1947 British Home Championship

The 1947 British Home Championship was a football tournament played between the British Home Nations during the 1946/47 seasons, the first professional football seasons in Britain since the end of the Second World War. As seven seasons had passed without regular, organised, professional football, many of the players in the tournament were new to the international stage although a few old hands remained to steer the course of the competition. England were especially well endowed in this regard, with such greats as Stanley Matthews and Tommy Lawton returning to the fray.

Thanks to the efforts of these aging stars, England were able to win this first post-war competition, largely due to an opening 7-2 thrashing of Ireland. Wales were able to achieve a 3-1 victory over Scotland in their opener to move into second position. In the second round of matches, Ireland improved sufficiently to hold Scotland to a scoreless draw whilst England set up a commanding lead with a 3-0 defeat of Wales at home. In the final games, Ireland defeated Wales in a close match to take second place whilst England were held to a 1-1 draw by the Scots but nevertheless succeeded in claiming the trophy for themselves.

Table

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

Results

footballbox
date = September 28, 1946
team1 = fb-rt|IRE
score = 2–7
team2 = fb|ENG
goals1 = Norman Lockhart 2
goals2 = Wilf Mannion 3, Tom Finney, Tommy Lawton, Raich Carter, Bobby Langton
stadium = Windsor Park, Belfast----footballbox
date = October 19, 1946
team1 = fb-rt|WAL
score = 3–1
team2 = fb|SCO
goals1 = Barrie Jones, Trevor Ford, "Own Goal"
goals2 = William Waddell
stadium = Racecourse Ground, Wrexham----footballbox
date = November 13, 1946
team1 = fb-rt|ENG
score = 3–0
team2 = fb|WAL
goals1 = Wilf Mannion 2, Tommy Lawton
goals2 =
stadium = Maine Road, Manchester----footballbox
date = November 27, 1946
team1 = fb-rt|SCO
score = 0–0
team2 = fb|IRE
goals1 =
goals2 =
stadium = Hampden Park, Glasgow----footballbox
date = March 9, 1949
team1 = fb-rt|IRE
score = 2–1
team2 = fb|WAL
goals1 = Alex Stevenson, Peter Doherty
goals2 = Trevor Ford
stadium = Windsor Park, Belfast----footballbox
date = April 12, 1947
team1 = fb-rt|ENG
score = 1–1
team2 = fb|SCO
goals1 = Raich Carter
goals2 = Andrew McLaren
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