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Forgotten stories of football. Fars and fascism at the 1936 Olympics. How Nazi

bullying and controversial victories overshadowed Italy's gold medal at the Berlin Games, written by Paul Doyle.

Forgotten stories of football from The Guardian.

The Nazis knew the power of football.

They encouraged folks to play it and oversaw the proliferation of clubs across the country,

all part of their efforts to build a fit, regimented nation.

Before it flourished under the Reich, however, football was first broken apart and reorganised, with the worker and church

run-run clubs abolished and replaced by outfits run-along lines more in keeping with the

Nazi movement.

That, of course, meant sports clubs were forbidden from selecting Jewish athletes, although

for football that decree was not imposed until after the 1936 Olympics, for fear

that such blatant discrimination would increase support for activists around the world

who were calling for a boycott of the Berlin Games.

In the build-up of the Games, most image-savvy German towns temporarily removed all anti-Jewish

signs and other visible evidence of persecution. The Nazis wanted the games to go ahead

and were particularly eager for football to be included, not merely because of the propaganda

value of a German victory in the world's most popular sport, but because

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