1955–58 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup

The first Inter-Cities Fairs Cup took place over three seasons from 1955 to 1958. The competition began with a group stage with each team playing home and away against each other. Due to the competition rules which stated only one side from each city was allowed to compete, many cities with several football clubs picked the best players from those teams to create a city representative side. One of these, a London XI, went on to reach the final where they were beaten over two legs by Barcelona.

Contents 1 Group stage 1.1 Group A 1.2 Group B 1.3 Group C 1.4 Group D 2 Knockout stage 2.1 Semifinals 2.2 First leg 2.3 Second leg 2.4 Final 3 External links

Group stage

Group A

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Barcelona	2	1	1	0	7	3	+4	3
2	Stævnet	2	0	1	1	3	7	−4	1
3	Vienna XI	Vienna XI withdrew from the competition.

1955-12-25	Barcelona	6–2	Stævnet	Camp Nou, Barcelona
	Areta  8',  10' Tejada  40', 80' Villaverde  40' Kubala  59'	(Report)	Lundberg  65',  75'

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1956-04-26	Stævnet	1–1	Barcelona	Copenhagen
	Lundberg  61'	(Report)	Villaverde  85'

Group B

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Birmingham City	4	3	1	0	6	1	+5	7
2	Internazionale	4	2	1	1	6	2	+4	5
3	Zagreb XI	4	0	0	4	0	9	−9	0

1956-05-15	Internazionale	0–0	Birmingham City	San Siro, Milan
		(Report)

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1956-05-22	Zagreb XI	0–1	Birmingham City	Zagreb
		(Report)	Brown  8'

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1956-06-06	Zagreb XI	0–1	Internazionale	Zagreb
		(Report)	Campagnoli  74'

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1956-12-03	Birmingham City	3–0	Zagreb XI	St Andrews, Birmingham
	Orritt  3' Brown  60' Murphy  67'	(Report)

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1957-03-19	Internazionale	4–0	Zagreb XI	San Siro, Milan
	Skoglund  8',  89' Lorenzi  43',  50'	(Report)

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1957-04-17	Birmingham City	2–1	Internazionale	St Andrews, Birmingham
	Govan  44',  53'	(Report)	Lorenzi  88'

Group C

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Lausanne Sports	2	1	0	1	10	9	+1	2
2	Leipzig XI	2	1	0	1	9	10	−1	2
3	Cologne XI	Cologne XI withdrew from the competition

1956-03-06	Leipzig XI	6–3	Lausanne Sports	Leipzig
	Walter  5' Konzack  9',  82' Krause  23',  36' Fettke  69'	(Report)	Maillard  11' Rey  31' Eschmann  43'

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1956-10-21	Lausanne Sports	7–3	Leipzig XI	Lausanne
	Tedeschi  28' Eschmann  37',  43',  55' Moser  38' Stefano  60',  62'	(Report)	Walter  13' Konzack  58' Frohlich  70'

Group D

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	London XI	4	3	0	1	9	3	+6	6
2	Frankfurt XI	4	2	0	2	10	10	0	4
3	Basel XI	4	1	0	3	7	13	−6	2

1955-06-04	Basel XI	0–5	London XI	Basel
		(Report)	Firmani  35'  81' Holton  37'  43'  74'

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1955-10-26	London XI	3–2	Frankfurt XI	London
	Jezzard  46'  86' Robson  60'	(Report)	Pfaff  25' Kaufhold  30'

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1956-05-04	London XI	1–0	Basel XI	London
	Robb  87'	(Report)

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1956-06-20	Frankfurt XI	5–1	Basel XI	Frankfurt
	Buchenau  19'  80' Pfaff  31'  73' Herrmann  52'	(Report)	Hugi  35'

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1957-03-27	Frankfurt XI	1–0	London XI	Frankfurt
	Preisendorfer  72'	(Report)

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1957-06-12	Basel XI	6–2	Frankfurt XI	Basel
	Allemann  3'  47'  66' Sanmann  33' Hugi  64' Burger  88'	(Report)	Kraus  32' Mayer  65'

Knockout stage

	Semi-finals				Final
	Lausanne Sports	2
	London XI	3
					London XI	2
					Barcelona	8
	Birmingham City	4 (1)
	Barcelona	4 (2)

• Teams playing first leg at home shown first.
• Birmingham City and Barcelona required a playoff after their semi-final finished level on aggregate. The playoff was played in Switzerland.

Semifinals

Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Lausanne Sports	2-3	London XI	2–1	0–2
Birmingham City	4–41	Barcelona	4–3	0–1

¹ Barcelona beat Birmingham City 2–1 in a play-off to qualify for the Final.

First leg

23-10-1957	Lausanne Sport	2–1	London XI	Stade Olympique de la Pontaise, Lausanne
	Vonlanden  6', 74'	(Report)	Haverty  70'

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23-10-1957	Birmingham City	4–3	Barcelona	St Andrew's, Birmingham
	Eddy Brown  2' Orritt  33' Murphy  35', 60'	(Report)	Tejada  12' Evaristo  27' Martínez  40'

Second leg

13-11-1957	London XI	2–0	Lausanne Sport	Stamford Bridge, London
	Greaves  10' Holton  76'	(Report)

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13-11-1957	Barcelona	1–0	Birmingham City	Camp Nou, Barcelona
	Kubala  82'	(Report)

Replay:

26-11-1957	Barcelona	2–1	Birmingham City	St. Jakob Stadium, Basel
	Evaristo  33' Kubala  83'	(Report)	Murphy  48'

Final

Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
London XI	2–8	Barcelona	2–2	0–6

External links

• UEFA Inter-Cities Fair Cup results at Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation

Inter-Cities Fairs Cup Seasons 1955–58 · 1958–60 · 1960–61 · 1961–62 · 1962–63 · 1963–64 · 1964–65 · 1965–66 · 1966–67 · 1967–68 · 1968–69 · 1969–70 · 1970–71 · UEFA Cup Finals 1958 · 1960 · 1961 · 1962 · 1963 · 1964 · 1965 · 1966 · 1967 · 1968 · 1969 · 1970 · 1971 · UEFA Cup