War Years
George Smith enlisted in the APTC on 3 November 1939; listing his professions as footballer and PT Instructor. He spent much of the early period of the Second World War as a PT instructor at Aldershot as well as on troop ships. During this period, he continued to represent Charlton Athletic as well as being a wartime playing guest for Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea among others.
On 15 April 1944, he played in Charlton’s 3–1 win against Chelsea in the Football League South War Cup Final in front of a crowd of 85,000 at Wembley. In that 1944 final, the players received National Savings Certificates instead of medals. U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was presented to the teams and afterwards was quoted as saying, “I started cheering for the Blues but after the Reds took the lead, well I had to cheer for them instead.”
He was discharged from Victoria Barracks, Windsor, at the rank of sergeant major, with exemplary military conduct on 8 December 1945. His discharge papers read 'an excellent physical training instructor and an international footballer: an honest, sober and trustworthy man with a most cheerful disposition'.
Read more about this topic: George Smith (footballer Born 1915)
Famous quotes containing the words war and/or years:
“He all their ammunition
And feats of war defeats
With plain heroic magnitude of mind
And celestial vigour armed;”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“There is hardly any contact more depressing to a young ardent creature than that of a mind in which years full of knowledge seem to have issued in a blank absence of interest or sympathy.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)