On This Day – 5th May
It was on this day in 1966 that Manchester City’s German goalkeeper Bert Trautmann wrote his name in football folklore.
Trautmann broke several vertebrae in his neck during the 1956 FA Cup Final against Birmingham City. After being treated by the club physio for several minutes, the former prisoner of war decided that he would carry on playing! He struggled on throughout the rest of the game, occasionally holding on to his neck and grimacing at the pain.
Substitutes were first introduced nine years later and if Trautmann had left the field of play, City would have had to put an outfield player in goal and have one less player on the pitch. Perhaps it was this that caused the goalkeeper to play out the remainder of the match, or maybe he thought that he would never get another opportunity to play at Wembley.
Manchester City won the match 3-1 and Trautmann joined his team mates to go and collect the FA Cup from the Royal Box. His heroics of playing despite such a serious injury has gone down in FA Cup history.
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