Remembering Munich – The 1972 Olympic Games

'I was lucky to be one of a group of about a dozen students from Tottenham Technical College (now North London College) who were given the opportunity to visit the 1972 Olympics in Munich. We all travelled there together in the college’s minibus. Before we left London we were given four tickets each for events in or around the Olympic Village and we just took our chances on getting more. Unlike for the coming 2012 Olympics I don’t recall there being any problem about our obtaining event tickets and they seemed to be freely available and on sale to anyone who wanted them and at an affordable price. In athletics the great British hope was a long distance runner called David Bedford, laughably now better remembered as the prototype for the 118 adverts with his droopy moustache, long hair and short shorts. We all packed the stadium with our union flags expecting to see a British gold medallist in David, but he had a bad day and finished well down the field. Other stars of the games were the little Russian gymnast, Olga Korbut, who seemed to be the talk of the town and our own Mary Peters, who won a gold medal in the Pentathlon. Many events were free to see and we lined up roadside to watch the marathon runners and also visited the white water rafting without having to book or pay! For those we did get tickets for I recall watching an excellent basketball match with the Americans winning well, the brilliant Indian hockey team and some very one-sided boxing in the early rounds of that event.

The general feeling was that the German people were very keen to show how far their country had advanced and it was their opportunity to show how civilised and friendly their country had become after the dark days of WW2. Their official motto was that these games should be the “happy” games. Sadly that wasn’t what they would be ultimately remembered for when a group of eight Palestinian terrorists broke into the Olympic village and took eleven Israeli athletes, coaches and officials hostage in their apartments, all of whom were eventually killed. I was actually in the stadium with football tickets for the West Germany v East Germany match (two separate countries then!) when this was all going on and was evacuated from the village along with many others just before the match was due to start. That was reported in the local press in London and earned me five minutes of fame. The mood changed considerably after that and armed guards appeared everywhere. Our German hosts were devastated. We left for London soon after, sad our visit had been curtailed for such a tragic reason but so pleased to have experienced the earlier contrasting joyful experience that an Olympic games brings.'

Alan Thatcher 2011

The 1972 Summer Olympics (the Games of the XX Olympiad) took place in Munich, (then West) Germany. The achievements and joy of the Games were overshadowed by an attack on the Israeli team.

These two delightful little china containers are too small to be egg cups and perhaps they were not intended for practical use but to be collectable sport memorabilia. They each have a humorous painting – one of a chubby moustached man and a cigar, with the rings of smoke shown as the five Olympic rings; the other with a similarly chubby man settling down to his dinner, and showing sausages as the rings. “München 1972” and a sketch of Olympic rings can be seen at the base of images. There is the pottery makers’ mark of a sailing ship on the underside of the cups.

We were very lucky to be loaned these items by a member of Cambridge Education @Islington staff who was at the 1972 Olympics, where he bought these cups.

Read his personal account of the event on the 'Read More' tab.