Footballers' Battalions remembered on Somme battlefield

[PearTree Ram]

The mournful strains of The Last Post still floated in the air on Thursday as Gareth Ainsworth, the Wycombe Wanderers player, stepped forward on a foreign field that will be forever England's.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/8079101/Footballers-Battalions-remembered-on-Somme-battlefield.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulfletcher/2010/10/somme_ceremony_puts_football_i.html

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01744/gareth-ainsworth_1744434c

[Gusboll]

Moving stuff. How come Ainsworth though?

[PearTree Ram]

Moving stuff. How come Ainsworth though?

On Thursday October 21st, 2010, he represented The Football League at the unveiling of the Footballers' Battalions memorial on the site of the Battle of the Somme.

From Wikipedia.

Again, probably because of his long association with the Football League.

http://www.football-league.co.uk/footballleaguenews/20101022/league-honours-war-dead_2246528_2192753

[derbydan]

War hero had pockets stuffed with grenades

Two English footballers won the Victoria Cross for their bravery in the First World War – Donald Bell, a defender with Bradford City, and Bernard Vann, who had a short career as a centre-forward at Derby County.

Bell was the first professional footballer to join the British Army after the outbreak of the First World War.

On July 10 1916 at Contalmaison on the Somme he stuffed his pockets with grenades and attacked, successfully, an enemy machine-gun post. He was killed attempting to repeat his attack five days later and was awarded the VC posthumously. The position where he was killed was later named Bell’s Redoubt.

Vann, a schoolteacher who played three times for Derby as an amateur, rose swiftly up the military ranks and won the Military Cross during the Battle of Loos in 1915.

He was awarded the VC in 1918 after he led his battalion across the Canal du Nord through thick fog into machine gun fire. In October of the same year he was shot through the heart by a sniper’s bullet.

[Alex W]

War hero had pockets stuffed with grenades

Two English footballers won the Victoria Cross for their bravery in the First World War – Donald Bell, a defender with Bradford City, and Bernard Vann, who had a short career as a centre-forward at Derby County.

Bell was the first professional footballer to join the British Army after the outbreak of the First World War.

On July 10 1916 at Contalmaison on the Somme he stuffed his pockets with grenades and attacked, successfully, an enemy machine-gun post. He was killed attempting to repeat his attack five days later and was awarded the VC posthumously. The position where he was killed was later named Bell’s Redoubt.

Vann, a schoolteacher who played three times for Derby as an amateur, rose swiftly up the military ranks and won the Military Cross during the Battle of Loos in 1915.

He was awarded the VC in 1918 after he led his battalion across the Canal du Nord through thick fog into machine gun fire. In October of the same year he was shot through the heart by a sniper’s bullet.

I've always found things like that really interesting.

Very sad, but interesting nontheless.

[PearTree Ram]

Another Derby Hero

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Buckley_(footballer)

[PearTree Ram]

I was doing my teaching placement at Ashby School when they unveiled the copy of the VC Medal to Colonel Bent. I had no idea Bernard Vann also went there.

http://www.ashbyschool.org.uk/content/content_view.php?id=60

Copies of the Victoria Cross were obtained and were placed in frames which contained the citation Bent received posthumously in the London Gazette which records his gallantry.

On the morning of the 19th of November (2004) the medal was unveiled by the Chairman of the Governors in School House. Another is to be unveiled very shortly in the main school buildings and they will both serve as a tribute and memorial to those fallen students of both world wars. In accordance with Mrs Bent’s instructions they will also serve as an example of outstanding courage, loyalty and devotion to duty for generations to come. It seems very fitting that this tribute is paid once more not only to Colonel Bent but to so many others.

I'm glad i asked to be there now.

[Boycie]

Steve Bloomer fought in the 1st world war I think.

[PearTree Ram]

Not fought, but he was imprisoned in a POW camp.

Steve Bloomer and First World War Prisoners of War

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/news/stories/87.htm

[derbydan]

Steve Bloomer fought in the 1st world war I think.

don't test ptr on bloomer

[PearTree Ram]

don't test ptr on bloomer

don't test Wikiptr on bloomer

[derbydan]

is that the same as ptroogle

[PearTree Ram]

Ask Daveo...he created it

[Boycie]

don't test ptr on bloomer

Actually Ralph, before he was captured, was he not fighting in the war?

That concludes my questioning for the defence.