Touring trailblazers - Austria, 1905

Not much was known about our very first overseas tour back in May 1905, which saw us head to Austria for the first of seven friendly matches on the continent. So, Jon Rayner delved into the history books to discover a tale of a nation enraptured by the visit of an English team and details never before published by the club from our fixtures in Vienna.

It was the influence of Hugo Meisl, one of the key figures in the early days of Austrian football, that enabled us to embark on a ground-breaking tour in 1905, as we headed overseas for the first time in our history.

Meisl worked closely with FA secretary Frederick Wall to secure an Austro-Hungarian tour for ourselves and Everton, regarded as two of England’s finest sides at the time. The Toffees had just finished as Division One runners-up, just a point behind champions Newcastle United, while we were a strong Southern League team with our 1901 FA Cup success still fresh in the memory.

Apparently, both clubs received a sum of £600 for the trip, which consisted of us playing five matches each against Austro-Hungarian teams as well as two prestigious encounters against each other.

Following a brief playing career with Vienna Cricket and Football Club (known as Cricketer), Meisl took up a role within the Austria FA and was instrumental in persuading the English FA to tour the region in 1908. Indeed, England played their first four matches overseas between 6-13 June in that year with Meisl – a qualified referee – taking charge of the Three Lions’ clash with Hungary on 10 June. He would also go on to officiate at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics.

In 1919, Meisl took charge of the Austrian national side having moved into a coaching role after his playing days, and he oversaw their rise to prominence in the late 1920s and early 30s. So impressive was his side that they were dubbed the ‘Wunderteam’ and were among the favourites for the 1934 World Cup, although lost to Italy in the semi-finals.

Vienna bound

Our Southern League campaign of 1904-05 concluded with a 1-0 home win over Bristol Rovers on Saturday 29 April and we arrived in Vienna four days later on the Wednesday, with the travelling party staying at the prestigious Hotel Metropole in the heart of the city.

Football fever had certainly gripped Vienna and there was a real enthusiasm for the visit of the English teams. Everton had arrived before us and had already played First Vienna FC on 2 May, enjoying a 4-0 win.

Our first match was on 4 May against a Vienna Select XI and the city’s newspaper, Neues Wiener Tagblatt, previewed the game the day before. It appears they were either present at our league fixture against Bristol Rovers, or had been provided with some fairly detailed information.

About our arrival, it wrote: ‘The players are looking forward to the Vienna competitions, but especially to the match against Everton. The team is currently in the best shape, as they showed at their match on Saturday. Tottenham, who played with the same team with whom they came to Vienna, showed thoughtful and dashing interaction, as one is used to from London’s favourite team.

‘In tomorrow's match Tottenham Hotspur will play against the Viennese team. The audience will see a different genre of ball technique and combination in this match than from Everton. The Tottenham are famous for the most beautiful interplay of the southern English teams and put them on a par with the most famous representative of classic combination, Aston Villa.’

Off to a flyer

A day after our arrival, we made club history by playing our first-ever overseas fixture. The venue was the Hohe Warte stadium as we took on a team made up of players from clubs within Vienna.

It was a straight-forward victory for us as we ran out 6-0 winners in front of a crowd who were enthralled by the different style of football that we produced, compared to that of the local sides they were more familiar with.

Newspaper reports of the game were less about the run of play and far more interested in the formations, tactics and techniques shown by our players, while also comparing our style to what the reporters had seen from Everton in their previous match in the city.

One such report wrote: ‘Everton have ball technicians of the first order, they always know how to control it and direct it to get where they want it to go. But the action of every single player moves within measured limits.

‘Tottenham, on the other hand, are primarily runners. Of course, they know how to control the ball but while running, they calculate their movements with precision, avoid every encounter with the opponent and, if possible, play around him instead of jostling. Their ability to calculate is fabulously developed.’

Centre-forward Alex Glen scored a hat-trick in the game, including our second and fifth goals while Charlie O’Hagan made it 3-0 just before half-time, with James McNaught hitting a brace.

4 May, 1905
Vienna Select XI 0
Spurs 6 (McNaught, Glen 3, O’Hagan 2)

Hohe Warte Stadium, Vienna

Vienna: Wagner (Vienna Cricket & Football Club), Fischer (Wiener AC), Albert (Vienna), Lang (Vienna Cricket & Football Club) (Blumenfeld 46 (Vienna)), Wilczek (Wr Sportvereinigung), Schediwy (Rapid Wien), Dettelmaier K (Wiener AC), Merz (Wr Sportvereinigung), Dettelmaier F (Wiener AC), Studnicka (Wiener AC), Ebrot (Vienna).
Spurs: Whitley, Watson, Tait, Morris, Bull, McNaught, Walton, Brearley, Glen, O’Hagan, Murray.

Huge interest in all-English clash

While the Viennese public were delighted to see their own local teams pit themselves against prestigious English opponents, it was the all-English match-up between Spurs and Everton that they were most looking forward to.

Two interesting anecdotes highlight the level of enthusiasm in the region. It wasn’t just in Austria that excitement reached fever pitch for the fixture. The Hungarian football community was equally as interested, to such an extent that the then Hungarian national team manager, Ferenc Stobbe, helped to organise a special train to take Hungarian fans from Budapest to Vienna for the match.

There were around 350 fans who boarded the train, with one report saying the number swelled to around 500 and it is believed to be the first football train of its kind in continental Europe!

Also, the newspaper Neuer Wiener Tagblatt heavily promoted the matches played by both English teams and its sports editor even donated a trophy, named the NWT Cup, for the winners of our clash with the Toffees. Again, such was the interest in the city that the silverware was placed in the shop window of the Wilhelm Pohl toy store for enthusiastic football fans to go and check out!

Spreading the English game

With supporters flocking in from all over the region, our fixture with Everton on 7 May was the real centre-piece of our visit to Vienna. We really were breaking new ground, the first time two English sides had ever met on the continent.

In fact, ourselves and Everton had only played three previous times - a friendly at Tottenham in 1897, another friendly on New Year’s Day 1902 at Goodison Park and one competitive match, an FA Cup tie on Merseyside in February 1904 which we won 2-1, Vivian Woodward among our goals.

The highly-regarded Woodward had missed our first game in Vienna but had travelled over with player-manager John Cameron for the remainder of the tour and naturally, both went straight into the team for this prestigious game with Everton.

Newspaper coverage previewing the match was extensive, running to pages and pages across a number of publications. ‘Tomorrow, England will be on both sides of the Hohe Warte and one will be able to indulge completely in the pleasure of seeing two first-class English teams in the game. Which Viennese football fan would not have long since wanted to see one of those splendid English football games,’ wrote Die Zeit.

The attendance figure was somewhere between 7-10,000 depending on a which source you believe – but either way, it was an impressive crowd and one which broke all previous records in Austria. Unfortunately though, we couldn’t add to our FA Cup triumph over the Toffees as they ran out winners in a game in which, once more, style of football and technical ability of the players was more the focus of the supporters attending rather than the result itself.

Everton were the better team and our own Jack Eggett was the busier of the two goalkeepers but he could do nothing to prevent the Goodison side from taking the lead in the 41st minute when Harold Hardman set up Jimmy Settle for the opening goal. Victory was wrapped up in the 76th minute after Alex Young – who played five times for us in 1911 – doubled Everton’s advantage.

After the match, a banquet took place in a Vienna casino for the directors and players of both ourselves and Everton, as well as board members of First Vienna FC and their players. During the event, Everton were presented with the aforementioned NWT Cup, while a final line in a newspaper report of the evening said: ‘The banquet took a very animated course,’ which suggested a good night was had by all!

7 May
Spurs 0
Everton 2 (Settle, Young)

Hohe Warte Stadium, Vienna

Everton: Scott, Balmer, Crelley, Boothe, Taylor, Abbott, Rankin, MacLaughlin, Young, Settle, Hardmann.
Spurs: Eggett, Tait, Watson, Brearley, Bull, McNaught, Murray, Glen, Woodward, Cameron, Walton.

Farewell Austria

Three days after the defeat to Everton, we concluded the Austria leg of our first overseas trip with a friendly against another local side, Wiener Athletic Club.

The game was played at the WAC-Platz, the site of Austria’s first international match when they played Hungary in October 1902. Josef Taurer, who played for WAC against us in this friendly, scored Austria’s first-ever international goal in their 5-0 win.

Once again, it was a comfortable victory for us. Two goals inside the opening 10 minutes from Tom Morris, a penalty, and Woodward put us in control, although WAC did pull one back through Austrian international Jan Studnicka shortly after half-time. A commanding second half display was rewarded with a second for Woodward before Willie Murray wrapped up the scoring 10 minutes from time.

It’s interesting to note in one newspaper report of the game: ‘WAC was weakened by substitutes and played without fire, but its players showed that they have already benefitted a lot from the English, especially Studnicka and Fischer, let it be known that the good examples have left their mark on them.’

If the aim of the tour was to enhance and improve football in the region, it appears it hadn’t taken long for the early shoots of development to take hold.

10 May
Wiener Athletic Club 1 (Studnicka)
Spurs 4 (Woodward 2, Morris, Murray)

WAC-Platz, Vienna

Wiener AC: Prager, Fischer, Schulz, Sax, Sturmer, Hoffman, Pulchert, Dettelmaier, Studnicka, Reisser, Taurer.
Spurs: Whitley, Watson, Burton, Morris, McNaught, Hughes, Walton, Stansfield, Woodward, O’Hagan Murray.

Onward journey

Having fulfilled our obligations in Austria, this ground-breaking tour then saw us head to Budapest and Prague, playing two more matches in each city. Everton journeyed with us again and we met once more, this time going down to a 1-0 defeat in Prague.

We’ve travelled all over the world since, playing in almost every corner of the globe, but it will always be Austria that holds a place in our history as our first-ever international hosts.