on Oct. 17, 1951, has given rise to a strangely persistent myth. It says Germany took to wearing green away shirts because Ireland were the first team that would play them after the war. As I pointed out earlier this year, this is, of course, wrong (see: A Colourful History, Feb. 17, 2014). But even without this embellishment, it was a memorable event.
West Germany had been readmitted to FIFA only 13 months earlier. When the team boarded the plane to Dublin, German clubs were already playing against sides from 19 different countries again, but, of course, an official international was an entirely different -- more complicated and prestigious -- matter.
Since the end of the war and the resurrection of the national team through coach Sepp Herberger, West Germany had played four games -- against Switzerland (twice), Turkey and Austria. The last of these matches, played three weeks before the trip to Ireland, resulted in a 2-0 victory in Vienna against a team that had recently beaten Hungary, Italy and Scotland, which is why German captain Fritz Walter later noted: "The result -- in this place and at this time -- was a real sensation." Thus, West Germany travelled to Eire with respect but also with confidence.
The Irish, meanwhile, had their own sensational result to savour. Just more than two years earlier, in September 1949, they had won a famous friendly at Goodison Park to become the first non-British team to beat England on English soil. However, only three players from that side would also see action against West Germany. Part of the reason was that Ireland had its very own tangled, postwar football history to sort out.
Just as there were now two Germanies with a national team, there were also two Irelands represented by two teams. The difference was that the distinction between the two Irish teams was less straightforward. During the 1950 World Cup qualifiers, a number of players had actually appeared for both teams, among them Bud Aherne and Reg Ryan, who had been selected for the game against West Germany. This is why FIFA had made the regulations governing eligibility more severe and why it would later, in 1953, rule that neither Irish team could call itself Ireland. Instead, they had to compete as Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
But that was still in the future as Herberger's team took to the Dalymount Park pitch in Dublin. As far as they were concerned, they were playing "Ireland" -- that's also how the German reporters called the host nation, although they could have been forgiven for thinking they had landed on a tropical island instead of the emerald isle.
"A damp heat hung above the island," Gerd Kramer, the man who covered the game for German radio, later remembered. "People were bathing in the sea in mid-October," he marvelled. Fritz Walter, who was famously averse to such conditions ever since catching malaria on Sardinia, noted: "We drove to our hotel with leaden legs."
Maybe that's why goalkeeper Toni Turek and defender Jupp Posipal gifted Ireland the lead inside 10 minutes. Probably irritated by the onrushing centre-forward Dessie Glynn, Posipal rushed his backpass to the goalkeeper, not realising that Turek had left his line. The ball flew over his head and into the net without an Irish player having to break too much sweat.
The hosts doubled their lead six minutes before half-time. While Walter was receiving treatment on the sideline after a collision with right-back Sean Fallon, Middlesbrough's inside forward, Arthur Fitzsimons, scored with a fierce, left-footed strike. The noise from the 30,000 in attendance was, according to Kramer, "a single thundering scream."
The German players were dejected during the interval because they felt they didn't deserve to be two goals down, but, as always, Herberger found the right words during his brief half-time speech. Once the game was back underway, his men quickly silenced the vociferous Dublin crowd by mounting attack after attack. Covering the game for the Irish Independent, W.P. Murphy wrote in his match report that "the 'Dalymount Roar' was great at the start but it dropped to a whisper during the fade-out of the Irish team early in the second half."
Walter set up the great Max Morlock, who pulled one back on 62 minutes. Then, West Germany's captain scored the equaliser himself with a pile driver from the edge of the penalty area and with 15 minutes left on the clock. At the sideline, Herberger looked at his watch, then he told the players, "Let's go! You'll win this one!" For once, he was wrong.
Six minutes from time, Posipal intercepted a Tommy Eglington cross and was about to play another backpass to his goalkeeper. Possibly remembering the first Irish goal, he hesitated for a moment to make sure Turek was really in his position. That's when Glynn, on his international debut, robbed the defender in possession and nudged the ball past Turek. The German players turned their heads in horror to watch the ball as it slowly, agonisingly slowly, rolled toward their goal. Then, it stopped -- a few inches behind the line.
With what Murphy called an "outburst of Celtic fervour," the crowd invaded the pitch to celebrate. Walter later remembered that quite a few fans brandished notebooks and pens, asking the German players for their autographs right there on the pitch with at least six minutes still left to go. Once order had been restored, the visitors threw everything forward. Dusk descended upon a stadium that was still more than 10 years away from having floodlights. Kramer remarked, "On the terraces, cigarettes lighted with anxiety were glowing like a giant band of fireflies."
In the final minute, Walter let rip with a shot from almost 25 yards. Goalkeeper Freddie Kiernan dived to his right and turned the ball around the post with his fingertips. Murphy called the save "superb" -- Walter used the word "marvel." But it wasn't over yet. Preussen Munster's club legend Felix "Fiffi" Gerritzen ran over to the corner flag to take the ensuing kick. He waited until every German outfield player was in the penalty area, then he delivered the cross.
Kiernan tried to get to the ball, but too many bodies blocked his path. Everybody jumped, but none higher than Bayern Munich's defender, Jakob Streitle. With a powerful header from just a few yards out, he sent the ball whistling past Kiernan and into the net. The German players raised their arms in celebration and hugged each other, but Kramer, the radio commentator, had been taught to glance over to the referee before reporting a goal. So he looked at the man in charge of the game, William Ling from Stapleford near Cambridge. Ling made a gesture with his arm which Kramer couldn't immediately interpret. Was he pointing at the centre circle to indicate a goal or the end of the match? Or both?
As players from both teams began to surround the referee and argue with him, Kramer was being told he would be off the air in 30 seconds. He shot quizzical looks at his colleagues on the press stand. They all shrugged their shoulders. Then, Kramer saw Walter turn toward the dressing rooms, his head down. The reporter told his listeners that West Germany had scored in the last minute but that the goal didn't count and the game was lost. Then, he rose to find out what had happened.
That's also what was on W.P. Murphy's mind. He swiftly made for the referee's dressing room and asked the only man who knew -- Bill Ling. "There were 20 seconds to go when the corner kick came," the referee explained. "So I let the kick be taken and blew as it was on its way across."
It wasn't the first or the last time a match finished in this bizarre fashion. (Clive Thomas famously ended the 1978 World Cup game between Brazil and Sweden while a corner kick came in which Zico headed home for what would have been the winning goal.) But it was painful nonetheless. The Nuremberg paper Sportmagazin headlined its report "The Tragedy of Dublin," and Herberger spoke of "a moral victory." A few of the German players suggested the team should present Ling with a watch during the postmatch banquet.
Two years and eight months later, five of the German footballers who played on that day would meet Ling again in another close game that was 3-2 with precious little time left. Again there was a goal, and this time, Ling was about to give it, when he noticed that his Welsh linesman, Mervyn "Sandy" Griffiths, had raised his flag. So Ling disallowed Ferenc Puskas' goal on account of offside, and West Germany won the World Cup.