Year 1938

On this day in 1938 at the start of a football match, the English team caused anger at home when they gave a NAZI salute to the German team.

The players had been ordered to give the salute to the opposing team as a sign of appeasement to the NAZI’s by Neville Chamberlin’s government. In a few months on the 30^th of September the UK, France, Italy and Germany signed the Munich Agreement which said that Britain, France and Italy would support Germany’s takeover of Sudetenland on the understanding that Germany makes no more attempts to expand its borders. Chamberlin announced that the agreement brought “Peace in our time”, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. It was not the first time football had been hijacked in the name of politics and it would not be the last. England’s 6-3 win was a bittersweet victory in the shadow of an ill-advised political agenda.