A kickabout in No Man’s Land – and the Scots footballs sent off to the front
As a Sainsbury advert recreates a famous Great War incident...
IN a world engulfed in war, it was a brief, blessed flash of light in the dark – a Christmas morning when enemies became friends, united by the Saviour’s birth and the love of ordinary men for the Beautiful Game. The Christmas truce of 1914, when British Tommies and the Kaiser’s soldiers laid aside their weapons and played a game of football in No Man’s Land near Armentières in France, is one of the most famous and poignant episodes of the First World War.
It has been the subject of books, documentaries and Hollywood movies; it was even hijacked in 1983 by former Beatle Paul McCartney, who recreated the event in a pop video to promote his song Pipes of Peace.
Now, in the approach to Christmas, supermarket giant Sainsbury has built its festive television advertising campaign around the wonderful day when enemies serenaded each other with carols, exchanged gifts and played the match – which the Germans won 3-2.
To television viewers, it will merely be seen as what is being described as arguably the greatest Christmas advertisement of all time.
But behind the tale is another story just as remarkable, one of sacrifice, kindness, and the compassion of Heart of Midlothian Football Club – a club that did more than any other in Britain to help win the war and comfort the combatants in the most dreadful of conflicts which began a century ago this year.
For it would appear that the ball the British and Germans played with on that Christmas morning was donated by the Edinburgh club, in response to letters of appeal from soldiers on the Western Front who were desperate to relieve their boredom between battles which would, over the course of four awful years, claim the lives of so many of them.
Stirlingshire author and sports researcher Andy Mitchell has unearthed fascinating details of the club’s efforts to send footballs from Scotland to the front line – the only club in Britain to do have done so.
The drive to help the men in the trenches began in the summer of 1914, shortly after the Battle of Mons, the first major action of the Great War on the Western Front.
In the beginning, a few footballs were dispatched, paid for by the kindness of members of the Tynecastle club and its supporters. But the trickle became a flood and by the end of the war, Hearts would have raised enough cash to send nearly 2,000 footballs, each of which cost the princely sum of 12 shillings.
THEY were sent, not just to soldiers but to sailors and even prisoners of war. As the numbers of balls sent grew, details were kept of where they went and of the donations which flooded in from the likes of the North British Rubber Works, trams employees and collections at Tynecastle.
The balls were wrapped and posted across a war-torn world from Europe to the Middle East and Africa, arriving in places as far afield as France, Egypt, Palestine and Mesopotamia, where Royal Navy mariners were stationed aboard Britain’s warships.
Edinburgh folk responded, acting on their own, sending footballs to servicemen who had already been captured by the Germans.
The club’s response to the appeals of the Tommies was rooted in the valour of the famous ‘McCrae’s Battalion’, which fought as part of the Royal Scots and had been raised at the outbreak of the war by the flamboyant and charismatic Sir George McCrae.
Hearts became famous across Britain for the courage of its staff, who refused to stay at home while the world was at war. Professional players in what is still reckoned to be the greatest Hearts team in the club’s history deserted their safe life to answer McCrae’s call to arms.
Many of them would never return home to resume their glittering careers, lost to the killing fields, particularly at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, which claimed the lives of one million men to achieve dreadful notoriety as the bloodiest battle in human history.
Mr Mitchell discovered the story of the footballs which left the capital for the front line in a booklet written by John McCartney, the Hearts manager at time. He said: ‘No doubt some of these footballs were kicked during the famous Christmas truce of 1914 and the campaign continued throughout the war, battling at times against bureaucracy.
‘Hearts got letters from soldiers saying, “Please can you send me a football?”. I suppose nowadays it would be the equivalent of a charity writing to ask for a signed jersey. They began sending the balls and a trickle became a flood.’
The unknown story of the footballs has been lost to history, submerged by the club’s sacrifice of its best players to the war.
It had been McCartney who had exhorted them to do their duty, telling his players: ‘ Now then, young men, as you have followed the old club through adverse and pleasant times, through sunshine and rain, roll up in your hundreds for King and Country, for right and freedom.
‘Don’t let it be said that footballers are shirkers and cowards.
‘As the club has borne an honoured name on the football field, let it go down in history that it also won i ts spurs on the f i eld of battle.’
Mr Mitchell said: ‘Obviously, a lot of the focus has been on McCrae’s Battalion and the players who went to war, but as far as I know their football charity was unique to the city of Edinburgh.’
The responses from the soldiers at the front line reveal that the club’s kindness was incredibly well received.
‘Soldiers would have three or four days at the front, being on call pretty much day and night and then they would go behind the lines to rest,’ said Mr Mitchell
HE added: ‘When lying around behind the lines waiting for the next call up, they’d want something to do in their spare time. They would be at risk of getting bored, so there was an important part in keeping up morale.
‘It seems the First World War was more relaxed in terms of getting parcels out through the Red Cross and other charities, so they could also get footballs to the prisoners.’
Mr Mitchell also discovered a series of touching letters sent to the committee tasked with coordinating the scheme. One soldier wrote: ‘When postie brought your parcel into the billet you might have heard the shout in Edinburgh. Only two obstacles trouble us – a blessed old apple tree in the middle of the pitch... and the mud.’
Another serviceman, who was stationed in Egypt, wrote: ‘Cannot purchase footballs here. Nearest shop is in far-off Bombay. Am proud to belong to Edinburgh because of its goodness to servicemen and the action of the Hearts players. My battery is the fittest here thanks to your footballs.’
In the booklet, former manager McCartney described how two ‘applications’ for a ball were followed by eight.
He went on: ‘Applications began to pour in to such an extent that it was quite impossible for Heart of Midlothian to comply. A way had to be found whereby the lads over the water should have their orders attended to.’
The remarkable page i n the history of a football club that sacrificed so much and did so much to comfort men who would give their all, has been transferred to Mr Mitchell’s web bl og at www.scottishsporthistory.com
‘It is an astonishing story,’ he said.