1954 British Home Championship

The 1954 British Home Championship was an international football tournament played between the British Home Nations during the 1953/54 season which also provided the home nations qualifying tournament for the 1954 FIFA World Cup. Both England and Scotland qualified as first and second placed teams repectively, but both were subsequently knocked out by Uruguay. Scotland lost 7-0 to the South Americans in a rout during the group stages whilst England went down 4-2 to them in a hard-fough quarter final. The eventual world cup finalists, Hungary also shocked the British Isles during the season with two victories over England. The first was England's first home defeat to a foreign football team ever when Hungary won 6-3 at Wembley in November. The game was witnessed by a crowd of 100,000 amid much media attention and the scale of the defeat had long-reaching effects on football throughout Britain. Six months later and less than a month before the World Cup in Switzerland, the England team attempted to restore lost pride with a return match in Budapest. The resulting defeat remains the worst in English footballing history, as the team crashed 7-1 to their skilled opponents.

The scale of these defeats is evidenced by England's dominance of the Home Championship, winning victories over the other three nations easily and taking first place. Scotland struggled against Wales following early victory in Northern Ireland and then lost to England, benefitting from an Irish victory over Wales in Wrexham to take second.

Table

The points system worked as follows:
* 2 points for a win
* 1 point for a draw

Results

footballbox
date = October 3, 1953
team1 = fb-rt|Northern Ireland
score = 1–3
team2 = fb|Scotland
goals1 = Norman Lockhart (P)
goals2 = Charlie Fleming 2, Jackie Henderson
stadium = Windsor Park, Belfast----footballbox
date = October 10, 1953
team1 = fb-rt|Wales
score = 1–4
team2 = fb|England
goals1 = Ivor Allchurch
goals2 = Nat Lofthouse 2, Dennis Wilshaw 2
stadium = Ninian Park, Cardiff----footballbox
date = November 4, 1953
team1 = fb-rt|Scotland
score = 3–3
team2 = fb|Wales
goals1 = Allan Brown, Bobby Johnstone, Lawrence Reilly
goals2 = John Charles 2, Ivor Allchurch
stadium = Hampden Park, Glasgow----footballbox
date = November 11, 1953
team1 = fb-rt|England
score = 3–1
team2 = fb|Northern Ireland
goals1 = Harold Hassall 2, Nat Lofthouse
goals2 = Eddie McMorran
stadium = Goodison Park, Liverpool

----footballbox
date = March 31, 1954
team1 = fb-rt|Wales
score = 1–2
team2 = fb|Northern Ireland
goals1 = John Charles
goals2 = Peter McParland 2
stadium = Racecourse Ground, Wrexham----footballbox
date = April 2, 1954
team1 = fb-rt|Scotland
score = 2–4
team2 = fb|England
goals1 = Willie Ormond, Allan Brown
goals2 = Ivor Broadis, Johnny Nicholls, Ronnie Allen, Jimmy Mullen
stadium = Hampden Park, Glasgow

References

*cite book
author= Guy Oliver| title=The Guinness Record of World Soccer
date=1992
publisher=Guinness
id=ISBN 0-851129-54-4