What you are about to read, is one of the most incredible and epic football stories ever told – and it’s all true. The story of the Islington Corinthians is one of an amateur football team comprised of tradesmen, students, railway workers, teachers and office workers temporarily abandoning their lives in North London for 8 months and undertaking an insanely ambitious 35,000 mile, 95 game, round-the-world tour featuring encounters with cobras, crocodiles, elephants, tigers and leopards, opium den raids, car crashes, meeting royalty, tropical diseases, visiting the pyramids, Hollywood glamour, getting arrested, real life shootouts, cocaine and war.

The Islington Corinthians were founded in 1932 by Tom Smith, a local North London Rotarian, in order to raise money for local charities. A member of the Metropolitan Midweek League, they were an amateur team of great quality, frequently giving good accounts of themselves against the reserve teams of nearby Arsenal, Fulham and Chelsea, often beating them. In 1936, the Chinese national Olympic team visited London as part of their own immense tour, playing a match against Islington Corinthians at Highbury on August 31 1936. Corinthians won 3-2, and after the final whistle, the Chinese jokingly suggested that the IC’s, as they were known, should travel to China for a rematch. Even though this was a just joke, it got Tom Smith thinking. Their Thursday night kickabouts were hardly high-profile, and perhaps a world tour, like that of the Chinese team but going in the opposite direction, would work wonders in spreading the love of football and Corinthian spirit across the globe. It was one of the craziest schemes ever attempted by a football club, but within a week, Smith miraculously had FA approval for a world tour.

 

The plan was to start in the Netherlands, stop off in Switzerland, head down to Egypt, then do a circuit around India and the countries now known as Myanmar, Bangladesh and Pakistan, followed by a month long stay in Singapore and Malaysia, then on to Vietnam, Hong Kong, the Philippines, China and Japan before crossing the pacific to Hawaii and California, then working their way across Canada before sailing home. The estimated cost of all this? A cool £12,000 (£800,000 in today’s currency). That this would be covered by gate takings was a massive gamble for an amateur team playing against unknown opponents in far-flung venues, and the logistics of travelling these kinds of distances in the 1930’s were extremely complicated. Air travel was prohibitively expensive, so the entire undertaking would have to be done by land and sea. As if things weren’t complicated enough, the threat of Nazi Germany loomed over Europe, plus two of the tours main destinations, China and Japan, were already at war with each other.

 

Regardless, Smith arranged fixtures, booked travel and accommodation and picked a playing squad as well as recruiting an experienced manager, former Spurs player and Real Sociedad boss Harry Lowe. The tour departed from Liverpool Street Station in London on October 4, 1937 and arrived in the Hague, Holland the next day, where the IC’s opened their tour with a scoreless draw against VUC. They played three games in as many days, with a 2-0 win over FC Haarlem and finishing off their stay in Holland by drawing against DWV. Two games in Switzerland followed, where Corinthians attained a win and a loss. Then it was time to make the long journey to Egypt where the team was greeted by huge crowds that had to be held back by local police. They visited the pyramids and met King Farouk I who watched them play a Cairo XI. The IC’s won three games and lost one in a land of bad driving, mosquitoes, unfamiliar food and as one player put it “filth, stench, dust and disease alongside the opulence and high living of hotels and clubs.” Several of their players had fallen ill, one so badly he was sent home, two with dengue fever. After another player was almost killed in a car crash that wrote off the taxi he was travelling in, the team was keen to head to their next destination: India.

 

This nation at the time was still ruled by the British Raj and included a huge area that encompassed modern day Bangladesh and Pakistan. Leaving Egypt through the Suez Canal, the Corinthians travelled the length and breadth of what was then British India by train, playing 32 matches in 22 locations. They first arrived in Bombay on November 11, swapped their club blazers for safari suits, and embarked upon a 1,200 mile trip to Calcutta which took 2 days and nights to complete. Within hours of arriving, the IC’s lined up against reigning Indian champions Mohammedan SC. 50,000 fans watched the sides play out a 0-0 draw, but Islington soon started notching up the victories. Out of 32 games played in India, they won 27 and lost just the one. Several of their opposition teams played barefoot, and the Sikh teams played in turbans and beards, which was an exotic sight for a group of 1930’s North Londoners. The tours biggest attendance was 77,000 in Chittagong, and while in India, the players were invited to a luncheon at the Great Eastern Hotel where they sampled the famous mutton korma curry and met two of Indian footballs pioneers: the Maharajah of Santosh and Pankaj Gupta. They also rode around on elephants and slept in jungle camps with only mosquito netting between them and surrounding tigers. One player found a dead cobra in his bed, and the teams manager contracted malaria.

 

Once, when their bus broke down, they were forced to swim across a crocodile infested river in their football kits. On another occasion, while travelling in a bus through the notorious Khyber Pass, the driver slammed on the brakes and asked if anyone had heard a shot. This mountain range between Afghanistan and Pakistan was a dangerous place patrolled by warring tribesmen. They were suddenly surrounded by dozens of warriors who used rifles to fire upon their bus multiple times, forcing the players to dive for cover, crawling under the bus and hiding behind rocks. The gun-toting tribesmen closed in on the terrified team. Was this the end of the road for these footballing Phileas Foggs? The terrified team was marched at gunpoint to a nearby fort – where they were met by laughing British soldiers. The whole ambush had been a joke organised by the British Army – bullets and all. In fact, the warring factions had declared a truce just to watch Corinthians play.  

 

After their Indian exploits, the club arrived in Penang on the 9th of January. Thrilling wins over Malacca XI (6-0) and the Singapore national team (2-3 after coming back from 2-0 down) were highlights. They were hosted by the Sultan of Johore who invited the players to partake in tea and cigars which, unbeknownst to them, had been dipped in cocaine, paralysing the players lips and faces. Whilst still under the effects of the drug, they thrashed Johore 7-1. The IC’s won 14 of 16 matches in the Malayan leg of the tour and scored 51 goals. It was a much more enjoyable part of the tour than Egypt or India, however there were still dangers, such as when the teams bus was chased by a leopard, which easily caught up and leapt onto the bonnet, eyeing the players off hungrily.

 

Their games in Vietnam and Hong Kong yielded 7 wins and 2 draws. One of these was played in Macau, where the team stayed in a gruesome hotel that was part-casino, part-brothel and part-opium den. Before the kick off, Smith found two Corinthians players lounging on the floor of one of the hotels rooms, dressed in kimonos and sucking on opium pipes. Both players were sent home. In Hong Kong, the team was invited to accompany the local police on an opium den raid. They arrived at what looked like a Chinese restaurant, and the police asked the players to cover the back of the building while they entered the front. Soon after the raid began, a scoundrel dressed only in underwear leapt from a rear window straight into the arms of the IC’s Bill Whittaker, who bundled the man into a waiting police van. Once the building had been cleared of criminals the players were invited to walk through and were shown boxes of opium and cocaine.

 

By this time it was March 1938, five months since the tour began, and the team travelled to the Philippines beginning an 8 match stay in Manila with a 9-0 win. Then, finally, it was off to the nation that had given birth to the idea of the tour in the first place – China. Unfortunately by then, the world was a very different place. As the teams boat sailed into Shanghai harbour, surrounded by Chinese junks, Japanese seaplanes swooped all around. Luckily, the pilots saw the big Union Jack painted on the bridge, and no bombs were dropped. When they arrived in Shanghai, they found a city bombed into submission, and were greeted by the sight of heavily armed, and angry looking, Japanese militiamen. The Corinthians had found themselves in the middle of one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history.

 

By the time the IC’s arrived, Japan had launched a full scale war on China, and some of its bloodiest battles had very recently taken place in Manchuria and Shanghai, including the horrific “Rape of Nanking”. On top of that, a heavy anti-British sediment permeated throughout. In this environment, it’s unbelievable that they were able to play any football at all, but their match went ahead, and they lost 3-0 to a Shanghai All-Star team. Even though the city was under curfew, and they were supposed to leave for Japan early the next day, some members of the team decided to visit a nightclub, where they were entertained by “an international selection of beautiful girls”. On leaving the club around 2am, the players were arrested for breaking the curfew. Thanks to some fast talking, they managed to convince the Japanese military police that they were on their way to Japan for a football tournament, and they were escorted to their ship just in time to set sail.

 

By now, the players were exhausted and, despite being the first English team to ever play in Japan, their results there were mixed. They lost 4-0 at Meiji Shrine Stadium to an All-Kanto XI, and years later, Corinthians player Sherwood bumped into one of the Japanese players again – as a PoW camp guard while Sherwood was a prisoner of war. Sailing away from the treacherous situation in Asia, the team crossed the Pacific to the much calmer Hawaiian Islands, before heading to the United States, defeating San Francisco and Los Angeles All Star teams, and playing out a scoreless game against Douglas Aircraft SC. While in LA, the team visited movie sets and rubbed shoulders and were photographed with movie stars including David Niven, Charles Farrell, Joan Woodbury and Heather Angel, and were hosted by Victor McLagen in his nightclub. Then it was north for the Canadian leg with games in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec. The tours final match was played on May 27, 1938 – the IC’s beating Montreal 7-2. Leaving Canada the next day, they arrived back in Southampton, England on June 5.

 

Their luggage was covered with colourful stickers collected over their adventure from the many exotic destinations they visited. The FA’s president met the team at the dock, and said, “We were not sure about you when you left, but now you have memories which will live with you all your days. You have put association football on the map of the world”. Over the entire tour, the Islington Corinthians played 95 matches, won 65 of these, drew 22 and lost only 8. A second world tour was in the planning but sadly, the club did not survive World War II and they wound up in 1940.

 
The greatest feature of Islington Corinthians world tour was not the length of it or their performance but the fact that instead of financial reasons it was motivated by the pure philanthropic intention of spreading the game where no English teams had set their foot before. For this, Smith and his team deserve to be lauded.

Achievements: Tour win/loss record: 95 W 22 D 8 L

Star Player: Johnny Sherwood, nickname: Lucky Johnny

Lucky Johnny was his nickname, and for very good reason. When he joined the Corinthians on their global jaunt, he had notched up appearances for Reading FC, he was married to a beauty queen and he was an outside chance for a spot on the England national team – Johnny Sherwood was on the rise. He had an extremely successful tour with the side, racking up 70 goals. A few months after their return however, instead of continuing a promising football career, Sherwood was drafted in the British Army and found himself in the Eastern Theatre of WWII. When the British surrended at Singapore, Sherwood was captured by Japanese soldiers and thrown into a hellish Japanese PoW camp, Changi Prison. He suffered constant torture and beatings from the sadistic Japanese guards, as well as a lack of food and water. Disease was rife and Sherwood had to watch many men have limbs amputed due to gangrene. While there, a Japanese guard questioned Sherwood about his life before the war, to which he replied that he had been on a world tour with a team called the Islington Corinthians and that he had been to Japan where he played a team called the Kanto XI and he shook hands with General Hideki Tojo. To his surpise, the guard beamed and revealed that he was a player on the Kanto team and that General Tojo was now the Prime Minister of Japan. From then on, Sherwood received slightly better treatment in the camp, but was nevertheless reduced to a walking, breathing skeleton. Despite his condition, Sherwood was put to work on building the Burma Siam Railways, also known as the “Death Railways”, which caused an estimated 90,000 deaths. Somehow, Sherwood survived the work camp and a severe bout of malaria only to be herded with 900 other prisoners onto a “hell ship” on its way to Japan. It was a perilous journey, with American submarines lurking in the South China Sea to intercept such Japanese cargo vessels. Sure enough, the ship was struck by two torpedoes and began to sink. Luckily for Sherwood, he was up on deck when the torpedoes hit, but the 900 odd other god forsaken souls in the cargo hold were not so fortunate. Sherwood ran to the hatch and looked down to see the men in anguish and terror as they tried in vain to grab hold of a ladder to escape. Sherwood could do nothing to help them, and he jumped into the ocean as the ship sunk below the waves, swimming away as fast as he could so as not to get sucked into the undertow. He managed to grab hold of a piece of driftwood and floated there on the verge of death for 17 hours, only to be picked up by a Japanese whaling ship and taken to Japan. There he was imprisoned in Nagasaki Bay for 11 months. One day, he woke up only to find that the guards had gone. As a procession of American B-29 bombers flew over head, flyers rained down with the words, “The Imperial Japanese Army has unconditionally surrendered.” It was then that Sherwood heard an immense grumble, and as he looked out across the bay towards the city of Nagasaki, he witnessed an immense fast-growing black cloud that spiralled upwards and outwards turning grey as it rose into the sky. What Sherwood witnessed was the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. And he survived, living up to his nickname. After the war, Sherwood returned to England and continued playing for Reading, but his body was ravaged and his career didn’t last much longer. He went to work as a bookie before retiring, and so goes the most amazing story of survival ever told by a footballer.