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Opponents from across the water

Touching on some posts from another thread which Non British teams have we faced over the years .? There's the famous match against the Ugandans of course way back in 1956 and someone. I think mentioned Malawi back in the 70s I seemed to remember spring friendlies against Scandinavian teams such as Malmo and Viking Stananger which must have been pre season for them. I also recall playing Chicago Sting at Loakes Park around 1975 They had quite a few ex Man U players. Added to that we went on post season tours abroad and there's also the Anglo Italian Tournaments.

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  • Vancouver Whitecaps at Loakes Park in the early 80's. Members of the great 70's Leeds Utd were now playing for the Canadian side. If I remember rightly David Harvey was in goal, I think Peter Lorimer played, possibly Terry Yorath and something makes me say Ray Hankin.

  • From the wonderful people at British MOvietone.

  • In I think 1981 we played Israel b or under 21 side at Loakes park.
    They were due to play Scotland in a world cup qualifier shortly, I unusually sat in the stand that night and found myself sat behind Archie McPherson and his then ginger candy floss hair !!

  • We played a German Team called Rot Weiss Wein late 60s presumably a lot of these teams were staying at Bisham Abbey

  • We played a Ibizian university XI in our glorious San An cup win in (I think) 2005.
    Over the last 20 years I recall we've played a few German sides, one I think called SC Verle, or something like that. I think the friendlies against Norwegian sides were due to a link with one of our academy coaches (Gary Goodchild?). Plus there's been the more recent PSFs against French sides, Le Havre and someone else.

  • Goodchild’s links had the youth team play a tournament in Norway almost every summer IIRC.

  • @Mr67 They may have been German in the early 40s, but Wien (Vienna) is in Austria!

    @Jonny_King There is still some confusion whether the other French side was Avranches or Coutences. It was so long ago that nobody will ever know

  • Your right it's was either Wein or Rhine can't remember

  • @floyd said:
    Goodchild’s links had the youth team play a tournament in Norway almost every summer IIRC.

    The tournament was held just outside Lillyhammer the year I went, possibly the last time we had an u19 team to watch.

  • On our post season tours we to places such as Jersey ,Gibraltar ,and Greece I believe we may have played Panathinakos under 23 team on one occasion

  • That Uganda match - I love the reaction of our fans when they scored their consolation.

  • I vaguely remember playing Karlstad? of Sweden mid season back in the late 80's. We won 8-0!

  • @Mr67 said:
    We played a German Team called Rot Weiss Wein late 60s presumably a lot of these teams were staying at Bisham Abbey

    Isn't 'Rot Weiss Wein' otherwise known as rosé?
    On a slightly more serious note, while bored at work earlier I managed to find out there is a FK Rot-Weiss Wien in Vienna, however they're a Sunday league team that was formed in 1985, so unlikely to have been able to have gone on a tour of England in the late 60s.

    If it could have been 'Rhein' instead of 'Wein', then possibly the team was SC Rot-Weiss Rheinau from near Mannheim? They were formed in 1952 and play to at least a reasonable level in senior football (roughly equivalent of Hellenic League), so at least they wouldn't have had to have bent the laws of time and space to have played a friendly against us in the late 60s.

  • Home friendlies against overseas teams, post WW2 (thanks to Dave Finch).

    19/05/51 F.C. Wageningen (Netherlands) D 2-2
    23/08/54 Sportclub Kleve
    23/08/55 F.C. Schaffhausen (Switzerland) W 1-0
    29/08/56 Uganda XI W 10-1
    12/04/58 Wormeveer (Netherlands) W 7-0
    25/08/59 Hilversumse L 2-3
    06/04/60 Perstorp S.K. (Sweden) W 4-1
    31/03/61 Jeunesse Sportive Audunoise (France) W 2-1
    27/03/64 F.C.Bonn W 4-1
    18/10/66 Halmia (Sweden) W 5-3
    28/09/66 Hilal S.C. (Benghazi) W 8-1
    09/04/70 Rot-Weiss Rheine W 2-0
    20/05/71 Dusseldorf '99 W 3-1
    14/04/72 Jersey F.A. XI D 3-3
    10/03/75 Viking Stavanger (Norway) W 2-1
    19/03/75 Chicago Sting L 1-4
    18/03/76 Djurgardens I.F. (Sweden) W 2-1
    09/05/77 Maltese Falcons W 10-0
    01/03/78 Detroit Express W 3-2
    22/03/78 Djurgardens I.F. (Sweden) D 2-2
    08/08/78 Malawi National Squad W 3-1
    07/02/80 Denmark U21 XI W 2-1
    07/04/80 F.C. Vard (Norway) W 3-0
    05/02/81 Denmark U21 XI W 7-4
    12/03/81 Vancouver Whitecaps L 0-4
    31/03/81 Rasunda (Sweden) W 5-1
    06/04/81 F.C. Vard (Norway) W 3-0
    23/04/81 Israel FA XI L 0-1
    16/03/83 B.K. Hacken (Sweden) W 3-2
    03/04/84 Viking Stavanger L 1-2
    02/03/85 Iddrettslaget Vidar (Norway) D 0-0
    20/08/85 Geneva College, Florida W 10-0
    12/04/88 Karlstad (Sweden) W 8-0

    Good thread @Mr67, I may have overlooked the Malmo game.

  • @Steve_Peart thanks for posting that list up. In my defence, the club with the name Rot-Weiss Rheine was a merger that lasted for two seasons between 1969 and 1971 before being merged with another local club into VfB Rheine, hence why it wasn't appearing in the Google suggested search results. Today they are FC Eintracht Rheine after yet another merger, a Frankenstein's monster of a club to rival Dagenham and Redbridge's convoluted history.

  • Just spent 10 minutes trying to think of a Bogart/bogey team pun for Maltese Falcons, but can't make it work so going to bed in a massive huff. Night all.

  • @Jonny_King - SC Verl are still going strong in the 4th tier. They hit the headlines with a big cup upset beating Bundesliga team FC Augsburg in the first round of the DFB Pokal, not sure they'll match our run to the FA Cup semi-final though!

  • Of course there was the Anglo Italian Cup I remember the 2nd leg home game against Monza we had lost 1-0 nil out there and won 2-0 nil at home to lift the trophy (1975) There were no other teams involved but i remember we took part in slighly larger tournament the next year playing 2 Italian third tier teams Also to slighly expand the thread the England Amateur Team played some matches at Loakes Park I remember seeing us play the Republic of Ireland and , before my time South Africa were visitors . An action shot from the latter adorned the front cover of our programme for quite a few years showing a packed "cowshed".

  • Geneva College, was that fixture arranged as ex Wanderers reserve player Tim Lee (Brian's son) was now teaching/studying at that college ? I seem to have some recollection of him moving to the states.

  • That Monza game was one of my favourite all-time Loakes Park memories. Cracking atmosphere

  • Thanks @ReadingMarginalista. Glad to see they're still going strong. Think we must have played them around the early 2000's, maybe under Sanchez.

  • This might be a case that I haven't had my medication today but I vaguely remember a hastily arranged friendly on a Thursday night early season circa 1970 against a team called Algerian Airlnes or Airways. I think the game ended 1-1. Can anyone back me up on this or do I need to up those meds? Thursday night friendlies were fairly common in our Amateur Days as they were on a training night.

  • @Mr67, you are right, we hosted Algerian Airways on Thursday 20/08/70, I missed that game from the list. A 1-1 draw, Searle the scorer. Match report here:

    https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/13036b_a6464e64d14642d28dd69ce3204743ad.pdf

    @ChasHarps, you remember correctly, Tim Lee did play for Geneva College, he scored 61 goals for them, 83-87:

    https://athletics.geneva.edu/hof.aspx?hof=20

  • That's interesting from my recollection of Wanderers reserve games in the early 80's, Tim lee played at the back !!
    So he made the switch to 'offence' as he crossed the big pond, or is my memory failing me !!

  • No Chas Harps I recall Tim Lee playing at right back during his time with us

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