The FA Cup & The Broken Neck | Bert Trautmann The Nazi POW & Man City Legend
It Was What It Was : The Football History Podcast
The Overlap
4.9 • 667 Ratings
🗓️ 12 May 2026
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome back to It Was What It Was, the football history podcast. In this week's episode, co-hosts Jonathan Wilson and Rob Draper tell the remarkable story of Bert Trautmann — the former Nazi paratrooper who became Manchester City's beloved goalkeeper and an unlikely symbol of Anglo-German reconciliation. 70 years on from the legendary 1956 FA Cup final, Wilson and Draper trace Trautmann's extraordinary journey: from Hitler Youth member and fighting on the Eastern Front, to prisoner of war in England, to the man who played on with a broken neck at Wembley. They examine his teenage indoctrination, the atrocity he witnessed, that shattered his faith in Nazism and the 25,000 protesters at Maine Road. Along the way, they explore the brutal treatment of goalkeepers in this era and how three successive cup final incidents began to change the game's laws. Finally, they reflect on how a flawed, charismatic man became the perfect bridge between two nations.
00:00 Jimmy Ashcroft and the Goalkeeper's Lot
06:30 Hitler Youth — Trautmann's Indoctrination
12:45 The Eastern Front
19:20 Witnessing the SS Massacre
25:00 Captured Three Times — Soviets, Americans, and a Cup of Tea
27:10 Prisoner of War and the Accidental Goalkeeper
34:50 Staying in England
42:15 25,000 Protesters
48:00 Winning Over Manchester
53:40 The 1956 FA Cup Final — Playing On with a Broken Neck
58:10 The Dangerous Life of the Goalkeeper
01:03:20 Footballer of the Year and Personal Tragedy
01:09:00 Burma, Women's Football, and an OBE
01:14:30 The Perfect Symbol of Reconciliation
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Well, welcome to it was what it was. And before we get into our main episode today, we did want to remind you that our Patreon page is available. And our Patreon is super exciting, isn't it, Jonathan? |
| 0:10.4 | Oh, it couldn't be more exciting, Rob. Every Wednesday, you're getting a countdown to the World Cup. That will go on during the tournament itself. So if you join the Patreon, you can go back and we've been doing them from 1930 all the way through, so you can read the whole back catalogue. But every week we release a new one going through the World Cups and Order, obviously based on my book, because why would I not sell myself? That's what this game's all about. So World Cup Wednesdays, but that's not all, is it? We also give you stuff on Fridays. |
| 0:38.0 | It's certainly not all. Yeah, on Fridays we have an extra episode. Often that's a bonus episode |
| 0:42.9 | picking up on themes, which we've talked about in the main episode, and we do live Q&As, if my |
| 0:50.2 | board band holds out. And sometimes we flick through old shoot magazines. In general, it's quite a lot of fun and it's just a deeper dive into some of the themes we get into in these main edition so do please go and check out the patron page do also remember to review us because that also helps get a scene and noticed but do enjoy the the rest of the main episode, but check out our patron. |
| 1:22.1 | Don't know if you've ever been thrown into a fight which you did not seek. |
| 1:26.3 | At the onset, you're kind of a sliver of nervousness, |
| 1:29.6 | but once you've had a smack on the jaw, your diffidence has disappeared and you scarcely notice |
| 1:34.4 | the hard knocks you receive in the fray. So it is in goalkeeping. The best incentive to good work |
| 1:39.9 | is to rough and tumble early in the game. Well, welcome to It Was What It Was. |
| 1:47.1 | And this is a very special episode to commemorate the 1956 FAA Cup final. |
| 1:52.8 | We are in at FAA Cup Final weekend. |
| 1:55.1 | It is 70 years since one of the most historic games in English football |
| 1:59.7 | because of one figure, Bert Troutman, |
| 2:02.1 | who we're going to be featuring Manchester City's Bert Troutman. And that quote is from a goalkeeper, |
| 2:07.8 | Jimmy Ashcroft, an Arsenal goalkeeper. He'd written that in 1906. And Jonathan, I think you've |
| 2:13.3 | included that because it's kind of symptomatic of what the early game and right up to 1950s, |
| 2:19.3 | people kind of expected of goalkeepers. They expect them to be knocked to the ground, |
| 2:24.2 | to take some rough and tumble, to maybe take a boot in the face or a shoulder to the cheek. |
| 2:30.9 | And of course, this is what will happen to Bert Troutman who is famously played on with |
| 2:35.9 | a broken neck in the 1956 FAA cut final however his story's even richer than that isn't |
| 2:42.1 | it Jonathan I mean you've gone into extraordinary depth this is an astonishing story particularly |
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