iPhones NewsBy Jonathan McEvoy
PUBLISHED: 17:44 EST, 5 August 2013 | UPDATED: 02:02 EST, 6 August 2013
Two World Wars and two World Cups, doo-da - as the politically incorrect ditty England fans sing doesn't quite go.
But perhaps it should after devastating evidence emerged of a state-run doping programme that implicates the West Germans in cheating in their win over the finest England football team to leave these shores - in the World Cup quarter-final at Mexico 1970.
Our World Cup-winning heroes, led by Bobby Moore at the peak of his immaculate career and supplemented by the likes of Terry Cooper, Alan Mullery and Colin Bell, led 2-0 in that famous match. But Germany, admittedly helped by Alf Ramsey's decision to take off Bobby Charlton to protect him for later matches, fought back to win 3-2.
Doubts over doping by German teams stretch from the 1950s to the 1990s after research by Berlin's Humboldt University suggested the country's taxpayers funded the systematic drugs programme.
It is even alleged that three unnamed West German players who lost 4-2 to England in the World Cup final at Wembley in 1966 were on the banned stimulant ephedrine.
The report says: 'The hitherto unknown letter from FIFA official Dr Mihailo Andrejevic informs the president of the German athletics federation, Dr Max Danz, that in doping tests conducted by FIFA at the end of the 1966 World Cup, three players of the German team had "slight traces" of ephedrine.'
FIFA said last year, when the issue surfaced, that it had no knowledge of the letter.
Ephedrine can act as a decongestant for head colds and last night the German federation denied they had ever been involved in drug cheating.
The report also implicated the 1954 West German team which unexpectedly beat the Magical Magyars of Hungary 3-2 in the World Cup final, known as the Miracle of Berne. It is alleged the players were not injected with Vitamin B - as was long suspected - but with Pervitin, an amphetamine-based drug developed by Nazi scientists to make soldiers fight longer and harder.
The drug - also called 'panzer chocolate' - was still widely available from supplies manufactured during the Second World War.
All the players were given their doses with a shared syringe. Only a small number, including Alfred Pfaff, who went on to captain Eintracht Frankfurt's 1960 European Cup finalists, declined the injections. Richard Herrmann, a winger, died of cirrhosis eight years later, aged 39.
The report, entitled Doping in Germany from 1950 to Today, also alleges 'forbidden infusions' were given to another World Cup- winning squad - the 1974 side led by the great Franz Beckenbauer.
This sordid tale of deception - ranging from football across all Olympic sports - shows that the true horror of Cold War Germany's industrial-scale doping was not confined to the East.
The 800-page document reveals senior politicians, doctors and officials were involved in the fraud. The Interior Minister provided the money for research and administration of the illicit medication. The sorry revelations will not come as a total surprise in the world of athletics, given West Germany's obsession with matching the success of their rivals on the other side of the Wall.
A senior sports administrator is quoted as saying ahead of the 1972 Munich Olympics that 'one thing matters above all else - medals'. However, the relatively advanced nature of the doping, which encompassed early growth hormone drugs and EPO as well as stimulants and steroids, is more sinister than previously imagined.
Still, the scale of the operation is not comparable with the East Germans' programme. The study says Dr Joseph Keul, head of the West German Olympic team's doctors, who died in 2000, played a key role. In his lifetime he fought to get anabolic steroids removed from a banned drugs list.
The human cost of the programme is highlighted by Birgit Dressel, a leading heptathlete, who died of multiple organ failure in 1987, aged 26. An autopsy showed traces of 101 medicines in her body. The official report into her death concluded she died 'due to unknown reasons' but German doping expert Werner Franke said anabolic doping was a cause.
The final part of the study, examining drug use since 1990, has been suppressed. But the report quotes a senior sports federation official in the early 1990s as saying: 'Coaches always told me that, if you don't take anything, you will not become something. Anyone who became something was taking it (testosterone).'
On Monday DOSB president Thomas Bach, who is standing for the IOC presidency, said: 'This is a good day for the fight against doping. A commission will now evaluate the report and give recommendations with regard to the tasks as well as about the future improvements of the fight against doping.
'I am confident we can reach our goals to have full knowledge about the past and learn the lessons for the future. This will strengthen our zero-tolerance policy.'
For many, however, it will further reduce the credibility of sport.
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