Rugby hero

sir – At Twickenham today, before the Army v Navy kick-off, a ceremony will honour the 1914 England rugby captain Ronald Poulton, who was killed in Flanders on May 5 1915 (Sport, May 3).

His last words are often given as: “I shall never play at Twickenham again.” Having published a biography of Poulton in 2009 and researched his life extensively since, I have never found a contemporary source for these words, which I suspect are apocryphal.

All the accounts I have seen, including those of his father, his commanding officer and fellow officers (and others), testify that upon being hit he gasped “Oh” and never spoke again. James Corsan Twickenham, Middlesex