1959 British Home Championship

The 1959 British Home Championship was a football tournament played between the British Home Nations. It came the year after the notable failure of England and Scotland to impress at the 1958 FIFA World Cup, for which all four nations qualified for the first and only time. Wales and Northern Ireland were the only achievers, both reaching the quarter-finals after playoffs.

Many of these problems stemmed also from the deaths of a number of international players from some teams in the Munich Air Disaster the year before. During the Home Championship, the Northern Ireland team took the unusual step of flying to Madrid for a friendly game against Spain between the matches against England and Scotland. The trip was however not a success, the Irish losing 2-6 with goals from Billy Bingham and Jimmy McIlroy.

For the second successive year the tournament was tied between England and Northern Ireland, as both managed a draw and a win against the other two teams in addition to the high-scoring mutual draw which began the competition. Scotland came second after comfortably beating Wales, drawing with the Irish but then narrowly losing to England in London which cost them a share of first place. Wales recovered from their defeat to the Scots to draw with England in the second match but lost heavily to the Irish in their final game and so finished last.

Table

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

Results

footballbox
date = October 4, 1958
team1 = fb-rt|Northern Ireland
score = 3–3
team2 = fb|England
goals1 = Wilbur Cush, Bertie Peacock, Tommy Casey
goals2 = Bobby Charlton 2, Tom Finney
stadium = Windsor Park, Belfast----footballbox
date = October 18, 1958
team1 = fb-rt|Wales
score = 0–3
team2 = fb|Scotland
goals1 =
goals2 = Graham Leggat, Denis Law, Bobby Collins
stadium = Ninian Park, Cardiff----footballbox
date = November 5, 1958
team1 = fb-rt|Scotland
score = 2–2
team2 = fb|Northern Ireland
goals1 = Bobby Collins, David Herd
goals2 = Jimmy McIlroy, Eric Caldow ("own goal")
stadium = Hampden Park, Glasgow----footballbox
date = November 26, 1958
team1 = fb-rt|England
score = 2–2
team2 = fb|Wales
goals1 = Peter Broadbent 2
goals2 = Derek Tapscott, Ivor Allchurch
stadium = Villa Park, Birmingham----footballbox
date = April 22, 1959
team1 = fb-rt|Wales
score = 1–4
team2 = fb|Northern Ireland
goals1 = Derek Tapscott
goals2 = Peter McParland 2, Bertie Peacock, Jimmy McIlroy
stadium = Racecourse Ground, Wrexham----footballbox
date = April 11, 1959
team1 = fb-rt|England
score = 1–0
team2 = fb|Scotland
goals1 = Bobby Charlton
goals2 =
stadium = Wembley Stadium, London

References

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