Fred Pentland - Prisoner in Germany

Prisoner in Germany

After retiring as a player, Pentland went to Berlin in 1914 to take charge of the German Olympic football team. However within a few months, the First World War broke out and he was subsequently interned at Ruhleben, a civilian detention camp in the Spandau district of Berlin. The camp contained between 4,000 and 5,500 prisoners. Gradually a mini-society evolved and football became a popular activity. Cup and league competitions were organised and as many as 1,000 attended the bigger games. Pentland was prominent in organising and playing football within the camp. He was chairman of the Ruhleben Football Association and regularly contributed to football articles in the camp magazine.

Pentland was one of several former professional footballers at Ruhleben. Others included former club team mates and fellow England internationals, Samuel Wolstenholme and Steve Bloomer, veteran England international Fred Spiksley, a Scotland international, John Cameron, a German international Edwin Dutton, and John Brearley, once of Everton and Tottenham Hotspur. On 2 May 1915 an England XI featuring Pentland, Wolstenholme, Brearley and Bloomer played a World XI captained by Cameron. Towards the end of the war an international triangular tournament called the Coupe de Allies, featuring a British XI, a French XI and a Belgium XI, was organised. Pentland remained in the camp until the end of the war and then returned to England. While recuperating in the West Country he met and later married his nurse, a war widow working as a VAD.