![]() Ahead of the United States clash at Belo Horizonte, Winterbottom’s all-stars remained confident, the world’s media installing the competition late-comers as runaway favourites.Ĭhelsea’s skipper Bentley was part of an England football team on a far more serious mission than finding the odd boundary on a mountain cricket ground. A cricket match against ex-pats in the birthplace of samba did not seem out of place.Įngland’s overcoming of Chile put them second behind Spain, who had beaten a spirited but limited USA 3-1. ![]() Some Geordies fondly recalled his best moments at St James’ Park and the comforts of home extended to food produced for an English palate, alongside a hospital, church, cinema and freemason’s lodge. ![]() The focus of the 5,000-strong community there was the world’s oldest continuously worked goldmine, British-owned for 120 years and a honeypot for thousands of migrant excavators and their families.īentley felt especially at home there as the vast majority hailed from the Devon and Cornwall, close to his Bristol birthplace, or Newcastle, where he had plied his trade before switching to Stamford Bridge two years earlier. Having beaten Chile 2-0 in their 1950 World Cup opener at the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, team manager Walter Winterbottom’s England squad had travelled 16 hours by train, then 16 precipitous miles by coach to their high-altitude Morro Velho headquarters ahead of match two, a first-ever meeting with the USA.
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