Cliff Bastin

Cliff Bastin
Personnel
Surname	Clifford Sydney Bastin
birthday	March 14, 1912
place of birth	Heavitree ,  England
date of death	4th December 1991
Place of death	Exeter ,  England
position	Left winger
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1928-1929	Exeter City	17 00(6)
1929-1947	Arsenal FC	350 (150)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1931-1938	England	21 0(12)
1 Only league games are given.

Clifford Sydney "Cliff" Bastin (born March 14, 1912 in Heavitree , † December 4, 1991 in Exeter ) was an English football player . He completed a total of 21 international matches for the English national football team , scoring twelve goals.

Athletic career

Bastin was born in Heavitree, near Exeter, and began his career with local club Exeter City . There he made his debut in 1928 at the age of 16 in the English third division (South) . After just 17 games and six goals, the striker's talent was recognized and he moved to Arsenal for £ 2,000 , coached by Herbert Chapman at the time and on their way to becoming the dominant club in English football of the 1930s .

Bastin played the rest of his career for Arsenal, scoring 178 goals in 395 games. With these goals he was Arsenal London's record scorer until 1997 when Ian Wright surpassed him. In 2005 both were overtaken by Thierry Henry . Bastin's record of 150 league goals for Arsenal lasted a little longer and was set by Henry on January 14, 2006. Bastin's large number of hits was remarkable, however, as he was not acting as a center forward but as a winger . The exceptionally good teamwork with Alex James was not insignificant for this quota . A goal record, which would presumably have held well into the future, was then prevented by the outbreak of World War II when the game was canceled during the 1939/40 season.

Although Bastin was very young in his early years at Arsenal, he immediately prevailed there, was then consistently a regular player in the 1930s and was nicknamed "Boy Bastin". He won the FA Cup with the Gunners in 1930 and 1936 . Other great successes were the English championships in 1931, 1933, 1934, 1935 and 1938. For the English national team, he was used in 21 games, including the infamous game against Germany in Berlin in 1938, as the English team before the encounter had to demonstrate the Hitler salute.

The Second World War interrupted Bastin's career when he was 27 years old and at the peak of his capabilities. Although he was released from military service himself because he failed the hearing test, from then on he served as a supervisor for the Air Raid Precautions organization , which was responsible for civil protection against air raids. There he woke up around the Highbury with his colleague Tom Whittaker . In addition, he played in the so-called War-Time League (in German roughly: League in times of war ) in order to strengthen the morale of the local population. In 1941, Italian propaganda spread the news on Roman radio that Bastin had been captured in the airborne battle of Crete and was being arrested in Italy. The fact that Bastin never served in the military due to his hearing impairment was apparently not known in Italy.

Bastin injured his right leg in the season before the war, which also affected him in the games during the war and was then responsible for ending his career. When the war ended, Bastin, now over 30 years old, only played six games and resigned from football in January 1947.

After retiring, he returned to his hometown of Exeter and opened a beer pub. He passed away in 1991 at the age of 79. A grandstand was named in his honor in St. James' Park , Exeter City's home ground.

successes

• English master: 1931, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1938
• FA Cup winners: 1930, 1936