In 1908 Harold Hardman became the only United player to win an Olympic Gold Medal. It was a record that would stand until 2004 when some 96 years later Gabriel Heinze won Gold with Argentina in Athens. Carlos Tevez was also in that side.
The 1908 tournament was a world away from the 2004 version. The Olympics themselves had been moved to London from Rome at short notice. The eruption of Mt Vesuvius and the cost of rebuidling Naples meant the Italian government no longer felt they could host the tournament. The Olympics in those days were truly amateur – when the word ‘amateur’ was synonympous with ‘gentleman’. The games comprised 22 sports and some 110 events. These included jeu de paume (a form of tennis), motorboating, running deer shooting (thankfully with an artificial target not real deer) and tug-of-war. In the tug of war the United Kingdom won the Gold, Silver and Bronze medals with teams from the City of London Police, Liverpool Police and Metropolitan Police “K” Division taking the medals. The only other two teams to enter, Sweden and America, finished fourth and fifth respectively.
1908 would be the first time that countries had competed for the football gold medal, as in the previous two Olympics club teams had represented nations. Harold was a regular member of the England Amateur side and it was natural that he would be selected for the Olympic Tournament. Officially he would play for Great Britain & Ireland but the team was England in all but name. To this day football historians dispute whether the appearances should be recorded as for the England Amateur team or Great Britain & Ireland as was their official title in the tournament. The Olympic Committee asked the English FA to organise the tournament. The English FA asked the FAs of Scotland, Wales and Ireland to supply players and/or separate teams, but because of sporting politics still recognisable today they refused. The outcome was the team that played in the Olympics was entirely selected and organised by the English FA with exclusively English players.
One disappointment for the organisers was the size (or lack of) crowds. The stadium was never filled for any event during the games and the football certainly didn’t capture the public’s imagination. The Great Britain/England side played to a total of only 16,000 people over their three matches. Two thousand witnessed the opening match versus Sweden, increasing to 6,000 for the semi-final versus Holland and then 8,000 for the Olympic Games Final against Denmark. In what also seems a strange decision by modern standards the tournament was played over a period of just four days, with the opening match on 20 October and the final on 24 October.
The first game saw the Great Britain side demolish Sweden 12-1, doubling their total from September. Despite the score a report in the following morning’s Birmingham Gazette opined that ‘I did not consider that the forwards played an “Olympic” game. Berry and Woodward began very well but subsequently fell away. Stapley showed us very few of his old-time electric rushes. While on the left-wing Hardman was mainly conspicuous for his pace when unopposed, and his partner Purnell, was the most effective of the forwards.’ Lucky for Sweden the forwards weren’t on form perhaps! Two days later Denmark, who had beaten France’s ‘B’ team 9-0 in the first-round humiliated France’s A team 17-1 in their semi-final. England played the Netherlands and ran out 4-0 winners with all the goals scored by Stapley. The final on 24 October would therefore be between the Great Britain & Ireland team and Denmark. This time it was a more competitive match with the English players running out 2-0 winners over Denmark. The following morning the report in the Observer was scathing. It berated the Football Association for its overbearing attitude that had resulted in an unrepresentative XI representing the nation and described the team’s performance as follows ‘It is no exaggeration to say that a display less representative of real English football – whether amateur or professional – has never been seen in a contest of any importance’
Regardless of any doubts about the quality of the tournament Harold Hardman, a direct, elusive footballer, a goal scorer and creator, now had an Olympic Gold Medal winner to go alongside his FA Cup winner’s medal – a unique achievement for an English player.
This is an extract from ‘Harold Hardman. Man of Football’ available from Amazon here
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