LET me take you back to when life was black and white. Not just the Mariners kit, but even many of the films at the local cinemas all over Grimsby. When trawlers black smoke hung over the entrance to the Humber, short-trousered lads played on bomb-sites, and a game at Blundell Park against local rivals Lincoln would fetch in well over 20,000 fans to a Blundell Park where smoke from 15,000 Woodbines mingled with steam from the engines on the line to Cleethorpes behind the Main Stand.

Up in the Boardroom was one Mr Arthur Drewry. A man of whom, the Glasgow Herald said "Few people have done as much for the game as Mr Drewry in post-war years…."

In later years he was Chairman of the Football Association, President of the English League, and unbelievably President of FIFA, the very pinnacle of football!

He received a CBE in 1953 for his services to football, and Luxembourg awarded him the Chevalier de la Couronne de Chene.

But our story this week is of his role as THE England selector for the last time England played the USA in the World Cup Finals ….

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Arthur, along with Stanley Rous had negotiated to get England into the World Cup competition. It had been held since 1930, but England were considered the Kings of Football, and hadn't really seen the point in having to go through the motions of proving it in such a competition. What's more, they regularly played the Home International Championship with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, a fiercely contested series of matches each year, and viewed as rather more important than playing in one where other lesser countries were included.

During the build up to the World Cup in Brazil, England arranged an alternative trip to Canada, and that is where the world's best footballer of the time - Stanley Matthews - was when the competition kicked off. Manchester United had also tried to withdraw their players from the team so that they could play some matches in the USA (ironically!)

Our Arthur was the only representative of the FA in Brazil at the time, and so the responsibility for team selection rested with him, and not with the Manager Walter Winterbottom. The England set up was confident of victory despite some of their best players being elsewhere with the overall betting being England to win the entire competition at 3-1, (the USA were 500-1).

Arthur's first choice of team played Chile, and had an unconvincing 2-0 win, to add to their post war record of won 24, drawn 3 lost 4.

Stanley Matthews was sent for and he was flown down from Canada to join the squad.

This posed a bit of a problem for Arthur - should he stick with a winning team, or should he put Matthews in? In the event he decided that he'd allow the same eleven to play again, leaving Matthews to watch from the stands (no subs in those days!)

The team was (2-3-5 formation)

Bert Williams
Alf Ramsey, John Aston,
Laurie Hughes, Billy Wright, Jimmy Dickinson,
Wilf Mannion, Tom Finney, Jimmy Mullen, Stan Mortensen, Roy Bentley

England wore blue shirts.

The match kicked off, and as expected, England overwhelmed the US team. Shots peppered in on goal right from the off. They either narrowly missed the target, hit the woodwork, or were brilliantly saved by Borghi in the US goal. It continued as almost one way traffic, until in the 37th minute when a US hopeful long shot hit a diving Gaetjens on the back and bounced past Bert Williams and into the net!

The second half saw England dictate the game in the same fashion as the first. Alf Ramsey (the future winning Manager of England's World Cup in 1966) had a goal disallowed, and, despite a penalty appeal when Stan Mortensen was upended on the edge of the box (which was turned down and a free kick awarded to England), the Kings of Football couldn't get back on level terms.

English newspaper headlines gave the score as 10-0 to England because they assumed that there was a misprint in the wires. Fortunately in one sense, England's cricketers suffered their first ever defeat to the West Indies on the same day, so most English newspapers put that as the lead story!

England lost their final game in that round of games, and came home.

It was perhaps the most shocking England defeat ever, though a 6-3 defeat to Hungary in 1953 - the first time a non-British team had beaten England in England in 90 years of international football, ran it close for the biggest shock.

And that was our Arthur's part in England's only game v the USA in the World Cup, before 2010.

Arthur became President of FIFA from 1965 to 1961. The full list is …

Robert Guerin (France) 1904-6
Daniel Woolfall (England) 1906-1918
Jules Rimet (France) 1921-1954
Rodolphe Seeldrayers (Belgium) 1954-1955
Arthur Drewry (Grimsby, England) 1955-1961
Stanley Rous (England) 1961-1974
Joao Havelange (Brazil) 1974-1998
Sepp Blatter (Switzerland) 1998 onwards

In 1958 Arthur opened the World Cup in Sweden. Also there - to become the only GTFC player to play in the World Cup Finals, was Johnny Scott, Town's outside right, playing at inside forward for Northern Ireland.

Arthur died in a Grimsby hospital in March 1961, after a serious operation the year before. A press report said of him: "Few people have done as much for the game as Mr Drewry in post-war years."

Walter Winterbottom, the England team manager stated, "He was a charming man."

Arthur Drewry - one of Grimsby Town's finest!

Kirky