Bert Trautmann

Early years

With closure of the PoW camp imminent, Trautmann declined an offer of repatriation and stayed in England, working on a farm in Milnthorpe then subsequently working on bomb disposal in Huyton. In August 1948, he started playing amateur football for the non-league Liverpool County Combination club St Helens Town, through which he met the club secretary's daughter, Margaret Friar, whom he later married. Over the course of the 1948–49 season, Trautmann's goalkeeping reputation steadily grew and a series of large crowds were attributed to his performances, including a record 9,000 attendance in the final of a local cup competition, the Mahon Cup. The success of that season elevated the club into Division Two of the Lancashire Combination League for the start of 1949–50.

Manchester City

Performances for St Helens gained Trautmann a reputation as an able goalkeeper, resulting in interest from Football League clubs. As the following season commenced, a number of League clubs showed interest in signing him. The first to offer him a contract was Manchester City, a club playing in the highest level of football in the country, the First Division. On 7 October 1949 Trautmann signed for the club as an amateur and turned professional shortly after. Trautmann became the first sportsman in Britain to wear Adidas, thanks to his friendship with Adolf Dassler.

Supporter discontent and initial period

Some Manchester City fans were unhappy about signing…

Though recognised as one of the leading goalkeepers of his era, Trautmann never played for his native country. Trautmann met with the German national coach, Sepp Herberger, in 1953, who explained that travel and political implications prevented him from selecting a player who was not readily available, and that he could only consider including Trautmann if he were playing in a German league. Consequently, Trautmann's international isolation prevented him from playing in the 1954 World Cup, in which his countrymen were victorious. Trautmann's only experience of international football came in 1960, when the Football League decided to include non-English players in the Football League representative team for the first time. Trautmann captained the League against the Irish League, and also played against the Italian League.

After a couple of months pondering his future career plans, Trautmann received a telephone call from the Stockport County chairman, Victor Bernard, who offered him the position of general manager. Stockport was a struggling lower league club with a small budget, and Trautmann's appointment was an attempt to improve its image. Many people in the local area supported one of the two Manchester clubs, so to stimulate interest Trautmann and Bernard decided to move matches to Friday evenings, when neither Manchester club would be playing. This improved revenue, but the team continued to struggle. Trautmann resigned in 1966 following a disagreement with Bernard. From 1967 to 1968, he was the manager of the German team Preußen Münster, taking them to a 13th-place finish in the Regionalliga West, following which he had a short spell at Opel Rüsselsheim. The German Football Association then sent Trautmann as a development worker to countries without national football structures. His first posting was in Burma, where he spent two years as the national coach, qualifying for the 1972 Olympics, and winning the President's Cup, a tournament contested by Southeast Asian countries, later that year. His work subsequently took him to advisory coaching roles for the national teams of Tanzania, Liberia, Pakistan and North Yemen, where he trained several coaches and helped them obtain the coaching license. Following his retirement, Trautmann settled in Spain.

Bernhard Carl Trautmann was born on 22 October 1923 in Walle, a working-class area in west Bremen, living with his father, who worked in a fertiliser factory by the docks, and his mother Frieda. He had a brother, Karl-Heinz, three years his junior, with whom he enjoyed a close relationship. The bleak economic climate of the early 1930s forced the Trautmanns to sell their house and move to an apartment block in the working-class area of Gröpelingen, where Bernhard lived until 1941. The young Bernhard had a keen interest in sport, playing football, handball and völkerball (a form of dodgeball). To this end, he joined the YMCA and football club Blau und Weiss. He took to playing for the football club with enthusiasm, but the YMCA activities did not interest him to the same extent. In August 1933, he joined a new organisation, the Jungvolk, the junior section of the Hitler Youth. The following year, he won several local junior athletics events and was awarded a certificate for athletic excellence signed by Paul von Hindenburg, the President of Germany. At the onset of the Second World War, Trautmann was working as an apprentice motor mechanic.