This story is ripe for the telling and the time to tell it is now. I’ll be rolling out the social and cultural background to the player’s route to the 1936 games. Stories of six-weeks working a cattle boat to gain passage across the Atlantic, stories of hardship on the prairies, stories of unlikely heroes. I’ll be detailing the sometimes complicated lead-up to the games and the political turmoil surrounding them. Then I’ll be taking the reader through the dizzying story of the games themselves before the book ends with the scattergun distribution of the players and their own personal endings. Just a few examples include Art Child who before the games had spent months ‘bumming’ around North America riding the rails for free and standing in line at the soup kitchen. After his hockey career was over he ended up as a member of the Canadian parliament. Gordon Dailley had an illustrious military career, being one of the first allies at Hitler’s bunker in 1945, he grabbed hold of the petrol cans that had been used to burn the Furher’s body, they are now in a Canadian museum. Later he opened the first safari park in Canada. Jimmy Chappell turned to cricket after hockey and once faced Australian legend Sir Donald Bradman. The list goes on.

            Starting from the origins of hockey in the UK, including late 19th Century games on the frozen lake in the grounds of Buckingham Palace (the future Edward VII and George V among the competitors) the book gives social and sporting histories of the events that lead to the 1936 games: emigration to the new world and the subsequent return of the following generation due to the great depression. The Nazi involvement in the 1936 games and Hitler’s initial wish to play it down and appease the IOC and world at large. His allowing of Jewish players to skate for the German team, including the great pre-war star Rudi Ball who managed to survive World War II and was found wandering the streets of Berlin in 1945 by none other than British player Gordon Dailley while serving in the Canadian army. In the 1980s Archie Stinchcombe’s Hitler-signed passport was used to prove that the “Hitler diaries” were faked. Stories of news-writers being intimidated by the “brown coats”, of the British team being taken to the hearts of the German public and the tangential stories of the other members of the British team will be included.

 

Sources:

 

I look carefully at the faces in the photograph. One after another. Back and forth. Searching for a hint. A clue. Everyone in the picture is now dead. All 13 players and the coaching staff. What could they have told me had any of them still been breathing? What would they have remembered? After all, it is over 75 years ago. But maybe it would still have been crystal clear. Would the events of February 1936 be etched into their memories even if they couldn’t tell you what they’d had for breakfast yesterday? But that’s academic, because they are dead. All of them. So I look at the faces again, each one squinting slightly into the bright early sunshine of that brilliant Bavarian morning. They are wearing pristine white jerseys with red and blue trim, gathered together on the open air rink. Trees visible in the background, cloudless sky above them. This was the greatest achievement of their lives.

            I know the names by heart now. There on the back row at the left end is Jimmy Chappell from Huddersfield. He died in 1973 while on holiday in Florida. Next to him is Archie Stinchcombe, born near Barnsley, he died in November 1995. Then there’s Alex Archer from West Ham, he was the last to die in 1997; Gordon Dailley, the only one born in Canada, he died  in 1989; coach Percy Nicklin is next, he’d actually removed his trademark Fedora for the photograph. Following on, Bootle’s Jack Kilpatrick (he vanished after the war, but I managed to track down his family and his story), captain Carl Erhardt, Beckenham’s finest was 39 when the photo was taken-the oldest British gold medallist-died in May 1988.  Johnny Coward from Ambleside and Barking’s Gerry Davey completed the back row. At the front of the group was Jimmy Borland from Manchester, the two goalies, Art Child from East Ham, died in 1996 and Glaswegian Jimmy Foster, dead at the age of 64 in 1969, and finally Edgar ‘Chirp’ Brenchley from Sittingbourne who died back in 1977. Only Bob Wyman is missing.

            These men are now largely forgotten. But they shouldn’t be. In British terms they are the giants of Olympic History. Equals of Coe and Ovett, Abrahams and Liddle, Torvill and Dean. Actually, they aren’t equals in history, they should be placed at the head of the list. What they achieved and the opposition they had to overcome was far in excess of the aforementioned champions. Would anyone really believe you if you told them that Britain had won the Olympic gold medal at ice hockey? That they had also been World and European champions at the same time? That this triple crown would start a boom in the sport like no other? That on the back of this surge the BBC would show ice hockey on television for the first anywhere in the world in 1937? That London alone would soon have five teams each getting sold out crowds, often topping 10,000 each? This past isn’t another country, it’s another world, another universe.

            This book is an immaculately researched volume. The foremost British hockey historian Martin C. Harris has already provided a mass of information from his personal collection, a collection that has already been acquired by the British Library as part of Mr Harris’ will. The author has his own in-depth collection of 1936 Olympic memorabilia and will be providing all visual material required for the book. Other sources include input from the families of numerous British players and management including those of Archie Stinchcombe, Alex Archer, Jimmy Foster, Carl Erhardt, Jimmy Chappell, Gordon Dailley, Jack Kilpatrick, Edgar Brenchley, Art Child and coach Percy Nicklin. These families have also expanded the author’s collection of artefacts by allowing use of private documents and photographs.

            The Society for International Hockey Research (a society of which the author is a full member) has been a great help as has the British Olympic Association. The full archives of the Times, Guardian, New York Times, Winnipeg Free Press and the Toronto Star have all been used to flesh out the day to day happenings within the story and Olympic scholars from Canada, the United States, Germany, France, Sweden and Finland have already helped out. The author has also visited Garmisch and unearthed rare film footage of the games which was thought to be long-lost.

 

Epilogue:

 

In 1988 the British Olympic Association, backed by the Princess Royal and Buckingham Palace, decided to honour all British Olympic gold medallists. The event would see each athlete presented with a commemorative pin at the Palace. Invites were duly sent out to all winter and summer games victors. 

            When the Palace-crested envelope arrived at Archie Stinchcombe’s Nottinghamshire home he nonchalantly added it to the letter rack of junk mail and unopened correspondence on his kitchen worktop. A few days later Archie’s son Martin came round to visit. Leaving his father in the living room, Martin went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and while waiting for the kettle to boil he spied the unopened envelope. ‘Hey, Dad, What’s this envelope?’

‘What envelope?’

‘What envelope? The one from Buckingham Palace!’

‘Oh, that came the other day.’

‘Don’t you want to open it?’

            ‘I already know what it is. They phoned for my address last week.’

‘Can I open it?’

            ‘If you must.’

Inside, Martin found the invitation for Archie to visit Buckingham Palace in January 1988, but the 77 year-old ex-hockey player had no interest in attending. After much cajoling from his son he gradually came round to the idea, but only if the Palace would agree to him bringing his son along. The authorities agreed and the pair set off a few weeks later. Princess Anne was presenting the pins and briefly chatting with each of the medallists. Stinchcombe was placed in line, next to 1930s figure skater Cecelia Colledge, who he initially angered by ignoring her all through the ceremony. It was only afterwards that Stinchcombe told her he hadn’t realised she’d been standing there, she’d been on his ‘blind’ side.

            Slowly the Princess worked her way along the line. When she reached Archie she presented his pin, congratulated him on his medal and enquired why ice hockey hadn’t kept up it’s popularity in Britain. He replied that while there were still quite a few teams that drew a few thousand fans every week it was the lack of natural outdoor rinks that meant kids didn’t automatically pick up the game and that there were lots of complications; the cost of playing equipment, competition with football and rugby and the lack of enough indoor rinks and high maintenance costs were just some of the obstacles. Then he added with a sly wink, “There’s a bit more to it than riding a horse you know!” The Princess, slightly flustered, smiled and moved quickly on.

 

This is the classic story of a group of men winning against all the odds. A group who didn’t want the fame or the riches that came with success. The winning was enough. This is the story of their Pride & Glory.

 

 
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