▲ Tan Jiangbai and son Tan Yonglin
The earliest national football team in history should be traced back to the first Far Eastern Games in 1913.
In 1910, Elwood S. Brown, an officer in the sports department of the YMCA of Chicago, was sent to work in the Philippines, where he led the founding of the Philippine Sports Association and became its president. In 1911, the Philippine Sports Association invited Chinese and Japanese athletes to participate in carnival sports competitions, and this exchange was the inspiration for the Later Far East Games in which China, Japan and the Philippines participated.
In February 1913, the First Far East Games were held, and the National Association of the Chinese YMCA, which was responsible for organizing the selection of domestic athletes, decided that the Guangdong team, the champion of the first sports league of the national school division team in 1910, would represent China in football projects. As a result, the 11 players who represented the national football team in the first Far East Games, except for one who played for Guangzhou Nanwu Public School (now Nanwu Middle School), the other 10 were from China's first Chinese sports organization: the Hong Kong South China Football Association. Nanhua was formerly known as the Chinese Football Club established in the fall of 1904 and renamed Nanhua in 1910. In the inaugural tournament, the national enough to lose 1-3 to the Philippines, including the Britons, Spaniards and Americans.
"Ball King" Lee Hye-tong began to participate in the Fifth Far East Games in 1923, when he was not yet 18 years old, and had just been promoted from the South China B Group B team (equivalent to the South China third team) to the B group A team (South China second team), was selected as a potential rising star, and scored a goal against the Philippines, helping the national football team win 3-0. In the second game against Japan, the national football team swept 5-0, achieving four consecutive football championships at the Far East Games.
At that time, Chinese football had almost no opponents in Asia, from the second to the tenth Far East Games, the national football team achieved nine consecutive championships, and the players were mainly Cantonese. Tan Yonglin's father, Tan Jiangbai, whose ancestral home is Xinhui, Guangdong, but was born and raised in Guangzhou, he was known as the "Four Horsemen" together with Ye Beihua, Li Tiansheng and Feng Jingxiang, because although the four of them were the main players of the Hong Kong South China Football Team, they served as patrol officers in the Guangzhou Police Department and organized police football teams, often playing with Lingnan University team, Sun Yat-sen University team and other teams. Due to the relationship between their positions, when there is a game, the four people each drive a red motorcycle to the scene, and guangzhou fans call it the "Four Horsemen".
How powerful was the Guangzhou police force at that time? It can be compared to the Guangzhou Evergrande team at that time. In fact, the Guangzhou Police Department football team in the 1930s gathered Huang Jiliang, Li Tiansheng, Tan Jiangbai, Feng Jingxiang, Ye Beihua, Yang Shuiyi, Zhuo Shijin and other international footballers, and they were all legitimate policemen.
▲ In the 1936 Olympic Games, the national football team played against the British team. The first one on the right in the back row is Tan Jiangbai.
Tan Jiangbai is good at head balls, nicknamed "copperhead" on the court, head kung fu even Li Huitang admires, Li Huitang career goals said more than 1800, but the head of the goal is countless, so he wrote in his own "Ball Garden Vegetable Root Collection" wrote: "If I have Jiang Bai Brother's top kung fu, then I am afraid I will have a much greater achievement than now!" ”
At the 10th Far East Games, Tan Jiangbai scored goals in three games, including the last match against the Japanese national team and the championship competition, and the Chinese team won three consecutive victories to achieve the ninth consecutive championship of the Far East Games! When reporting on this match, the "Declaration" said: "Tan Jiangbai is the hero of our team, and in the first half of the consecutive haircuts, the performance is the most satisfactory, and Li Huitang has not seen the characteristics." The Japanese team's skills are mediocre, far inferior to mine, but its long strength and fighting spirit are beyond the reach of other countries. ”
In 1936, the Sports Association organized a football team to participate in the Berlin Olympic Games, Li Huitang was the captain, and in the list of 22 players, Tan Jiangbai and other "four horsemen" were listed, with a total of 7 Guangdong players, and Guangdong Zai supported half of the Chinese football that year.
Because of insufficient funds, the national football team first set off from Shanghai by French mail ship to Saigon, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and later to Myanmar and India. In more than two months, he has played 24 matches in six regions, achieving an unbeaten record of 21 wins and 3 draws. In this way, the Chinese team not only trained the team, but also received a considerable share of tickets to make up for the funds.
It should be mentioned that at that time, the national football team played friendly matches in many places in the Dutch East Indies (independence in 1945, renamed the Republic of Indonesia) and did not lose. Just two years later, in the 1938 World Cup, only two Asian teams signed up, namely the Dutch East Indies and Japan, and the Japanese team withdrew, making the Dutch East Indies the first Asian team in history to qualify for the finals. The Dutch East Indies played just one game in that World Cup, was swept 6-0 by Hungary, and then went home.
▲ In the 1938 World Cup, when the Dutch East Indies appeared, the goalkeeper took a doll and hung it on the net.
In the 1936 Olympic Football Tournament, 16 teams competed, and the first round was a match,000 opponents of the national football team were Britain. On the FIFA official website today, you can still find the match report of this battle, the national enough WM-style deployment, Bao Jiaping guarded the dragon gate, right guard Li Tiansheng, left guard Tan Jiangbai, right center back Xu Yahui, right center back Huang Meishun, left center back Chen Zhenhe, right wing Cao Guicheng, right auxiliary Feng Jingxiang, center li Huitang, left auxiliary Sun Jinshun, left wing Ye Beihua.
The national football team conceded two goals in the 55th and 65th minutes, lost 0-2, and was eliminated. After the End of the Olympic Journey, the national football team played a touring friendly in Europe, drawing 2-2 with The Red Star in Paris and visiting The Highbury, the home of Arsenal at the time.
▲ The national football players participating in the 1936 Olympic Games were group photo, li Huitang and Tan Yonglin's father Tan Jiangbai were among them.
In 1937, Tan Jiangbai was severely suspended for a year for breaking the right foot of the "fast horse" Bu Li of the Chinese and Western United teams at the Governor's Cup. During the ban, the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression broke out in full swing, Tan Jiangbai retired from military service and went to The National Disaster, in July 1938 Tan Jiangbai went to Yunnan as a lieutenant in the army, serving as the leader of the 12th Transport Brigade of overseas Chinese, responsible for transporting anti-Japanese materials on the Burma Road.
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Tan Jiangbai was invited by Hu Hao, the owner of Sing Tao in the Hong Kong First Division, to return to Hong Kong football, but because of his advanced age, after two years of three teams, in the summer of 1948, the 37-year-old Tan Jiangbai officially retired.
▲Tan Jiangbai
In 2003, Tam won the "Honorary Award in Football" at the 26th Hong Kong Football Star Awards and the Hong Kong Football Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004. In March 2006, tan Jiangbai, who was 95 years old, passed away.
Influenced by his father, Tam Wing Lin has loved football since he was a child, and he once recalled:
When I was a child, my father used to drag my little hands shopping and tell me stories that I didn't understand—stories such as that it would take half a year to get to Germany and participate in sports football matches. I don't like to hear these stories very much, and I will continue to listen to them until he buys me a cup of ice cream, otherwise I will have him to sleep in his arms. When I grew up, I learned that my father was a very good Chinese football player when he was young, and he once represented the Chinese team in the Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany, in 1936. Unfortunately, their team met the British team in the first game and was eliminated 0-2. Nevertheless, they won the support of the people. Especially the local overseas Chinese along the way, they are eager to contribute money to let them successfully reach the German competition. Therefore, in 2002, when the Chinese football team reached the final of the World Cup, my father was in front of the TV every day, waiting for the Chinese team to play, and when he saw the Chinese team attacking the opponent's penalty area, he would shout "Shoot!" "He looks at the degree of dedication to the ball, like he is the leader of the Chinese football team.
But he said, "My dad is very good at playing, but he can't come to me." When he first started playing football, Tan Jiangbai also came to cheer for Tan Yonglin. Later, he really couldn't watch it, no matter how Tan Yonglin mobilized him, Tan Jiangbai refused to watch Tan Yonglin's game again, Tan Yonglin smiled and said: "Probably he thinks I am in front of him." ”
Later, Tam Wing Lin initiated the organization of the Hong Kong Star Football Team as the captain, and he laughed at himself: "Although I did not officially get the true biography of my father, I still have a lot of football talent inherited from my father." In football, I didn't have a juvenile ambition, just a relatively late bloomer. ”