For a country which has shouldered a weight of footballing shame in its time, it ranks as one of England's darkest moments in the sport.
The venue: Berlin's Olympic Stadium; the date: 14 May 1938. As the English players lined up alongside their German counterparts for pre-match ceremonies captain Eddie Hapgood and his men issued a Nazi salute to the crowd.
The policy of appeasement towards the Nazis pursued by Neville Chamberlain's government at the time had been intentionally transposed to the football pitch.
It was a Foreign Office order that the England team, which included the legendary Stanley Matthews, perform the salute.
The underlying message was calculated to be that Germany, which two months earlier had annexed Austria, was not a pariah state.
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