Bertie Mee, OBE (25 December 1918 - 20
October 2001)
This week at
Deceased Online we have been celebrating the start of the 2012/2013 football
season. We were surprised by how many footballers, club founders and managers
we’ve found in the database. Some are not well-known, but others, like Tiverton
Preedy (1863-1928) had a major effect on football’s history. Preedy and others
will be profiled in more detail in future blogs.
One of England’s
biggest football clubs, Arsenal, has had a challenging time recently, not
winning any trophies for seven years. Fans may prefer to look back on 1971 when
the north London side became only the second club in the 20th
century to win the ‘double’ of the FA Cup and League Division One. The manager
who took them to this great success was the team’s former physiotherapist,
Bertie Mee.
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| The Highbury Stadium where Arsenal celebrated their double triumph under Bertie Mee. | (Copyright: Wikimedia Commons) |
Born in
Nottinghamshire on Christmas Day 1918, Bertie Mee’s own footballing career was
interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War. Injury prevented him from
continuing as a professional footballer and he spent six years serving in the
Royal Army Medical Corps. The strong discipline and efficient organisation of
Army life had a great influence, which Mee was to remember in his post-war
career in football. After becoming a trainer and physiotherapist, Mee joined
Arsenal in 1960. His evident skills saw him promoted to acting manger in June
1966. A few months later, he was appointed manager.
Arsenal’s
performances quickly improved. Mee guided the team to the League Cup finals in
1968 and 1969, and then onto European success in 1970 – seventeen years after
the team had last won a trophy. From then, Mee knew greatness lay ahead and he
asked the team to put football foremost in order to win. His tactics were
justified when they achieved the double in 1971. Mee was subsequently awarded
Manager of the Year.
After this the side
was less successful, never winning another trophy under Mee. He resigned from
the club in 1976. Graham Taylor appointed Mee as his assistant manager at
Watford – later describing this as “the best signing I ever made”. Mee became a
director at Watford, finally stepping down in 1991. He was awarded the OBE in
1983.
Last name: Mee
First names: Bertie
Burial date: 26 Oct 2001
Authority: London Borough of Islington
Location: Trent Park Cemetery (Islington)
As always, we would
love to hear from you. Do let us know of any football ancestors or other
footballers that you find in the database!
Sources:
Obituary
of Bertie Mee in The Times (London, England), Tuesday,
October 23, 2001; pg. 19; Issue 67277.
Robert Galvin, National
Football Museum Hall of Fame: Profile of Bertie Mee
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