Older than the discovery of Tutankhamun's grave

Liverpools 2-0 against Manchester City was yesterday Remarkable for two Egyptian strikers Find the back of the network. Mo Salah's goal counted Liverpool, while Omar Marmoush's strike was excluded for the city because of offside.

This couple belong to 14 players from Egypt who played football Premier League Since the revised top division, started 1992-93. A large number of other Egyptians have played in the English pyramid on a lower level, and in fact the Anglo -gyptian football relationship goes back on than Howard CarterDiscovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922.

At that time, the English football league had already had its first two Egyptian imports, one of which was involved in a contractual penalty, while the other had become a cover star of what was effectively the best sports magazine.

Hassan (also known as Hussein) Hegazi (see illustration below) was born in September 1891 in the Nile Delta, the spoiled son of a wealthy aristocrat. He loved football from childhood, played as a teenager against British soldiers, and when he moved to London in 1911 to study engineering, he came up as striker Non-Ligue Dulwich Hamlet FC.

His approach to the game was apparently. At that time, central attack players were stocks; Finesse was a suffering and bundled conversions of the norm.

Hegazi was different, agile and fast. He was a sprinter, playmaker and dribbler. His ball control was excellent, his second. He occasionally had a tendency to wander around and spoil himself. In modern language use, he was “a luxury player”, a perhaps Tissier Le -issier or a Gascoigne (who provided support for Mark Wright's goal against Egypt in 1990).

Hegazi doesn't seem to do anything until a shimmy, a film and a shot with a binge on the net ended. He led the show. His goals were cute and plentiful. The South London Press wrote: “The way he opens himself and his wing men shows a lot of brain work. He should make a name for himself. “

He did it. The fans soon called him “Nebukadnezzar”, and it didn't take long for Fulham to see his potential as an architect of her own baby from the second division. Her manager, Phil Kelso, asked him to play in a league game against Stockport County. The date could not have been cheaper: 11-11-11. Hegazi scored the gate in a 3-1 victory and was asked at Leeds the following week.

The authorities in Dulwich, who were not delighted to lose their husbands, visited Hegazi in his accommodations at the Gower Street in Bloomsbury.

“I was in trouble,” said Hegazi. “Because I wanted to play a lot in the league football, and at the same time I didn't want to leave Dulwich Hamlet, who was very good for me. So I decided to play for the Hamlet. I'm sorry when Fulham is disappointed. “

Pa Wilson, the estimated Dulwich manager, said Hegazi's decision had “made him a man as always on a soccer field”. And with that his league career was over.

Two days after his single trip for Fulham, a report about the game, with a photo of the player and some biographical details appeared in the Sporty news Under the heading “An Egyptian center forward”. His goals were praised as “brilliant”. In the following week, the local bard of the same publication was laid to write a long poem for dedication. It started:

Hussein Hegazi, an Egyptian from birth,

The leather of the leather and wizard of Wiles,

However, by this description do not imagine

That he is fictional and not on these islands …

Hegazi stayed with Dulwich until 1913 and also represented Middlesex County five times. He toured Dulwich in the Netherlands and played for his university in France and Bohemia. He then wrote down at St. Catherine's College in Cambridge, where he won a blue on January 7, 1914 when the University of Oxford was defeated 2-1. He returned to Egypt in the summer of 1914.

Within weeks after his departure, Lord Kitchener, the Proconsul from Egypt, returned to London to take on his role as State Secretary for the war in which he has mastered the recruitment drive with his “her country”! Campaign.

Practically each of the British male friends of Hegazi – students and co -ballers – should be involved in the First World War. Many lost their lives, including some of his teammates from Dulwich.

Hegazi himself continued his football career at home and played for his country in the 1920 and 1924 Olympics. In 1932, at the age of 40, he had his boots undoubtedly put up with his reputation as an athlete.

In his last years, when he was married to five children, he developed a new reputation as a social and women's man and provided early evidence that they can take a Maverick out of football, but they cannot remove the Maverick from man. Hegazi died in Egypt in 1958 and has a street named after him, Sharia Hassan Hegazi, in the area of ​​Garden City in Cairo.

The second Egyptian came to Great Britain in the 1920s. He was Tewfik Abdallah (also known as Abdullah) and he was the last international from his country who signed for an English League club before Ibrahim briefly came to Everton of the Premier League.

Tewfik, born in Cairo, moved in 1920 at the age of 23 after Derby, probably as a result of the knowledge of the Scottish full -back of the club, Tommy Barbour, who had served in Egypt, where Tewfik had played against the British army. Tewfik's main goal for migration was to find experience in technical trade, but his arrival caused a sensation.

The front cover of the Topical times In November 1920 (below) he showed a photo of him when he ran with a ball. This cheerful -looking guy was equipped with a pyramid, sphinx and palm trees in front of a line drawn by line. “Derby's dark dribbler,” said the settlement. There was a brief mention of him inside, but only in a message about the “new fashion” of “far away for the players”.

Tewfik, an insider law, gave his derby debut in Manchester City in October 1920. He was the subject of numerous pieces of his trademark, which brought him the nickname 'toothpick' to mention his struggles with the language.

A likely Apocryphe story of his first game saw him asked in the field: “Where is I a camel?”. Mick Hamill, who turned out, was an Irish who gave his city debut, and Tewfik had been assigned to him.

Derby won the game 3-0 with Tewfik. It was the first of 15 appearances for derby, but his first and only goal. The club was relegated and although it was retained, it fell out of favor and was sent to Cowdenbeath in the Scottish second division. The fans brought him to their hearts and “abe” he “abe”. According to the local legend, he also won the ultimate award when a prominent local miner called his greyhound “Abe” in his honor. Hindered by injuries, he took a season before moving with Bridgend Town to non-league football in Wales.

His last magic in Great Britain was in Hartlepools (as they were called back then) at the end of the 1923–24 season). He played 11 league games and once scored in a short, exotic cameo for the club for her. In the summer of 1924, Tewfik left England for the American Soccer League, where he played for the fantastic Providence sound devices, then the River case, Hartford Americans and New York National.

Tewfik was later a coach in the United States, although he believed that he had finally left America after he was dissatisfied with the racial level, where he was not allowed to stay in “White Hotels” with his team. Tewfik returned to Egypt, Management of Zamalek and Egypt In the 1930s and 1940s.

Extracted from the history of the foreign players from 2003, 'England, your England“, updated and newly published as”The foreign revolution'In 2006

This piece is one of the numerous articles on this page that can read free of charge for everyone. But the work of the Sporting Intelligence Substack, not least to investigative pieces The Smoke & Mirrors of Man City's Rights CombingsPresent The true yardstick of the fixation in EnglandThe 'Skyfall 'series about drugs in British cycling, part 1 of 5 herePresent Match fixation in tennisAnd much other is not sustainable without paid subscriber support. Try it out and read everything. On this website there is a vault of more than 1,700 parts that return to 2010. If you do not receive a price -performance ratio, will be unsubscribed. Thanks!

X