1939 British Home Championship

The 1939 British Home Championship was a football tournament played between the British Home Nations during the 1938/39 seasons and was the last edition of the tournament to be completed before the outbreak of the Second World War in August 1939 suspended all professional sporting competitions. As a result, this was the final opportunity for many spectators to see their sporting heroes in an international setting, as players such as Wales's Dai Astley or Scotland's Tommy Walker would no longer be young enough to play for their country by the time professional football began again in 1946.

The opening matches saw an immediate advantage for Wales and Scotland who beat England and Northern Ireland respectively. Scotland then followed by beating the Welsh in their second match during a close contest whilst England succeeded in victory over the Irish by a seven goal margin to bring them into joint second place behind the Scots. During the match, William Hall scored five goals, an English record that has been equalled but never broken as of 2007. In the final games, Wales beat the Irish resulting in a whitewash of three defeats for Ireland and joint first place for the Welsh. England joined Wales and Scotland on four points with a 2-1 victory over Scotland in Glasgow to share the title between the three nations, as goal difference was not at this stage used to determine position. The win was sealed by a goal from Tommy Lawton, who scored in all of England's matches

Table

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

Results

footballbox
date = October 8, 1938
team1 = fb-rt|IRE
score = 0–2
team2 = fb|SCO
goals1 =
goals2 = Jimmy Delaney, Tommy Walker
stadium = Windsor Park, Belfast----footballbox
date = October 22, 1938
team1 = fb-rt|WAL
score = 4–2
team2 = fb|ENG
goals1 = Dai Astley 2, Barrie Jones, Idris Hopkins
goals2 = Stanley Matthews, Tommy Lawton (P)
stadium = Ninian Park, Cardiff----footballbox
date = November 9, 1938
team1 = fb-rt|SCO
score = 3–2
team2 = fb|WAL
goals1 = Tommy Walker 2, Jimmy Delaney
goals2 = Dai Astley, Leslie Jones
stadium = Tynecastle Park, Edinburgh----footballbox
date = November 16, 1938
team1 = fb-rt|ENG
score = 7–0
team2 = fb|IRE
goals1 = William Hall 5, Stanley Matthews, Tommy Lawton
goals2 =
stadium = Manchester----footballbox
date = March 15, 1939
team1 = fb-rt|WAL
score = 3–1
team2 = fb|IRE
goals1 = Horace Cumner, Pat Glover, Les Boulter
goals2 = Dudley Milligan
stadium = Racecourse Ground, Wrexham----footballbox
date = April 15, 1939
team1 = fb-rt|SCO
score = 1–2
team2 = fb|ENG
goals1 = James Dougall
goals2 = Albert Beasley, Tommy Lawton
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