Probably best remembered as the goalkeeper who played on for 15 minutes of an FA Cup final after suffering a broken neck but obituaries and remembrances written after his recent passing sparked an interest for me to learn more of the remarkable life of Bert Trautmann. This is truly an amazing story of how a young German boy was indoctrinated into the Nazi way of life through his love and aptitude for sports. From life in the Hitler Youth to volunteering before being conscripted so he could pursue his unrequited dream of being a pilot. Fought on both the Eastern and Western Fronts in WWII first as a radio operator in the Luftwaffe and then as a paratrooper. How he was captured, first by Americans and then the British, became a POW and found a new way of life in England. Playing football, first in the camps and then for local club side St Helens before his performances attracted interest from scouts of all the big clubs of the time and then signing for Manchester City and all the furore that brought with it (Manchester had a large Jewish community who were quite vocal in their disapproval of City's latest acquisition). His first game in London where the bomb damage was still highly evident and despite initial hatred from local fans how he ended the match receiving a standing ovation from the other players and all the fans in the ground when he left the field. The book concludes with the aforementioned FA Cup final and touching lightly on his work fostering Anglo-German relations with the Bert Trautmann Foundation for which he was awarded an OBE. I doubt many people have been awarded an Iron Cross and then gone on to be given one of those.

The author has produced some documentaries for the BBC and that style is quite prevalent in this book. It doesn't delve too deeply on his life as a footballer, concentrating more on his formative years and what it was like for a fairly typical boy growing up in the times between the wars and during his life as a soldier. It doesn't gloss over the faults in his character and how his hot temper would often land him in serious trouble or how he left a woman carrying his child leaving only a letter saying that he couldn't marry her. They were later reconciled as he was with the daughter that she bore him. I've never been a keen student of history but I found this account fascinating and I learnt a lot about how life was in those days. It was also interesting to see things from a German's perspective. I wouldn't have minded a bit more detail on his actual playing career or his life after he finally hung up his gloves to be included but this is a book that I'm definitely glad I read. ( )