Steve Bloomer wasn’t content with being arguably the best footballer of his day – he was a star cricketer and baseball player too.

One of the leading goalscorers in UFWC history, he scored 20 goals in 17 title matches.

Having retired from playing, in an unfortunate case of bad timing, Bloomer took up a coaching position in Berlin just three weeks before the outbreak of the First World War. He was subsequently interned for three and a half years at Ruhleben, where he led his barrack to the camp football championship at the sprightly age of 43.

‘Though his activities are now confined to the narrow limits of Ruhleben,’ reported the Ruhleben camp magazine, ‘Mr Bloomer’s skill on the field of play has been a source of inspiration for our younger players and of genuine pleasure to the onlookers.’

Bloomer returned to his hometown of Derby after the war, and died in 1938.

Hall of Fame England

Gabriel Batistuta is Argentina’s greatest ever goalscorer, netting 56 times in 78 international games. He scored 18 goals in 23 UFWC games.

‘Batigol’ was born in 1969 as the son of a slaughterhouse worker. A promising basketball player, Batistuta turned his talents to football after being inspired by the 1978 Argentinean World Cup-winning team.

He scored 10 goals at three World Cup tournaments, but won only the 1993 Copa America with his country. At club level he scored 168 goals for Serie A side Fiorentina, and the city of Florence erected a bronze statue in his honour. He later won Serie A with Roma.

Batigol retired from football in 2005 aged 36. Something of a sex symbol, and once described by The Observer as a ‘straightforward lust-monkey’, Batistuta won female hearts as an apparent footballing rarity – a family man dutifully faithful to his wife Irena.

Hall of Fame Argentina

Elegant midfielder Michel Platini was perhaps the best passer of the ball the beautiful game has ever seen. He was also a deadly free-kick specialist, and an incredibly prolific goalscorer. ‘He could thread the ball through the eye of a needle, as well as finish,’ remarked Bobby Charlton.

Born in 1955, Platini scored a remarkable 41 goals in 72 games from midfield for France, including 15 goals in just 18 UFWC games.

After skippering his country to European Championships and UFWC glory in 1984 he was appointed a Knight of the Legion of Honour. He was voted European Footballer of the Year three times in a row in 1983, 1984, and 1985, and World Player of the Year in 1984 and 1985. He later managed France, but failed to match his successes as a player.

Like many of football’s greatest players, Platini never won the World Cup but he can at least add the UFWC title to his impressive list of honours.

Hall of Fame France

Archie Goodall was a goalscoring half-back who played for Ireland, Derby County, Preston North End, and Aston Villa at the turn of the 20th century. He scored in Ireland’s 2-0 UFWC win over Wales in 1903, by then a veteran at 38 years old.

Archie played alongside his brother John at Derby, although the siblings played for different countries. Archie was born in Ireland, John was born in England, and both were raised in Scotland. (John starred for England in the UFWC in the 1890s, and scored 10 UFWC goals.)

Tough and controversial, it was said that opponents were ‘attracted as if by a magnet to the business end of Archie’s shoulder’. Goodall almost missed the kick-off of the 1898 FA Cup Final for Derby because he was outside the ground touting his complimentary tickets.

After retiring from the game, Goodall toured Europe and the Americas with a bizarre vaude-ville act billed in the programme thus: ‘Archie Goodall (former greatest football player of the past decade) in his thriller: walking the hoop. Here is an indescribable sensation that has startled two continents. He will defy the laws of nature and walk the interior of a hoop 50 feet in circumference, five inches wide, three inches thick and weighs 200 pounds.’ Roll up, roll up.

Hall of Fame ireland