Turkish Soccer Teams win Olympic Silver and Bronze

Turkish Soccer Teams win Olympic Silver and Bronze



Intermediate Games of the IV. Olympiad
Football Tournament (Unofficial)
(Athens, Greece, 22nd April - 2nd May, 1906)
Teams from Great Britain, Germany, Austria, Netherlands and France withdrew.

SEMI-FINALS

Athens, 23rd April, 1906

Denmark 5-1 (1-1) Smyrna

Denmark:
Viggo Andersen - Peter Petersen, Charles Buchwald - Parmo Ferslev,
Stefan Rasmussen, Aage Andersen - Oskar Nielsen, Holger Frederiksen,
August Lindgren, Henry Rambuch, Hjalmar Heerup

Smyrna:
Edwin Charnaud - Zaren Kuyumtzian, Eduard Girard - Jacques Girard,
Henry Joly, Percy de la Fontaine - Donald Whittal, Albert Whittal,
Godfrey Whittal, Herbert Whittal, Edward Whittal
NB: Kuyumtzian was Armenian, the Girard brothers and Joly French, the Whittal brothers and cousins and the other players English. Smyrna is the city of (Izmir) Turkey of the Ottoman Empire

MATCH FOR 2ND PLACE

Athens, 25th April, 1906

Smyrna 3-0 (x-x) Thessaloniki

Smyrna:
Edwin Charnaud - Zaren Kuyumtzian, Eduard Girard - Jacques Girard,Henry Joly, Percy de la Fontaine - Donald Whittal, Albert Whittal,Godfrey Whittal, Herbert Whittal, Edward Whittal

Kuyumtzian was Armenian, the Girard brothers and Joly French, the Whittal brothers and cousins and the other players English. Smyrna is a city currently in Turkey (Izmir) then part of the Ottoman Empire.

Thessaloniki:
George Vaporis - Nikolaos Pindos, Andonios Tegos - Nikolaos Pendakis,John Kirou, George Soririadis - Vasilios Zarkadis, Dimitrios Militsopoulos,Andonios Karayanidis, John Saridakis, John Abbot

Abbot was English, all others were Greeks. Thessaloniki was then part of the Ottoman Empire.

Referee: Carl Andersen (Denmark)
Attendance: unknown, Podilatodromio

Scorers: unknown


For the first time, a real tournament was held at the Olympic Games. Even though these "Interim" Games were officially approved by the IOC, the football tournament did not rank as such. However, various sources do count Denmark's gold medal and Turkey's silver and bronce medals in medals' tables.

The Danish team that won was not officially appointed by the national FA, DBU, and the matches played do not count in official Danish Internationals statistics. The Final was abandoned during half-time as the Athens players refused to continue a game of which they had no glory, thus handing the gold medals to Denmark.

Athens was then asked to play a match for 2nd Place against Smyrna, but refused. Subsequently both Turkish teams competed for silver and bronze medals. One source even marks the result 12-0 for Smyrna.

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