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168 - Bert Sproston - Premier League · Sports History Network

• 0:47
  This podcast is part of the Sports History Network, your headquarters for the yesteryear.
• 0:51
  Of your favorite sport.
• 0:52
  You can learn more@sportshistorynetwork.com the name of.
• 0:56
  This podcast is Sports Forgotten Heroes.
• 0:59
  And for the most part, I concentrate on the heroes who have filled the rosters of our favorite teams in baseball, football, hockey, basketball, golf and a few others here and there.
• 1:11
  And while these forgotten heroes are celebrated on this podcast, every once in a while, the subject of Sports Forgotten Heroes is a personality who not only was a star on the field of play,.
• 1:26
  But off it as well.
• 1:29
  Next on Sports Forgotten Heroes, I'm going to talk about one such star whose story is incredible.
• 1:37
  Bert Sprosten.
• 1:40
  This is Sports Forgotten Heroes, a tribute to the stars who shape the games we love to watch and the games we love to play.
• 1:47
  Stars who provided us with many thrills, but when their time was up, they faded away.
• 1:52
  We'll take a look back at their spectacular careers, their moments of fame, even if it was just for one season or just one game.
• 1:59
  And now, here's your host, Warren Rogan.
• 2:03
  Hello and welcome to Sports forgotten heroes, episode 168, Bert Sproston.
• 2:09
  And what an apropos time to bring this podcast to you during this exciting World Cup.
• 2:18
  Now, my guess is this.
• 2:21
  Most of you listening today have never heard of Bert Sproston.
• 2:26
  And that wouldn't surprise me at all.
• 2:28
  You see, that's because Bert Sproston was a football or soccer player in England during the 1930s and 1940s.
• 2:39
  What makes his story so extraordinary, so special?
• 2:44
  It's not because that he was a star defender on the pitch.
• 2:49
  Rather, it's what he did when his team, the English national team, visited Berlin in 1938.
• 2:57
  Just before all heck broke loose in Hitler's Germany.
• 3:02
  Sprosten was approached by a teenage boy named Rolf Friedland.
• 3:07
  And Rolf asked him for help to escape Nazi Germany.
• 3:12
  And through some very calculated moves and the help of a few, Sproston was able to secure a visa for Friedland to attend a soccer game where the English national team was playing the rest of the world, sort of
• 3:26
  an all star team.
• 3:28
  Under the guise of this game, Friedland got his visa.
• 3:31
  And as they say, the rest was history.
• 3:34
  Well, sort of.
• 3:36
  Friedland escaped Germany, the strong possibility of extermination in a concentration camp.
• 3:43
  And he ultimately turned the tables on the Nazis by working as a member of the British army as an interrogator.
• 3:54
  And that's a pretty cool story in and of itself.
• 3:58
  John Leonard, a British journalist and author, captured the entire story in his new book, Escape from Berlin, England's Bert Sproston and the football refugee.
• 4:12
  Sadly, John passed away before his book was published.
• 4:17
  So joining me on today's episode of Sports Forgotten Heroes are three very special guests from England.
• 4:26
  Two of John's sisters will be here to discuss the book.
• 4:30
  Sproston and Friedland, Jenny Leonard and Fiona Thomas.
• 4:37
  And joining from Israel will be Rolf's son, Allen Freeman.
• 4:42
  What makes this even more special?
• 4:46
  While the three know of each other, this podcast provided them the opportunity to see each other in person for the first time.
• 4:57
  Pretty cool.
• 4:59
  Now, before we jump into today's show, a few reminders.
• 5:02
  Please follow Sports Forgotten Heroes on X@SportsFheroes.
• 5:06
  Look for the Sports Forgotten Heroes page on Facebook, and no matter where it is you are listening, please give Sports Forgotten Heroes a like follow and subscribe.
• 5:20
  And as always, I thank you for your support.
• 5:25
  Okay, let's get into today's episode with my guests, Alan Freeman, Jenny Leonard and Fiona Thomas.
• 5:34
  And now on Sports Forgotten Heroes, I have three very special guests.
• 5:41
  From England, I have Jetty Leonard and Fiona Thomas.
• 5:46
  And from Israel, Alan Freeman.
• 5:48
  This is my first multi country podcast.
• 5:53
  I am thrilled that everybody is here and this is going to be quite something.
• 6:00
  This is about true heroism and sport.
• 6:05
  So it certainly fits the genre of this show called Sports Forgotten Heroes.
• 6:11
  And joining me again, Jenny, Fiona and Alan.
• 6:16
  Jenny, uh, just briefly, just tell us how you relate to this story.
• 6:21
  So this story has been brought to life by Fiona and my, my brother John.
• 6:29
  He was also an older brother to four sisters and sadly, John passed away in January this year.
• 6:38
  But in the preceding years he spent a lot of time on working on this story and obviously we very delighted that we've been able to see the book published.
• 6:54
  And so that's why we're here today to tell you a little bit about him and about the story that he's brought to life.
• 7:02
  Okay, Fiona?
• 7:05
  Yeah, basically John was a dedicated journalist and, but spent the latter part of his career writing books basically about what he loved, which was sport.
• 7:19
  He was an athlete himself in his young years, but he was devoted to his club, Stoke City.
• 7:27
  And I think initially he probably just wanted to find out more about Stoke City, the team, and write about Stoke City.
• 7:34
  But as he went through the research process, he started to uncover the underlying individual stories.
• 7:42
  He's written several books and I think, but this was kind of the last one and it is, I suppose it was about exposing an ordinary footballer, but an extraordinary story and I think, you know, that was kind of
• 7:56
  what Captivated him.
• 7:59
  And also John was always interested in the clash between the worlds of sport and politics and how sport was never about the joy in itself of performing.
• 8:10
  It was and, but it was, you know, it got entangled and I think it was, I suppose, the shock of finding out about this story and how the sort of maligned forces can have a, have an influence on
• 8:25
  events and, but also, you know, this was kind of a story of humanity and how one man was very principled and yeah, it became more than just sport.
• 8:39
  Okay.
• 8:39
  And Alan, your, your dad plays quite the integral part of this story.
• 8:45
  Why don't you tell us a little bit about that?
• 8:47
  That's, that's absolutely correct, Warren.
• 8:50
  The story is about how an English footballer, an International, in October 1938, met a young Jewish teenager who actually begged him help him get out of Germany.
• 9:06
  That young Jewish teenager who Bertz Brosten helped get out of Germany was my father.
• 9:12
  And that's my connection.
• 9:16
  Of all the stories that, that Jenny, that your dad or your brother, I'm sorry, could have written.
• 9:25
  What.
• 9:27
  Drew him to this one in particular?
• 9:33
  Well, I mean, it start as Fiona said, I mean he was absolutely sport mad.
• 9:37
  So he was very intense when he was researching his, his work and I think he was very drawn by that human story.
• 9:53
  I mean he, he started writing some years ago and in fact he, he wrote a book in about.
• 9:59
  It was published in about 2016.
• 10:02
  And in that book he dealt with a number of events in history where sports and politics had collided.
• 10:09
  And it ranged from the boycott of the Olympic games to things like Jackie Robinson breaking racial barriers in baseball, the bodyline cricket tour.
• 10:22
  But one of the chapters focused on what he described as England's footballing shame, which was when the England team gave under instruction the Nazi salute before a match that took place in Berlin.
• 10:40
  And this was in the course of the research, he came across the story of Bert and Rolf Freeland, who's Alan's father.
• 10:52
  And what began as a sort of single historical event, which again was, you know, obviously the events that took place following that speak for themselves.
• 11:04
  And I think a lot of those players who were drawn into this world felt very ashamed.
• 11:11
  But it became a very personal and human story about connection and the courage I think that Bert showed and the impact that one person can have on another.
• 11:22
  So I think it comes back to that thing about him being fascinated by.
• 11:28
  Although there are these bigger questions about how individuals can get caught up in events, what choices they had, and how they responded.
• 11:38
  So it was never just an interesting sport for its own Sake.
• 11:42
  But it was, you know, how those things, how those worlds collide.
• 11:47
  Fiona, was there a particular discovery or moment during your brother's research that really captivated him, Something that said, man, this story has to be told?
• 12:01
  Well, I think, yeah.
• 12:03
  I mean, Jenny referred to the salute and sort of the shame of the England football players and kind of how they carried that for the rest of their lives.
• 12:11
  But I don't think it's a well known story, to be honest, to the wider UK public.
• 12:16
  And certainly, you know, colleagues I've shown the book to at work are kind of shocked to see that picture of the salute.
• 12:23
  And so I suppose he, you know, it was sort of looking at that and then, but then sort of seeing and also discovering that there is, there was one footballer that sort of against the odds, decided to help
• 12:42
  Ralph.
• 12:42
  And I suppose it would have been so easy to walk away and just say, it's not my responsibility, it's nothing to do with me.
• 12:51
  You know, he's in a different country.
• 12:52
  It wasn't travel, wasn't what it was then, but he didn't.
• 12:57
  And he showed, he made a promise outside that stadium and he kept that promise and showed duty and loyalty.
• 13:04
  And I think that probably sort of, you know, captivated John.
• 13:09
  And I would also make a broader point that John was very conscious about current politics and relating that back in terms of parallels to the 1930s and the rise of fascist politics in Europe and, you know, now some
• 13:27
  of the commentary on social media.
• 13:29
  And I think perhaps we wanted to kind of highlight the sort of how Europe was caught up into that sort of cycle of hatred and division.
• 13:43
  But there were people there that stood up and they are the untold stories.
• 13:49
  Okay, so in the introduction to today's podcast, I talk about, you know, the book and, and, and, you know, what happened in Nazi Germany and how Bert helped get Rolf out of Germany and to England.
• 14:06
  But we're going to dive in a little bit deeper into.
• 14:09
  And for my listeners right now who are not familiar with the story, Alan, who was Rolf Friedland and what was life like for him growing up in Berlin?
• 14:26
  Rolf Friedland was born on 26 May, 1920 at the age of six.
• 14:33
  His parents, who were a prosperous Berlin family and are living in the prestigious neighborhood of Berlin, Schoenberg, decided to send him to a, a boarding school.
• 14:44
  Wasn't terribly happy there.
• 14:46
  The first one was right in the south of Germany, in Bavaria.
• 14:50
  He then moved to one just outside of Berlin where there's a famous bridge, Kleiner Glinicke, and he Stayed there until just after 1929.
• 15:04
  In 1929 was the great crash.
• 15:08
  Fortunes were lost and he simply had to return to, to Berlin and he went to a regular, regular school in, in, in Berlin and continued his, his studies essentially through, he went on to high school until 19 and
• 15:28
  until 1935.
• 15:30
  In 1935 Ralph was, or Ralph was 15 and he was expelled from school.
• 15:36
  Jews were no longer allowed to study in German, in German, in German schools.
• 15:43
  By then his parents were flurrying around.
• 15:47
  They hadn't had.
• 15:48
  They had to leave their home, they had to find alternative homes and they were thinking of, of leaving the, of leaving the country, which they did.
• 15:56
  His brother John left on a child transport out of Hamburg, went to Ellis island and from Ellis island on San Francisco, his father moved to London and his mother subsequently moved to London.
• 16:11
  And here was a 16 year old boy left alone entirely in Berlin, having to fend for himself.
• 16:18
  So far.
• 16:21
  Now, as we are recording this on June 30, 2026, we are right in the middle of the World Cup.
• 16:29
  So very apropos that we're talking about in a soccer story, although overseas it's called football.
• 16:38
  We won't get into the differences here, but why was football, or as here in the US we call it soccer, such an important part of Rolf's life during those difficult years?
• 16:52
  Alan, you know, you know, John alludes to that in the, in the, in the book.
• 16:57
  The atmosphere in, in Germany at the time was very much about fitness and sport.
• 17:03
  And I suspect that he wanted to be up with his, with his peers.
• 17:07
  He liked hiking, he liked cycling, he liked canoeing.
• 17:10
  There were lots of lakes in, in, in, in Berlin.
• 17:14
  And he also loved, loved football.
• 17:17
  And there were Jewish football teams who played in the green area of Berlin.
• 17:22
  And there are lots of green areas in Berlin.
• 17:24
  This one's called Grunewald.
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  And he belonged to that, to that team.
• 17:30
  And a love of football grew for him.
• 17:33
  Not only did that, but after the rise of the Nazis and the departure of his parents, the only way, other way that he could really earn some money was that he played and was paid in a square public
• 17:49
  park in Berlin to play football against the unemployed.
• 17:54
  And so there was a kind of natural, natural progression for him.
• 17:59
  And this is how it evolved and continued throughout his life.
• 18:04
  I remember he moved to Israel in 1989 and you could have all of these television sports games broadcast into your living room.
• 18:14
  And we put on the television.
• 18:15
  He was quite old by then and he actually said, football's my life now.
• 18:21
  The key figure in this story, of course, is Bert Sprosten.
• 18:27
  Jenny, who was Bert Sprosten and why do you think he is largely forgotten today?
• 18:37
  So Bert Sproston was.
• 18:39
  He was an England soccer player.
• 18:42
  He was an international soccer player.
• 18:44
  So he played for the England soccer team.
• 18:47
  He played in a defensive position in the 1930s.
• 18:54
  I think perhaps he played alongside Stanley Matthews, who you may know of, who was a kind of legendary footballer.
• 19:03
  And most people in, in England will have heard of him or know something about him.
• 19:09
  But I think for somebody like Bert, who for a start he played as a defender and generally the defenders perhaps don't get the.
• 19:16
  The limelight because they don't score goals.
• 19:19
  So perhaps he.
• 19:20
  That didn't attract the sort of.
• 19:22
  Sort of attention that the center forwards would get.
• 19:27
  But obviously he was a very accomplished footballer.
• 19:32
  And John does describe how good he was.
• 19:38
  But his playing career was also very much disrupted by the Second World War.
• 19:44
  And I'm not an expert, but obviously sport at that time, when the world went into such a dark period, had to take a back seat.
• 19:56
  So perhaps he was never really given that opportunity to excel, as perhaps he.
• 20:02
  He could have done so.
• 20:04
  I think as a result, even though he was one of the top players of his era, his achievements have never really been translated into public recognition.
• 20:13
  So he, he.
• 20:14
  His name wouldn't be well known unless you were a really avid football fan who followed lots and lots of detail.
• 20:23
  Yeah.
• 20:24
  As reading the book that your brother John wrote comes across that Bert was a terrific defender.
• 20:34
  And like you said, because he's not the guy out there, he's not one of the, you know, one of the forwards scoring all the goals, but he was a really good defender.
• 20:45
  And of course, you know, defenders, as we know in all sports, never get much of the limelight.
• 20:54
  But I'm not sure if you could answer this or not, Jenny.
• 20:57
  What made him stand out as a defender?
• 21:01
  And you know, he played for several different teams.
• 21:05
  He bounced around a bit.
• 21:07
  He did.
• 21:08
  I mean, as I say, he was.
• 21:09
  I think he was a very tough player.
• 21:12
  He started out in a local football club, a team called Sam Bach Ramblers, which is actually not far from where John and Fiona and our sisters and I grew up.
• 21:25
  But he then went on to sort of bigger and better things.
• 21:29
  So he joined Leeds United, which are obviously a very big club, as he joined them as a teenager, and he went on to play for Tottenham Hotspur and also Manchester City.
• 21:40
  So again, I wouldn't sort of hold myself out as an expert in this, but I think from the way John describes him is that what made him stand out was he had a lot of pace, he was very
• 21:53
  sort of tough.
• 21:56
  And he sort of describes him as a more modern, cultured footballer.
• 22:02
  He earned 11 caps, I think, with England in a relatively short period.
• 22:07
  And as I say, with this sort of disruption of the Second World War.
• 22:12
  And I think at that time, they didn't really operate these big squads.
• 22:15
  So if you were picked for your country, you know, you really were top of your game and generally would.
• 22:22
  Would get to play.
• 22:23
  So, yeah, he would.
• 22:26
  He was very successful, I think, in, in his time.
• 22:31
  Yeah, he was picked for the national team, obviously, and, and, and he went over to Berlin to play in.
• 22:40
  In this game where Rolf was able to seek him out.
• 22:45
  But the other interesting thing about it was he appeared to be somewhat of a homebody.
• 22:52
  Right.
• 22:53
  He had all this national recognition.
• 22:55
  Could play for a team like Leeds or Tottenham or Manchester City, but he chose to go back to.
• 23:03
  I hope I get this right.
• 23:04
  Sandbox.
• 23:06
  Yeah, sandbot.
• 23:09
  Because he missed his home life, he missed his family.
• 23:12
  He misses mom's cooking, it sounds like.
• 23:15
  Can you talk about that at all?
• 23:18
  You know, like, beyond soccer, beyond football, what kind of man was he known to be?
• 23:24
  Yeah, and again, I think Alan might be able to come in here because I think Alan actually met him.
• 23:28
  But for me, he comes across as a very sort of modest, grounded person who wasn't focused on fame.
• 23:38
  He was obviously very committed to dedication, but he was also committed to his family.
• 23:44
  And I think what stands out is a kind of instinctive decency which is.
• 23:50
  Obviously comes to the fore with what he did for.
• 23:55
  For Rolf.
• 23:57
  So I don't know, Alan, whether you've got any perspective on that, because I think you.
• 24:02
  I think you.
• 24:03
  You had met.
• 24:04
  Met him.
• 24:05
  I met him several times, in fact.
• 24:07
  And you know, on reflection.
• 24:11
  But before I go to my reflection, I just have to say that about John, that John was a great Stoke City fan.
• 24:19
  Burton, Stanley Matthews and Stanley Matthews is a huge legend, were mates.
• 24:25
  And he speaks about that in the Salute.
• 24:27
  And he speaks about it again in Escape from Berlin.
• 24:31
  And I had the huge, huge privilege of watching Stanley Matthews at the age of 50, playing for Stoke City against Chelsea.
• 24:39
  I was on at the Bridge and watched the legend playing, so I just wanted to mention.
• 24:48
  Mention that.
• 24:49
  But having said that, having said that, you know, that game was in.
• 24:53
  Was in London and again, John, I think, captures the moments that Burt was in London and it didn't feel right for him.
• 25:03
  He couldn't acclimatize to.
• 25:05
  To London.
• 25:07
  And I think that's understandable for a Northern lady at that time and all that London meant.
• 25:13
  It didn't.
• 25:15
  It didn't cajole with his.
• 25:17
  With his character.
• 25:18
  And it's probably precisely that special character that led him to stop, listen to Ralph and say, I'm gonna do something about it.
• 25:33
  Really interesting, Fiona, as we're going to advance this story, why was England in Berlin in May of 1938?
• 25:48
  Why were they there to begin with?
• 25:51
  Well, it was a friendly game, and it was a reciprocal game.
• 25:55
  Germany had been in London that they'd played, I think, at White hart Lane in November 1937.
• 26:03
  But throughout the 1930s, there was a sort of renormalizing of relations between England and Germany and between the two football associations.
• 26:16
  After the First World War, there was nothing.
• 26:19
  There was no exchange of games or anything.
• 26:22
  But I think there was basically through the 30s, they were trying to avoid the creep of war and to try and avoid at all costs what they'd gone through in the First World War.
• 26:36
  So, yeah, so it was part of a.
• 26:38
  From the British point of view, I suppose it was the Foreign Office point of view.
• 26:42
  It's part of trying to sort of keep relations smooth.
• 26:46
  And it was part of a wider policy of appeasement.
• 26:55
  In terms of the German or the Nazi perspective, the regime, they use sport as propaganda, and this was manifested in the 1936 Olympics and also using sport as a way of training young men for the military, for example,
• 27:14
  through the Hitler Youth movement.
• 27:15
  So there was kind of motivations on both sides to have this confrontation and.
• 27:23
  Or, sorry, not confrontation to have this sort of these matches.
• 27:26
  And with the match in Berlin, I think it was an opportunity for the regime to demonstrate its kind of dominance and its power.
• 27:35
  Yeah, there's a lot of politics at that time, of course, and we all know how.
• 27:42
  How it all blew up eventually.
• 27:44
  But the big thing about this match between England and Germany was the Nazi salute before kickoff.
• 27:56
  Can you talk about that, Fiona?
• 27:58
  How did that come about?
• 28:00
  And.
• 28:01
  And talk about the players reluctance to give the Nazi salute.
• 28:11
  I think it was only agreed several hours from what John rights, several hours before the game.
• 28:18
  And it was basically.
• 28:21
  John describes them, the players, as unwilling diplomats.
• 28:25
  Football was kind of used from the British perspective as a diplomatic soft power.
• 28:30
  And so the order came down from the Foreign Office through to the Football association that they were to do this as a matter of courtesy and as a matter of politeness, to salute through not just the German anthem,
• 28:44
  but through the Nazi anthem.
• 28:48
  The suggestions that there was a Rebellion.
• 28:52
  I think the captain, Eddie Hapgood, had written an autobiography to say that he was ready not to lead them out.
• 29:00
  But it's never really been confirmed as to whether there was a genuine attempt to rebel against it.
• 29:06
  But I suppose, you know, just from my own conjecture, I would imagine that these players also felt the weight of responsibility they were representing the country, but also that political weight of not of trying to sort of keep
• 29:24
  relations measured from a sort of the British perspective and avoid what had happened perhaps to their father's generation, because they would have been probably conscripted in the First World War, which resulted in 15 million lock cube deaths across
• 29:46
  Europe.
• 29:47
  So there was that sort of feeling that they needed to do all that they could to prevent a deterioration in relations.
• 29:56
  And I suppose they just felt under duress to do it.
• 30:00
  And I think it's very easy to perhaps be judgmental about it sort of today, but, you know, it was only 20 years after the First World War and I would.
• 30:11
  Yeah, there wasn't really sort of space for them to kind of think to say no.
• 30:18
  Yeah.
• 30:19
  Fiona.
• 30:20
  Fiona.
• 30:21
  I think that John captures the moment superbly in both books.
• 30:26
  Yeah.
• 30:26
  Of the politics and the drama that went behind this, this decision.
• 30:32
  You know, it was a drama that went back several years with the British ambassador and the British Foreign Secretary and, and, and the highest order of Hitler's Chancellor Goering and so on and so forth, and also the.
• 30:46
  The English Football association.
• 30:49
  And he alludes to that very clearly in the book.
• 30:51
  Sir Stanley Rouse, Chairman of the Football Association.
• 30:54
  I've got no doubt that there was a lot of ego being bandied around.
• 30:57
  You know, you see it in today's World cup and you see it and, and you see it there in.
• 31:02
  Happening there in, in, in the 30s.
• 31:05
  And so Stanley Rouse went on to be.
• 31:07
  Become the President of, of FIFA.
• 31:10
  And to get to that position you need support of the, the British government.
• 31:14
  And the British government said, you know, get it done.
• 31:16
  And he made sure that it went down the line until the players went out into the stadium and gave that salute.
• 31:22
  That's my opinion.
• 31:23
  That's what I think John is saying in the book.
• 31:26
  Yeah.
• 31:26
  And I think there was also the class system at work, you know, in the British Foreign Office was sort of, I suppose, the public school elite kind of giving the orders to footballers who ultimately were kind of from
• 31:38
  working class communities and were there to follow orders of sort of the British establishment.
• 31:46
  Yeah.
• 31:46
  And of course we know it didn't work out the way everybody had hoped it would work out to Stave off England's involvement in the war.
• 31:57
  And obviously that didn't work out.
• 32:01
  Why.
• 32:02
  Why has that moment become one of the most controversial episodes in English football history?
• 32:12
  You know, with everything else that's going on and.
• 32:15
  And we know.
• 32:16
  I mean, it was.
• 32:17
  They were forced into doing this to give that salute, and some did, you know, without any hesitation, and others were like, man, I don't want to do this.
• 32:30
  But, you know, they obviously did this, you know, and looking back at it, why.
• 32:36
  Why is it still so controversial?
• 32:40
  Well, I suppose what we know now, and I think this is.
• 32:45
  Comes to the point about how.
• 32:48
  How we shouldn't be too judgmental about them because they.
• 32:52
  They wouldn't.
• 32:52
  We lived in a different.
• 32:54
  It was a different time.
• 32:55
  You know, you weren't sort of bombarded with news and, you know, you got information from very limited sources.
• 33:03
  And obviously the events of the Second World War were pretty horrific, and they.
• 33:12
  They wouldn't have necessarily perhaps have understood what was to come.
• 33:19
  But obviously, with.
• 33:21
  With the benefit of hindsight, you can see how it became a kind of a really shameful episode for them who would have been very proud individuals, some of whom had to then go and serve in the war.
• 33:37
  So, yeah, it's.
• 33:40
  It's a really difficult, difficult one.
• 33:45
  Yeah, it was.
• 33:45
  It was also a metaphoric moment of throwing in football into the depths of politics.
• 33:55
  It wasn't part of the protocol at all.
• 33:57
  You didn't do that.
• 33:59
  Yeah, it was as if England was sinking.
• 34:01
  Okay, we accept this Nazi Hitler regime and we salute you for doing so.
• 34:08
  What could be more impressive on the British public, you know, than the.
• 34:12
  Their heroes taking that, taking that salute?
• 34:16
  It just wasn't part of the protocol.
• 34:18
  Protocol was the national anthem of both teams, and that was.
• 34:22
  That was it.
• 34:23
  Yeah.
• 34:23
  And the Germans took it two steps further.
• 34:26
  Not only the salute, but they also sang the Horse Vessel Lead, which was the great Nazi anthem.
• 34:32
  And again, John mentions all of.
• 34:35
  All of.
• 34:36
  All of this.
• 34:38
  Yeah, it wasn't the first time they'd actually.
• 34:41
  They did a salute to Mussolini, I think, in 1934, although that was kind of a naval salute.
• 34:47
  But this took it one step further and that it was actually the Nazi salute that they gave.
• 34:54
  So.
• 34:54
  But, yeah, no, it wasn't part of the usual protocol, but it wasn't the first time that they were compelled to do something like this.
• 35:02
  But, yeah, I mean, as John said, it was done under duress and it wasn't a willing.
• 35:07
  They weren't willing diplomats.
• 35:09
  Right.
• 35:11
  So during all of this, there is young Rolf and he Wants to get out of Nazi Germany because he knows what's.
• 35:20
  What's.
• 35:20
  What's happening and what's.
• 35:22
  What the consequences are of staying there.
• 35:26
  So he decides it's.
• 35:29
  It's time to leave.
• 35:31
  Alan, how did he first come in contact with Bert?
• 35:37
  Great question, Warren.
• 35:38
  I mean, it's.
• 35:39
  It's a subject that from time to time, he talked about at home in a very factual.
• 35:45
  Factual way.
• 35:46
  About a year and a half ago, I was in Berlin and I retraced his steps, the route to the Olympic stadium where the players came out and how Rolf, after the game, stood around like you're collecting an autograph.
• 36:03
  I used to do it myself.
• 36:06
  So he stood there and he waited for the England team.
• 36:11
  And I have to say that to my mind, Bert was a random choice.
• 36:18
  It could have been any one of the four footballers.
• 36:20
  Yeah, I was gonna go there.
• 36:22
  Why.
• 36:22
  Why did he seek Bird out?
• 36:24
  Random.
• 36:24
  Random.
• 36:25
  Yep, random.
• 36:27
  You know, whether he found something in Bert's game that suggested to him, he's my man or not, I cannot say.
• 36:36
  My father never told me.
• 36:38
  I think it was a random.
• 36:40
  A random choice that he made, but ultimately the.
• 36:44
  The right choice.
• 36:46
  And he spoke to Bert and he said, there's only one way out of here.
• 36:52
  I need to come to England and to see the game of England against the rest of Europe later in the year.
• 36:59
  Please, please help me.
• 37:02
  And something touched his heartstrings.
• 37:07
  And Bert returned to England, spoke to his club, he spoke to the fa, and at the.
• 37:15
  At the end of the day, it was the FA who asked the British Embassy to issue Rolf with the.
• 37:21
  With the visa to get out of Germany.
• 37:24
  Otherwise, it would have been extraordinarily difficult for Ralph to get out of Germany.
• 37:29
  You had to have a visa for somewhere.
• 37:32
  You just couldn't leave without having that.
• 37:35
  That visa.
• 37:36
  Yeah.
• 37:36
  So.
• 37:37
  So in your conversations with your father, it never came up, like why Bert or what maybe stands out about the initial connection between the two.
• 37:56
  You.
• 37:57
  He never.
• 37:57
  He never talked about that or what the relate.
• 38:01
  You know, how.
• 38:02
  How did he convince Bert to do this?
• 38:07
  And again, you know, I can only say that sometimes in life there are things that are random on the one hand, and secondly, there's an element of chemistry that when two people meet, there's a click, and there was
• 38:21
  a click between Rolf and Bert that lasted until the end of both gentlemen's lives.
• 38:29
  Yeah, they became interconnected and great and.
• 38:33
  And great and great friends.
• 38:35
  And Rolf frequently mentioned his friendship with Bert and his gratitude to.
• 38:42
  To.
• 38:42
  To Bert.
• 38:44
  And I'm just Going to put it down to something random and chemistry between two individuals.
• 38:51
  That worked out well.
• 38:54
  Do any of you think there might have been something else at play here?
• 38:59
  From the, from.
• 39:00
  From the view of Rolf said, I gotta go.
• 39:07
  He talked to Bert and said, I gotta see this big game.
• 39:10
  I gotta see this game.
• 39:12
  And do you think there was anything in the back of Bert's mind that said this is more than just about seeing the game.
• 39:20
  This is about somebody trying to escape persecution for being Jewish and wanting to leave Nazi Germany, getting over to England and never going back.
• 39:31
  Do you think that there was anything in the back of Bert's mind that said, I'm going to help him escape Germany or what?
• 39:39
  Do you think that that was?
• 39:42
  You know, did, did.
• 39:44
  Did Rolf say that's what this is really about?
• 39:47
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 39:48
  Absolutely.
• 39:48
  The, the game was a hook which enabled him to get out, but he made it perfectly clear to Bert that his life was going.
• 40:00
  Was in danger unless he got out of Germany.
• 40:03
  And Bert heard that, understood it, internalized it, took it back to White Hart Lane, which is stadium of Tottenham Hotspur, and proceeded to.
• 40:14
  To deal with this matter.
• 40:15
  Other people might have said, okay, yeah, okay, but they didn't act.
• 40:19
  Bert Sproston, you sit in his.
• 40:22
  In his.
• 40:23
  In his football, which is so described so well by.
• 40:26
  By John and the football and the style that he played in and his determination and his focus was also enacted outside of the game.
• 40:37
  And that's what took him forward within a matter of basically just a few months.
• 40:42
  He got Ralph that visa and got him out, and he understood that he was saving a life.
• 40:48
  How difficult was it for Rolf to try and leave Germany at that time?
• 40:54
  Like you just said, it took a couple of months.
• 40:56
  Inside that couple of months, a whole lot of other things could have happened to Rolf.
• 41:01
  How did he avoid some of that?
• 41:03
  What obstacles stood in his way to escape Germany and wait for this visa to come through?
• 41:11
  Funnily enough, Warren and John again mentions this.
• 41:17
  Hitler wants to get rid of the Jews.
• 41:20
  There wasn't.
• 41:21
  The Final solution was invented in 1941.
• 41:25
  And John suggests in Escape from Berlin that he wanted that by pushing the Jews out to other countries, other countries would resent having these people here.
• 41:38
  And that would actually advance the Nazi.
• 41:41
  Nazi goals.
• 41:43
  So the real obstacle.
• 41:44
  Yeah, wasn't the Germans.
• 41:46
  The real obstacle was Britain or any other country.
• 41:50
  He had relatives.
• 41:52
  Just tell you a short story.
• 41:53
  Yeah.
• 41:54
  He had an uncle and aunt who boarded a ship in 19.
• 41:59
  In 1938.
• 42:00
  Yeah.
• 42:00
  Called the St.
• 42:01
  Louis.
• 42:02
  The St.
• 42:02
  Louis left Hamburg for Cuba The Cuban authorities refused to let the Jews disembark.
• 42:08
  The captain, a man named Schroeder, sailed up the east coast of the United States.
• 42:13
  The US Authorities refused to let the Jews disembark.
• 42:16
  Schroeder went on to Canada.
• 42:18
  Canada refused to let the Jews disembark.
• 42:21
  No country wanted the Jews.
• 42:23
  And the.
• 42:23
  And the boat sailed back to Antwerp.
• 42:25
  He went back to Germany, and he ended his life together with his two children, Marianne and Bobby, in Auschwitz.
• 42:33
  That was the main obstacle that other countries didn't want the Jews.
• 42:39
  Well, we know we can, you know, surmise what could have happened had Bert not intervened here.
• 42:49
  Jenny, as far as Bert is concerned, what risks was he taking by, by following through with this personally and or professionally?
• 43:03
  Was he taking a huge risk by going out of his way to help Rolf?
• 43:09
  And, and probably would have been a lot easier for Burke just to say, yeah, you know what?
• 43:17
  Hey, nice to meet you.
• 43:18
  Yeah, I'll help you.
• 43:19
  I'll walk away and not do anything.
• 43:22
  So I think the answer is yes.
• 43:24
  I think he certainly was taking.
• 43:27
  There was an element of risk for him.
• 43:30
  You know, as we've discussed, it was a very politically charged environment.
• 43:35
  He was putting his head above the parapet.
• 43:38
  I mean, he used his position and his contacts in football in a quite practical way to, you know, get Rolf's visa and the passage out of Germany.
• 43:54
  And he kept in touch with Rolf, I think, by letter.
• 43:58
  I mean, that would be the only means of communication in those days.
• 44:03
  So it took quite a lot of effort, and obviously they had to create a credible reason for him to be coming to, for him to be traveling to England.
• 44:16
  So having to sort of use his influence with the Football association.
• 44:19
  And we sort of discussed some of the political pressures that were going on there, I think did create an element of risk for Bert.
• 44:30
  I mean, not in the same sense that Alan describes for his father,.
• 44:36
  But.
• 44:36
  He was stepping into something that's far more serious than football.
• 44:41
  You know, he was stepping into the sort of politics.
• 44:45
  And so there was, you know, perhaps he was exposing himself to personal criticism, whether it could have impacted his position in the team.
• 44:53
  I, I, I don't know.
• 44:54
  I mean, I'm sort of speculating there, but it was a, you know, a relatively small act, but that carried a great weight, I think.
• 45:07
  I don't recall reading much about this.
• 45:10
  Alan, you might be able to answer, actually, any of you might be able to answer this.
• 45:15
  During this period that Bert is trying to help Rolf.
• 45:21
  He's still playing soccer, and, you know, he's moving around from club to club at least a little bit.
• 45:30
  Do you think any of the pressure of trying to help Rolf affected Bert in any way as far was this, you know, something that he was thinking about a lot?
• 45:43
  Do you think that this affected his football playing abilities at all subconsciously or anything like that?
• 45:52
  I don't think that any of us can.
• 45:55
  Can know can know that.
• 45:57
  What we do know is that he quite soon afterwards left Tottenham to go and play for, for Manchester for, for Manchester City.
• 46:09
  The suggestion is that his form in Tottenham wasn't what it had been at.
• 46:15
  At Leeds and that when he got back up north and not far from his home ground, his, his form improved.
• 46:26
  So in terms of performance, I think the performance has much more to do with where he was playing than, than Ralph on his, Rolf on his, on his, on his mind.
• 46:38
  But again, there's no we.
• 46:41
  It's pure conjecture.
• 46:43
  I can't say for sure.
• 46:44
  Jenny.
• 46:45
  Fiona, how did he go about getting this visa to get Rolf out of, out of Germany?
• 46:55
  I mean, so again, I, I don't know the exact details.
• 47:02
  I mean maybe Alan would know more, but I think he secured it through the Football association and Tottenham Hotspur had a big role in it and the club had, I mean, is this right, Alan, that links with the
• 47:15
  Jewish community.
• 47:16
  Strong links with the Jewish community and perhaps there was avenues that way.
• 47:24
  What my understanding again from my dad and you know, he was a, he was a teenager, you know, he didn't understand how these things work exactly.
• 47:34
  But what he suggested was that Bert was the key was the linchpin.
• 47:41
  Tottenham help.
• 47:42
  Tottenham plus Bert Football Association.
• 47:46
  And I didn't get any hint at all that there was some sort of formal help from the Jewish, from the Jewish community in Britain.
• 47:56
  That only happened once Ralph or Rolf got to London.
• 48:02
  His visa was for two weeks.
• 48:04
  It wasn't a permanent visa to enter the United Kingdom.
• 48:08
  We've saved you.
• 48:09
  No, it was a visa permanent, pure and simple to attend a soccer game at, at Highbury and that's which is.
• 48:17
  Was the legendary home of, of Arsenal who just won the Premier League.
• 48:23
  Yeah.
• 48:23
  And I think the, the visa was granted on the strength of the football associations, the FA's invitation and also Bert's personal backing.
• 48:32
  So, you know, the fact that he is an England player had given that backing presumably had some sway with the authorities and it appeared to be a kind of a legitimate football supporter traveling to attend a match which
• 48:46
  obviously gave, gave the reason and allowed him to leave Germany.
• 48:53
  And without those documents and somebody of Bert's standing supporting Him.
• 49:00
  I just don't think Rolf would have ever had the means to have left Germany at that young age.
• 49:09
  The name of my podcast is Sports Forgotten Heroes.
• 49:12
  And so many times the heroes I talk about are athletes who are sports heroes.
• 49:22
  Right.
• 49:22
  They did something great on the field of play that made them heroes in our minds because of their athletic abilities.
• 49:31
  This story is about an athlete who, in every sense of the word, was a true hero by helping someone who was staring down death and helped him avoid such a horrible consequence.
• 49:50
  But if I read the story correctly, this person, Rolf, was also somewhat of a hero.
• 50:00
  And in the book, it talks about.
• 50:04
  John talks about how the English were still.
• 50:09
  The Brits were still somewhat suspect of Germans who had left Germany, got to England, and wanted to fight against the Germans.
• 50:25
  But there was this overlying feeling that.
• 50:31
  We can't trust them.
• 50:32
  They're from Germany.
• 50:34
  How can we trust these Germans?
• 50:36
  And this is something that.
• 50:38
  Roll Face was a suspect military that said, oh, yeah, hey, we appreciate you wanting to fight with us, but you're German.
• 50:48
  We're not sure about this.
• 50:49
  And then there was an incident, if I follow this correctly, where Rolf actually saved someone from drowning.
• 51:00
  Is.
• 51:00
  Am I following that story correct, Allan?
• 51:03
  Did he actually.
• 51:05
  You are.
• 51:06
  You are following that story absolutely, absolutely correctly.
• 51:12
  His father.
• 51:12
  His.
• 51:13
  Yeah, he saves this person from drowning, and then he.
• 51:17
  He, He.
• 51:18
  He is.
• 51:19
  He is recognized by the Duke of.
• 51:23
  I know I'm going to say this wrong.
• 51:26
  The Duke of Gloucester, or is it lost?
• 51:30
  See, here in the U.S.
• 51:32
  we don't.
• 51:32
  We.
• 51:33
  We don't speak the same way as you all do with the, with the, with the same English Glossner.
• 51:43
  And he is recognized for this, and this changes everything.
• 51:47
  How big is this?
• 51:48
  And by the way, at some point along the line, he changes his name from Rolf Friedland to Ralph Freeman.
• 51:56
  Can you all talk about this?
• 51:59
  Yeah, I'll try and sum it up in a.
• 52:01
  In a, In.
• 52:01
  In a nutshell, his father, Adelbert, was taken by the British authorities and interred in an island in the Irish Sea.
• 52:12
  Whose father?
• 52:13
  Whose father?
• 52:16
  So your grandfather.
• 52:17
  My grandfather, yeah.
• 52:19
  But my father was based on records that John actually accessed at the end, was actually interrogated or interviewed better by MI5, which is kind of equivalent, I would say, to your FBI.
• 52:40
  And they wanted to check him out, and he came up clean.
• 52:45
  He joined the British army in a special logistics union unit called the Royal Pioneer Corps, and he was working in quarries in Wales.
• 52:56
  He obviously went to Langland Bay, which is in.
• 53:00
  In Wales, for a swim.
• 53:03
  He likes swimming.
• 53:03
  He was a Good swimmer.
• 53:05
  And he saw this young boy in distress and he didn't hesitate.
• 53:09
  He dived into the water, extracted the young boy and saved that boy's life.
• 53:14
  And what did he do and how did I think about it?
• 53:17
  He did it intuitively.
• 53:19
  And that intuition is important to what we're talking about because I think Bert Froston behaved in exactly the same way.
• 53:27
  He reacted intuitively to Ralph's plea to save his life.
• 53:33
  And, and that is, that is how people sometimes, sometimes act.
• 53:39
  Thank goodness.
• 53:41
  And from there, if you're talking about my father as a, as a hero, we tend.
• 53:47
  He always said to me, son, I want you to be modest.
• 53:50
  And he was a very modest person.
• 53:52
  He went on to do his duty what everyone else did or men did and women did to sacrifice themselves to win that war.
• 54:02
  And he, he crossed like hundreds of thousands of other people and soldiers in the British army and he fought his way across, across France.
• 54:14
  He was injured, shot.
• 54:17
  He recovered.
• 54:18
  He went on into Belgium.
• 54:21
  He was seconded to British intelligence, fought his way into Germany and then pursued denazification activities in, in Germany, interviewing his torturers or the torturers of his, of his people.
• 54:37
  And that's, that's Ralph's story.
• 54:40
  He did his duty as a human being.
• 54:45
  It coincided with the war aims of, of Britain.
• 54:50
  But nothing could have given him more satisfaction.
• 54:53
  This was a personal thing for him to defeat that monster in, in Germany.
• 55:00
  And he was part of, of what you would call a squad or a team, a very large one that succeeded in doing so.
• 55:07
  Just real quickly, the name change from Rolf Friedland to Ralph Freeman.
• 55:11
  How did that come, come about?
• 55:13
  I'll explain that to you as well.
• 55:15
  Once you joined the British army and there was a danger that you might become a prisoner of war.
• 55:21
  If you were a prisoner of war with the name Rolf Friedland, you wouldn't be in a prisoner of war camp.
• 55:27
  You would go to a concentration camp.
• 55:29
  So he chose a name which has a British sounding name in order to protect him himself and also to identify with his newly adopted country as well.
• 55:41
  Although he wasn't naturalized until after the end of the war.
• 55:48
  What was Ralph at this point?
• 55:49
  What was Ralph's and Bert's relationship over the years after all of this?
• 55:57
  Can anybody you know, but was served in the, in the Far East.
• 56:01
  He then went into and fought as well in, in, in, in Italy.
• 56:08
  He like Ralph were demobbed.
• 56:11
  Bert had actually quite a bad injury which connects back to why he didn't go on to, to play football.
• 56:20
  Uh, I think Jenny's, uh, what Jenny said was absolutely correct though because of the intervention of the war years.
• 56:26
  And he went on to become a trainer for uh, Bolton Wanderers, another Northern, Northern club.
• 56:36
  And that is when Ralph reconnected with Bert.
• 56:41
  They would exchange Christmas cards, holiday cards.
• 56:44
  When Bert came down with Bolton, Ralph and I would go to White Hart Lane again, the home stadium of Tottenham Hotspur until very recently.
• 56:55
  And we would meet up with, with Bert and they would, they would embrace and from time to time my dad would travel across the, the United Kingdom.
• 57:06
  He was in the postcards and souvenir business.
• 57:09
  And so it took him to the north, particularly to, to Blackpool, which is where at one time Stanley Matthews, Sean.
• 57:17
  And so he would also visit Bert and Reni when he was up in the, in the north.
• 57:25
  So it wasn't a day to day thing and we didn't have WhatsApp and all of these stuff, but it was a warm, strong, strong relationship by both gentlemen.
• 57:37
  Fiona, this story combines so much.
• 57:42
  It combines football, politics, war, humanity.
• 57:49
  What do you think your brother John ultimately wants readers to take away from this incredible story?
• 57:59
  And by the way, I gotta say, anybody out there listening, watching, you've got to get a copy of this book, Escape from Berlin.
• 58:09
  It is terrific.
• 58:10
  It's not just.
• 58:11
  It goes deep into, it goes deep into soccer or football.
• 58:16
  It goes deep into what happened here.
• 58:19
  And, and again we're.
• 58:20
  I am never able to cover everything in a book because if I do there's no reason to read the book.
• 58:28
  Like we're not even touching on, on, on Ralph's wife Eva and her journey.
• 58:35
  But there's so much in here.
• 58:38
  Fiona, what, what do you think John would want readers to take away from this?
• 58:45
  I think basically the power of the human spirit.
• 58:48
  And as Alan said, it's about intuition and it's about principle and doing the right thing and acting out of a moral purpose.
• 58:57
  And you know, and especially in thinking about today in current times and sort of the othering of different groups and you know, we don't want to fall back into that, those kind of horrible and extreme ideologies.
• 59:14
  And so I think John, like I say before, he was very conscious of sort of divisions within society today.
• 59:23
  And it was kind of to raise a light on a very dark episode in world history.
• 59:33
  As I said earlier, most of the time, 99.9% of the time I talk about heroes on the field.
• 59:41
  Field.
• 59:43
  Is it fair to call Bert a genuine sports hero not because what he did on the pitch, but because of what he did off of it?
• 59:54
  Does that make him a sports Hero.
• 59:57
  I think so, because sport is about sport, I suppose, the values of sport, the virtues, and it's about sort of who you are in the character.
• 1:00:08
  And so I think, yeah, it's fitting for him to be.
• 1:00:13
  You know, it's about sort of.
• 1:00:16
  I suppose the.
• 1:00:17
  John talked about the Corinthian values of honor and integrity and doing the right thing, and certainly Bert lived up to all of that and more.
• 1:00:29
  Yeah.
• 1:00:29
  And I think it's just, you know, in a.
• 1:00:31
  In a moment that really mattered, whereas we've said he could have walked away and thought, this is too difficult, but he made a choice, and that changed the course of someone's life, which is what makes this story so
• 1:00:46
  powerful.
• 1:00:47
  So it's not always the kind of stories that are the most widely known, and history will tend to focus on, you know, major events and famous figures, but there are behind that, you know, some really powerful human stories
• 1:01:03
  that reveal a lot about who we are and what we're capable of.
• 1:01:09
  So it's a positive kind of uplifting story coming out of something very dark.
• 1:01:18
  Having written this book, what do you think would have made.
• 1:01:26
  What accomplishment would have made John most proud?
• 1:01:30
  Your brother John?
• 1:01:32
  Well, I think he wanted.
• 1:01:34
  I think he would have been delighted, to be honest, that this got published during the World cup in America, and we're on this podcast in the United States.
• 1:01:42
  I mean, our dad was born in America, and John had a strong affinity to.
• 1:01:47
  So I think, you know, if this.
• 1:01:51
  The wider story becomes known and becomes imprinted in sort of sports history, I think that would be a huge legacy and accomplishment for John if.
• 1:02:02
  If I was speaking to John on this podcast, if he was my guest, unfortunately, obviously not here with us today, and very sad that he wasn't able to see this all come to fruition the way he.
• 1:02:16
  He had hoped.
• 1:02:18
  If he were sitting here today, what do you think he'd want.
• 1:02:27
  My.
• 1:02:28
  The audience to understand about this story?
• 1:02:36
  Oh, well, yeah, no, I suppose, you.
• 1:02:39
  Know,.
• 1:02:42
  I mean, for John, at the end, he was determined to get this book published.
• 1:02:47
  I suppose, you know, if we think about last year in April, he was given literally, days a week to live, but he hadn't finished this book.
• 1:02:56
  And.
• 1:02:59
  But he defied the odds, and he came through for several months.
• 1:03:03
  And within that time, as he was struggling with his illness, he managed to get it, you know, published.
• 1:03:11
  And I think it is because, well, you know, it's just so sort of.
• 1:03:17
  It was the ordinary, but it was also the extraordinary.
• 1:03:20
  And, you know, it was the fate of one man whose life was saved and, you know, separated from all the politics and sport, Bert was the one who could.
• 1:03:39
  He sort of could focus, you know, focused away from that and could sort of, yeah, demonstrate that it was his way of perhaps atoning for what happened in that stadium as well.
• 1:03:53
  Sort of an act of redemption and doing that salute.
• 1:03:59
  Yeah.
• 1:04:00
  And I think that John would want people to, you know, take away from it is just how powerful sport can be.
• 1:04:06
  As I've said, he was a massive sport fan and we live in turbulent times, as we've said, but it is something that post sport can transcend those things, you know, borders, backgrounds, people's different differences.
• 1:04:22
  And we see that now with the World cup.
• 1:04:24
  And he absolutely loved the World cup, you know, where nations come together and it's not just about what goes on on the pitch, but the fans.
• 1:04:32
  And there's so much positivity associated with it.
• 1:04:36
  So I think this story captures that idea perfectly that sport can sort of create those moments of connection that go far beyond what actually takes place on the field.
• 1:04:51
  So, yeah, I think he would.
• 1:04:55
  You know, we're very proud of him too, because as Fiona's described, he was absolutely dogged and determined to get this.
• 1:05:03
  This book published and it kept him going through some very difficult, challenging times during his illness.
• 1:05:10
  So, yeah, we're absolutely delighted and we're so grateful to have the opportunity to talk to you and your audience about it.
• 1:05:19
  And Warren, I last spoke to John when he was in his hospital bed and there are things that he said and there are things that he wrote about, and what he said was that the salute in the Olympic
• 1:05:39
  stadium in Berlin was an infamous moment in British footballing history.
• 1:05:45
  But there was one incident which was the light at the end of the tunnel.
• 1:05:51
  Yeah.
• 1:05:51
  Which was Bert Sproston's rescue of Rolf Friedland and how sport can be that power for good and it can also be the reverse.
• 1:06:02
  And Bert illustrated how it was a power for good.
• 1:06:06
  That's awesome.
• 1:06:07
  That's absolutely awesome.
• 1:06:10
  Alan Freeman, Fiona Thomas, Jenny Leonard, I want to thank you so much for taking time out of your day to talk about really such a.
• 1:06:22
  An incredible story, a wonderful story about two men who sort of met by chance.
• 1:06:30
  Bert Sproston and Rolf Friedland, both heroes.
• 1:06:37
  I encourage everybody to pick up a copy of the book Escape from Berlin by John Leonard.
• 1:06:44
  It's really a fantastic reading.
• 1:06:48
  And again, thank you so much for joining me on Sports Forgotten Heroes.
• 1:06:53
  Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
• 1:06:58
  To me, this was an amazing story and not the typical type of story.
• 1:07:02
  I bring to you with every episode of Sports Forgotten Heroes.
• 1:07:06
  While Burt was not the star of the team finding the back of the net every game he played, he was still a star, an outstanding defender for the teams he played with.
• 1:07:17
  But what he did to help Ralph was incredible.
• 1:07:21
  Selfless.
• 1:07:22
  And then the fact that Ralph actually saved the life of a perfect stranger.
• 1:07:27
  From drowning, I think that makes the.
• 1:07:30
  Story even more incredible.
• 1:07:33
  Heroes.
• 1:07:35
  Thank you to my three special guests, Fiona Thomas, Jenny Lenner, and Alex Freeman.
• 1:07:41
  And thanks to all of you for tuning in.
• 1:07:43
  And I'll see you next time on Sports Forgotten Heroes.