When we talk about Middle Europe it is concept we understand but struggle to define. At the beginning of the 20th Century it was easier. It was the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the parts of Germany, away from the Baltic and North Sea coasts and not even really including Berlin, plus Switzerland, a region throughout which football arrived at much the same time.
With the exception of F.C. St. Gallen, founded in 1879, which to begin with did not play to Association Football rules, marginally earliest of all was Geneva, again in Switzerland, where in the suburb of Servette, the club of the same name was formed in 1890. In fact, the Swiss shore of Lac Leman was something of a hotbed for early football. The Brazilian game, in the shape of Oscar Cox in Rio de Janeiro, and Antonio Casemiro da Costa, in
Sao Paulo, could be said to have its roots there in part, both Cox and da Costa having learned their football at school in Lausanne. However, the rest of Switzerland was not slow to follow. Gamper’s F.C. Basel was founded in 1893 and his F.C. Zurich in 1896 with Berne’s Young Boys in 1898. Zurich’s other major team, Grasshoppers, founded as a sports’ club in 1886 by the “Englishman” with a Welsh name, the student Tom E. Griffiths, began its Association football activities at much the same time. It would win the country’s first competition, the Series A Cup, in 1898.
However, Switzerland’s start was soon to be replicated elsewhere. In Germany VFB Leipzig was founded, again in 1896, somewhat, it has to be said, seemingly out of the ether. Perhaps its spread from the south via Austria and Bohemia. Other teams followed. The 6-team, Leipzig-based Deutscher Fussball Bund, the German Football Association, was formed in 1900. Games were played in the region, but not just within strictly German borders but often between teams with ethnic or linguistic connections, at least until 1904. In 1903 Leipzig met DFC Prag, a German-Jewish team from Prague, then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, beating them 7:2, a fixture which was no longer allowed on the same terms once Germany joined FIFA the following year and Bohemia could not because of Austrian objections.
Football in Austria itself had much more British, even English roots. Its capital’s first football clubs, the Vienna Football and Cricket Club, known as the ‘Cricketers’, and First Vienna Football Club came into being in 1894. The latter was the result of ad-hoc games played in the early 1890’s by British and Austrian gardeners on the estate of Nathan Anselm von Rothschild, who far from disapproving gave them some ground for a pitch. In turn his footballing gardeners would adopt the Rothschild colours of yellow and blue and they would become the colours of the First Vienna Football Club when it emerged.
In 1897 Vienna’s ‘Cricketers’ issued a Cup challenge, effectively limited at first to the capital but ostensibly to all the football clubs in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Cricketers duly won it in the first year but it was to be the only time. Then it was shared between the First Football Club, Wiener AC and the Wiener Sports Club until 1910-11, with one exception. In 1908-9 the winner was Ferencvarosi of Budapest in Hungary, where a sixteen year-old English boy, Joe Lane, was making himself a reputation.
Why Joe, actually James, Lane was in Budapest is unclear. He was to stay there until he was 18 before returning home and have a successful professional footballing career with Watford, Sunderland, Blackpool, Birmingham and Millwall. He is even said later to have coached Barcelona.
Back in Prague, meanwhile, 1892 had seen the foundation of Slavia Prague as a sports club. Its football section emerged in 1896 as other teams were also formed in the city. Slavia’s first games were to be against AC Prague, Sparta Prague and CFK Kickers as two thousand miles away a winger, turned centre-forward, had just the received the second of his two Scotland caps and was coming to the end of an eight year, professional career with Celtic. His name was John William Madden, known as Jake and he was to be one of two footballing sons of Irish immigrant families, Madden’s to Scotland and the other’s,
Jimmy Hogan, to England, who were to have a profound impact on football in Middle Europe.
Jimmy Hogan had been born in 1882 and, after starting with his local team, Burnley, had a not particularly successful professional, playing career but had played with Scottish international,
R.C. Hamilton at Fulham and had clearly turned to coaching as a sideline. By 1910, at the age of 28 and still officially playing league football in England, he was advising the Dutch national team. On the foundation of FK Austria Vienna in 1911 he had moved and was coaching there. In 1913, at the outbreak of First World War he was interned by the Austrians but was released to be allowed from 1914 to 1918 coached MTK in Budapest, an ambitious club with a large, newly-constructed stadium. Then after briefly returning to Britain, where he was insulted by the FA for not fighting in the war he moved back to Switzerland, to Young Boys Bern, the Swiss national side itself and then Lausanne. Then it was Dresden in Germany, Hungaria back in Budapest, FK Austria Vienna once more, Racing Club of Paris as professional football began in France, back to Switzerland at Lausanne Sport before returning to Britain to Fulham and Aston Villa.
In Europe he was remarkably successful wherever he went but perhaps his crowning glory is that the Hungarian national team of 1950s, Puskas’s Mighty Magyars, openly stated that it played as Jimmy Hogan had twenty, even thirty, years coached his Hungarian club teams to.
However, dapper dressing, pipe-smoking Madden had preceded Hogan in Central Europe by five years, was far less peripatetic and has statistics that are perhaps as impressive as they can be. Now regarded as the father of Czech football he was appointed manager of Slavia Prague in 1905, aged 40. He married there, was to have a family, retire officially in 1930 after 25 years in the job at the age of 65 and remain in Prague for the rest of his life, still coaching at the club, even from his wheelchair, before dying in 1948 at the age of 83. Whilst officially with the club he had overseen 169 domestic games, of which his teams won 134, or almost 80%. And just in case you think the Czech opposition was poor, he had also played 429 international matches, friendlies and the Mitropa Cup, the forerunner of the European Cup, and won 304 of them, just over 70%. Alex Ferguson’s record over a similar period with Manchester United with admittedly twice as many games is a fraction under 60%.
Jake Madden, clearly something of a jack-the-lad as a player, both an entertainer and a grafter, had been born in 1865 on Dumbarton High St., just two years younger than a man of similar Scottish-Irish background, Brazil’s footballing pioneer,
Tommy Donohoe. He began his working life as a shipyard riveter and footballer with local clubs in Dumbarton; first Albion and then, on its foundation in 1885, with Dumbarton Hibernians, before first playing for Dumbarton itself in November 1887, the first Roman Catholic to do so.
Five feet seven inches tall, nick-named The Rooter, some say because of his powerful shot, some because of his back-heel, an expert 5-a-side footballer, he appeared for his hometown team in the 1887 Scottish Cup Final, losing to Hibernian. Then there followed a short and professional spell in England with Lincolnshire's Gainsborough Trinity, then a major team, whilst still working in the shipyard all week, travelling south on Friday and back to the Clyde for work on Monday, and nearby Grimsby Town, from where he tempted back to Scotland. Back in Glasgow Madden was to play in Celtic’s first ever game, against Rangers Swifts in May 1888, a 5:1 victory, return to Dumbarton, then be transferred more formally to Celtic in 1889 and to stay, more or less, for nine years. In a squad that would win three league championships, in 1892-3, 1893-4 and 1895-6, he made one hundred and eighteen League and Cup appearances and scored forty-nine goals. The “more or less” refers to a brief period he may have gone walkabout and was registered with Sheffield Wednesday in the 1892-93 season, having the previous year got himself involved in that club’s attempts to recruit players in Glasgow. The recruitment episode involved Tom Towie, who also played for Celtic in 1893. The walkabout episode required the intervention of John Glass, and
Willie Maley to bring Madden back. John Glass was a Celtic director and with Brother Walfrid a major figure in the club’s early years. Maley, who had debuted for Celtic in the same game as Madden, would become the club’s first manager. And the reason for it may have had much to do with Madden’s jockeying for the best contract as professionalism in Scotland was finally legitimised and throws considerable light on the financial realities of Scottish football at the time.
With professionalism legalised from 1885 in England but not “permitted” in Scotland until 1893, players, particularly good players, found themselves for eight years in a unique position. They were mobile, able with their boots to move back and forth across the border at will. In Scotland they were “amateur” and therefore had no contracts. They were untied. In England they were essentially free-lance, able to demand good money on short contracts, even game by game. They had power. They could offer their services not to the highest bidder but to the highest bidders, wheeling and dealing. They did not have to play for one club but could turn out for several both north and south of the border. This appears to be exactly what Madden was doing; sometimes for Dumbarton and at other times for Celtic, with the episode with Sheffield Wednesday and those with Gainsborough and Grimsby thrown into the mix. In England he could paid over the table, whereas north of the border, if his services were wanted, it would have to be under, but “paid” he was with Madden said to be one of the best “paid” of all.
Whilst still officially an amateur in 1893 Jake Madden played his first international, as centre forward against Wales in an 8:0 victory and scoring four of the goals himself; one of the few Scots to do so. But he did not become a regular, in spite of the national team struggling somewhat. His second was two years later again against Wales. The result was a 2:2 draw with Madden once more scoring. In addition he played two League Internationals; that is representing the Scottish League against the English league.
Madden left Celtic in 1897 at the age of 32, ostensibly to retire, but he was soon persuaded back by Dundee for a short spell, from where, again for six games he turned out for Tottenham Hotspur, in the year before the arrival of John Cameron, prior to hanging up his boots for good later in the year. It was possibly the Tottenham connection that was to take him to Prague. There a former British professional footballer, named as George Payne, was employed in an agricultural business. It is assumed he and Madden had got to know each other at Spurs and Payne recommended him to Slavia. However, there is a problem. A Payne is listed as playing for Tottenham, but he was Ernest and not George. Perhaps there is a simply error in the first name. Perhaps they were different people but related.
However, there was an alternative and much more romantic version. It is that the club had wanted John Tait Robertson, but he had no interest. Like Madden, although twelve years younger, Robertson was also born in Dumbarton, where Madden seems to have returned to the shipyard as his playing career had finally ended. Word of the offer seems to have been passed on and with the help another Dumbarton-born Rangers player and Scotland international, Findlay Speedie, Madden dressed himself in a Rangers shirt and cap, presenting himself in Prague under false pretences.
Whatever the true story, in February 1905, Madden got the job and proved a revelation. Unlike his reputation as a player he showed himself to be a strict coaching disciplinarian, insisting on non-smoking and limited drinking. He was described thus:
“He was a true pioneer in introducing the training of individuals and group training. He was thorough in ball-work, passing and the use of both feet. He even allowed his players to have a rest day, a day free.”
and:
“He bought into our football new methods, individual and collective training and kicking the ball from different angles. He introduced a day of rest (Games were on Sundays. He would not allow his players to train on Saturdays and Mondays), exercises, interplay, kicking with both feet, diet and after-game discussions.”
Most noticeable in the remarks are the references to the basics of the Scottish game – passing, interplay, ball-work and two-footedness, qualities that Madden was to bring to Middle Europe just as Queen’s Park and
Vale of Leven originally had to Scotland, J.J. Lang, Fergus Suter and their like to England, George Ramsay and the Lindsays to
Aston Villa and
John Harley,
Archie McLean and
Fred Pentland were to Uruguay, Brazil and Spain.
Soon after arriving in Prague Madden met and married a local girl, Frantiska Cechova. They had one son, Harry, a promising footballer, who after what is described as an “unfortunate love affair” may sadly have committed suicide. It is also said that the couple had a daughter but no more is known of her. And even before he arrived Celtic had in 1904, even before the arrival of Madden, sent a touring team to Prague. A second tour took place in 1906 under the management of Willy Maley. Celtic and Slavia were to draw 3:3. A contemporary newspaper report said it was the “well-known opinion” of Madden that Celtic were “the best team on the globe and adjacent planets” and to get a draw against them had seen Slavia “perform the miracle”.
Madden, even if remark is a clever combination of loyalty to his own team and blowing his own trumpet, may well have been right as the progress of Madden's Slavia in local Prague football was less noticeable rapid although enduring. They were first to win the city’s Cup competition only in 1908 but then take it each year until 1912. He personally would also have a notable effect on his adopted country’s international game and in the process precursor the tactical inventiveness that would be the hallmark of Middle-European football for the next fifty years. In 1911 nine of his Slavia squad played in the Bohemian side, essentially a Prague side, that defeated England to become European Amateur Champions, using neither the English, standard 2-3-5 or the
Scottish Cross but, depending on the game circumstances, either 3:4:3 or 4:3:3. As such he was one of the very first to use both three and four at the back.
And it was 1912 that saw the arrival of a second Scot in the Bohemian capital. Ten years younger than Madden Johnny Dick came as a trainer to the city's Jewish club, DFG Prag. He had been born in the village of Eaglesham in Renfrewshire in 1877 and had played for Airdrieonans before in 1898 moving to Woolwich Arsenal. There, first at attacking centre-half and then right-half, in the same half-back line as Willie Garbutt, who went on to coach Genoa, he won promotion to the First Division in 1904 and made two hundred and sixty-six appearances before retirement in 1912, Prague and a managerial impact that would be delayed by the outbreak of the First World War. In the meantime in 1899 he had married Annie Keard, a girl also from Woolwich and in Woolwich, and had four children in London, three of whom seemed to have survived, and one more in Prague in 1914, before he left travelling to Belgium and perhaps home. Then after the War in 1919 back in Prague he would be appointed manager of Slavia's great rival, Sparta, winning the by-then Czech championship in his first year, as Jake Madden, having been interned for a time in Austria and returning to Prague to win the wartime league in 1915 on the other side of the river, on the other side of the city began the rebuilding of his club, winning the restarted Bohemian league in 1918 and again in 1924.
On Czechoslovak independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in May 1922 a Celtic team once more under Willie Maley travelled to Prague, playing Slavia and losing, 3:2. It was said to have been a brutal, kicking game with the visiting Glaswegians reduced to nine men because of dismissals but it was a considerable feather in the Madden cap. After independence Madden and Slavia would win the professional Czech First League title in its inaugural year in 1925, and again in 1929 and 1930. But he would not be the first post-war Scottish title winner in Prague, nor might he have been as successful had John Dick remained at Sparta. Dick would win the Bohemian championship in each year from 1919 until 1922, his team, under him known as Iron Sparta. He, and Annie, would have a further daughter in Prague before moving to manage back in Belgium. There he stayed from 1923 for six years at Beershot by Antwerp, winning the Belgian title in four of them and being runner-up in the other two, before returning once more to Prague. Again at Sparta he managed for a further five years, finishing as runner-up in the Mitropa Cup in 1930 and a further championship in 1932, before at the age of 55 seemingly disappearing. In fact he returned to Britain to have unsuccessful treatment for a cancer that was clearly advanced, dying in Erith in Kent in September that year.
Jake Madden, however, was never tempted away from the Bohemian capital. In spite of apparently never learning to speak Czech fluently, using a curious mixture of English, German and Czech, he had found a club and football, indeed a country that suited him; one where he was highly influential domestically and his place at international level is both remarkable and controversial. It was his team that went to the 1920 Olympics in Belgium, reaching the final to be beaten in extraordinary circumstances by the hosts. The Czechs protested, having walked off the pitch during the game, unhappy with probable justification at the refereeing. The referee was English. The game was abandoned but the Czechs were disqualified, not just from the game but also from the tournament, so did not even receive a silver medal. In 1924 he was said to have been amongst the Czech coaches at the Paris Olympics. At the Rome World Cup in 1934, after he had officially retired but still coaching, towards the end from a wheelchair with a pointing stick and called “Grandpa” by the players, the Czechoslovak squad reached the final again against the hosts. Eight Slavia players were in the team that day; a team that had en-route already beaten Switzerland and Germany. Antonin Puc of Slavia scored the Czechoslovak goal, as his team held the lead for 10 minutes late in the second half but they were to lose in extra time in a match that is again widely thought to have been fixed; on the express orders of Mussolini.
At club level, as well as Celtic, Madden’s team would over the years take on and beat Torino, Bayern Munich, the Croatian national team, Aberdeen, Galatasaray, Athletic Bilbao and Inter-Milan amongst others. In 1929, the year before Sparta, Slavia reached the final of the Mitropa Cup, a forerunner of today’s Champions League, having beaten Juventus coached by another wandering Scot, Billy Aitken, but was well beaten by Ujpest of Hungary. In 1932, with Madden having officially retired in 1930 but still coaching, Slavia this time reached the semi-final of the same cup. Played over two legs they again faced Juventus, winning 4:0 in Prague. In the return leg in Turin they were soon 2:0 down, started time-wasting and the crowd reacted. Slavia’s goalkeeper was hit by a stone, seriously injured and his team walked off. The result was that both teams were expelled from the competition and the cup awarded to the winner of the other semi-final, Bologna. Then in 1938 Slavia, still said to be being coached unofficially by Madden, finally won the penultimate Mitropa Cup before the Second World War; this time beating the Hungarian opposition in the form of Ferencvaros.
During the Second World War, Jake Madden, now in his mid-seventies, remained in Prague throughout. He died, aged 83, in 1948 after a long illness. His body was carried to the city’s Olsanske cemetery draped in Slavia shirts, where his grave continues to be honoured annually. In addition, so highly is he still thought of, an eight-feet-high photograph of him, alongside three of the club’s greatest players, is imprinted on the wall of the reception of Slavia’s new stadium.