Match Summary

England Team

Rest of Europe Team

     A football match between England and the rest of the European countries next October is to be an attraction staged as part of the 75th anniversary celebrations of the Football Association. England will be opposed to a representative team drawn from countries in membership with the International Football Federation-the ruling body of soccer on the Continent. Austrian, German, Italian, French, Hungarian, Belgian, Dutch and Czechoslovakian players are among those eligible for such a side. - Saturday, 30 April 1938

     The Football Association have made elaborate plans to celebrate their seventy-fifth anniversary next Wednesday, the day on which England oppose the Rest of Europe at Arsenal Stadium. The match will be followed in the evening by a banquet at the Holborn Restaurant.  The guests will number well over 400 and over thirty famous internationals of the past will be present.
     Mr. W. Ogilvie, Director-General of the B.B.C., will also be there, with Sir Frederick Wall, former secretary of the F.A., Lord Aberdare, Lord Hampden, Lord Portal, Major J.J. Astor, Commander J.B. Adams, Lord Mottistone, Wing Commander Sir Louis Greig, Lord Decies, Sir Henry Pelham, Lord Granard, Sir Noel Curtis Bennett, Mr. Justice Charles, Sir George Broadbridge, the Lord Bishop of Buckingham, and Lord Essendon. Contemporary bodies will be represented by Lord Burghley (A.A.A.), E.R.T. Holmes (M.C.C.), G.F. Hutchins (Rugby League), and E.A. Hunter (British Olympic Association).
     When Mr. W. Pickford, president of the F.A., first joined the council 50 years ago there were hardly 1,000 clubs in England; today the F.A. control something like 30,000 clubs, three-quarters of a million amateur players, and 5,000 professionals. - Saturday, 22 October 1938

     Arsenal F.C. announce that all 7s. 6d. seats for the England v. Rest of Europe match at Highbury tomorrow have been sold. Tickets are still available at 10s. 6d. and one guinea. The price of admission will be 2s. - Monday, 24 October 1938

England beat the Rest of Europe by three goals to none at Highbury yesterday in the match which celebrated the 75th anniversary of the F.A., and the figures underestimate the winner's superiority...

...England, however, forced the first corner, and, after 20 minutes, scored the first goal. All through the game Matthews's foot-work was rather too good for Kitzinger, and, although Matthews occasionally attempted too much, he did slip the ball inside to give Hall a number of delectable passes. From this particular pass, Hall shot high and hard into the far corner of the net...

...as a result of the corner, England got their second goal. Matthews's kick was partially cleared, but the ball came back to Lawton, who had a difficult match but who was able to beat Olivieri from close range...

England got a third goal after nearly half-an-hour's play, when Goulden, who had just had a grand shot saved grandly by Olivieri at the expense of a corner, got in another drive, which, this time, beat the best effort that even Olivieri could make. - The Times - Thursday 27th October, 1938

Division Three (South) Cup first round match played on 26 October 1938:

READING 5-1 WATFORD
Tait, Smallwood 2, 1 pen., McPhee 2 (Evans)
801 (Elm Park, Reading)

An emphatic victory in Reading's first defence of the trophy which they had only won, two weeks earlier, in the previous season's delayed final, and they were not actually presented with the trophy until after the victory against Watford. The sparse crowd was another indication that this competition, along with its northern equivalent, lacked the public's imagination. Teams were fielding reserve players and this would be the third year in succession that the final would be held over until the following season, but the war ensured that it was never played. It was revived for one more season, immediately after the war.

IN OTHER NEWS...

It was on 25 October 1938 that 28-year-old Leslie Clements murdered his 25-year-old wife, Evelyn, in bed in Shepherd's Bush, the morning after telling him that their marriage was over. When she accidentally called him by her lover's name, Felix, he lost his temper and beat her to death. Two months later, he was sentenced to death, but because of his extreme provocation, he was reprieved and his sentence commuted to life imprisonment.

Source Notes

TheFA.com
Original newspaper reports
Rothmans Yearbooks
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CG