The Greater Game: Sporting Icons Who Fell in the Great War

By Clive Harris, Julian Whippy and Richard Holmes

From the athletic fields to the fields of battle—these great sportsmen gave their all and sacrificed their lives for their countries in World War I.
 
As the First World War swept across Europe, millions of eager and idealistic volunteers lined up to serve in what was to be the War to End All Wars. All were expected to do their duty—and those rare men who were idolized as the greatest athletes of their time were bound and determined to keep up their end. But no one could have foreseen the true horrors of war that awaited them all . . .
 
This fascinating book examines the deadly impact of the Great War on a number of leading professional sportsmen of the age. Their untimely deaths underscored how even the fittest and most gifted were as vulnerable as any normal soldier—and their loss was felt by far more than their families and friends.
 
Among those featured in this illustrated book are such luminaries as Donald Bell, the only professional football player to win the Victoria Cross; Anthony Wilder, the glamorous Wimbledon champion who fell in May 1915; Francois Faber, the Tour de France star; Percy Poulton Palmer, the England Rugby Captain; and many others.
 
Here, the authors explore the effect that famous athletes have on their countrymen and fellow soldiers in a time of war, and the devastating consequences that World War I had on the emerging world of professional sports.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Sep 22, 2008
• ISBN: 9781783831449

Book preview

First published in Great Britain in 2008 by

PEN & SWORD MILITARY

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

47 Church Street

Barnsley

South Yorkshire

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Copyright © Clive Harris and Julian Whippy, 2008

ISBN 978-1-84415-762-4

ISBN 978-1-84468-263-8

The right of Clive Harris and Julian Whippy to be identified as Authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Dedication

This book is dedicated to Lee Johnson and all men and women serving in Her Majesty’s Forces around the globe.

Sergeant Lee ‘Judo Jonno’ Johnson

2nd Battalion (The Green Howards), The Yorkshire Regiment.

Killed on active service, 8 December 2007,

Southern Afghanistan.

‘As a soldier he was the best and you would always want him at your side, due to his absolute professionalism and outright ability. With him around you always felt safe and that nothing could go wrong. As a sportsman he excelled in judo and in boxing and what he lacked in talent he made up for with courage and determination.’

C. Sergeant Elsdon 2nd Battalion,

The Yorkshire Regiment

THE GAME

Come, leave the lure of the football field

With its fame so lightly won,

And take your place in a greater game

Where worthier deeds are done.

No game is this where thousands watch

The play of a chosen few;

But rally all! if you are men at all,

There’s room in the team for you.

You may find your place in the battle front,

If you played the forward game,

To carry the trench and man the guns

With dash and deadly aim.

O, the field is wide, and the foe is strong,

And it’s far from wing to wing.

But we’ll carry through, and it’s there that you

May shoot for your fag and King.

Will you play your part in the middle line

Where our airmen bear the brunt,

Who break the plan of the foe’s attack,

And rally the men in front!

A bold assault, and a sure defence

In their game they well combine;

And there’s honour too awaiting you,

If you will play in the middle line.

And, last of all, you may find a place

Perchance of less renown,

Where a willing arm may save the game,

If the first defence breaks down.

So while others serve in the far-off front,

Or out on the deadly foam,

Will you not enrol to keep the goal,

And fight for your hearth and home!

Then leave for a while the football field,

And the lure of the flying ball

Lest it dull your ear to the voice you hear

When your King and your country call.

Come, join the ranks of our hero sons

In the wide field of fame,

Where the god of right will watch the fight,

And referee the game.

A. Lochhead

Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Authors’ Introductions

1. Ronald Poulton Palmer: ‘His presence was like a gleam of sunshine’

2. Tony Wilding: Tennis star, Heart Throb and ‘Motor Bandit’

3. Henry Berry: ‘A fast and clever forward’

4. Arthur Montague Septimus Jones: Making his Mark

5. Donald Simpson Bell: ‘One of the best types of the professional footballer … scrupulously fair in his play’

6. Frank ‘One Eye’ McGee: ‘You don’t see many like him’

7. Frederick Septimus Kelly: ‘His boat a living thing under him’

8. Alex Sandy Turnbull: ‘Much more to sacrifice than many men I know’

9. Jack Harrison VC, MC: An ‘Airlie Birds’ Legend

10. Edgar Mobbs: ‘For God’s sake, Sir, get down’

11. Colin Blythe: ‘A thing of beauty’

12. Sporting France in the Great War: ‘Les Bleus’

13. Boxers of the Great War: Seconds Out!

14. Association Football Goes to War

15. Sporting Units Raised during the Great War: Fore! King and Country – 13th Battalion, The Rifle Brigade

16. The Heart of Midlothian: 16th Battalion, The Royal Scots 165

17. The ‘Footballer’s Battalions’: 17th and 23rd Battalions, The Middlesex Regiment

18. The ‘Sportsman’s Battalions’: 23rd and 24th Battalions, The Royal Fusiliers

19. Army Physical Training: The Spirit of Sport

Bibliography and Sources

Acknowledgements

There are a number of friends, colleagues and contributors without whom this book would not have been possible. First and foremost we would like to thank our wives Angie (Julian) and Ali (Clive) for supporting us on the all-consuming road to completion of the book. We would also like to thank our editor, Jon Cooksey, for his help and guidance and all the battlefield tour passengers and friends who have offered snippets along the way.

Valuable aid came from the men and women of the various museums and resource centres we visited around the country. These ‘behind the scenes’ people are genuinely passionate about their work and their praise is often under sung. We thank curator Jed Smith and his team at the RFU Museum of Rugby in Twickenham, staff at the Berkshire library and resources centre for their help with Poulton-Palmer, the patient librarians at Marylebone Cricket Club and Major Bob Kelly (retd.) who was extremely enthusiastic and helpful at the Museum of Army Physical Training in Aldershot.

Alan Little and Audrey Snell at the award winning Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum could not have been more helpful. Brian Belton, lifelong Hammer fan and West Ham history guru was a mine of information. We are grateful to Mike Sherrington, Harold Alderman and Harry Taylor for their generous help and contributions on boxing and cricket, while Michael Jones at the Leander Rowing Club archives helped us with F.S. Kelly’s achievements along with Therese Radic of Melbourne University. In addition thanks go to Nigel Truman at www.rugbyfootballhistory.com for allowing use of rugby posters, and also to Ronny Biggs and Nick Eliason for use of their own archives and postcards. We are indebted to Sue Horton and her family for providing a treasure trove of information on Henry Berry and likewise thanks to Mark Wylie at Manchester United’s Museum at Old Trafford for gems on Sandy Turnbull. Ron and Margaret Marks (Clive’s in laws) spent many hours of holiday time in Australia tracking down the name of Arthur Jones on a long forgotten memorial. We are grateful to members of The Princess of Wales’ Own Regiment of Canada whom, after allowing us the pleasure of guiding them around its Battle Honours on the Western Front, were most helpful with regards to the chapter on Frank McGee. Last but not least we extend our thanks to Ken Smallwood, Phil Bradley, Martin Purdy and Mark Gardiner who helped us with information and added personal anecdotes regarding their football clubs which helped us piece together the stories of other footballers who played in and gave their lives during the course of The Greater Game.

Foreword

I often feel haunted by the First World War: however much I promise that I will never write another word about it, somehow it elbows its way back into my life, and it is not hard to see why. Although the Second World War was a greater event in world history, for Britain and her empire the first was a unique experience. It saw Britain put her biggest-ever army into the field: not far short of 6,000,000 men served. Around 1,000,000 men were killed serving under British command, and 1 July 1916, the first day of the Somme, still has the dreadful distinction of being the bloodiest in British history.

I doubt if there will be one of you reading these lines whose family history was not in some way changed by the war. Perhaps you will have that trio of medals, unkindly called Pip, Squeak and Wilfred, tucked into a drawer, maybe with the bronze commemorative plaque, no less irreverently known as the death penny. If the war changed Britain, it is not too much to say that Australia, Canada and New Zealand saw their national identity crystallised by the conflict. That long slope between Delville Wood and High Wood on the Somme is crowned by the New Zealand memorial, with its unbearably poignant words ‘From the Uttermost Ends of the Earth’. The Canadian memorial shines out on Vimy Ridge in newly-refurbished stone, and one does not have to be Australian to find the Lone Pine memorial on Gallipoli almost unbearably moving.

Although the war was so profoundly shocking that it would be optimistic to expect that we will ever be able to view it with any sense of balance, I applaud the way that its history is now being written. There are far fewer of those easy assumptions that gave us books such as The Donkeys, and greater recognition that, while some British generals were indeed out of their depth, much the same can be said for some of their allies and opponents too. Britain’s overriding task was the creation of the first mass army in her history, against a background of radical change in technology and tactics, as part of an alliance that was committed to attacking (for the Germans had seized almost the whole of Belgium and a great swathe of northern France) at the very moment that burgeoning firepower had made the defensive the stronger form of war. Expanding the army would have been difficult enough in itself, and doing so in the midst of a military revolution was challenge indeed.

Some historians maintain that even 1,000,000 dead are, given the size of the populations involved (46,000,000 for Britain alone), not really statistically significant -the influenza epidemic of 1918-19 killed more people. However, I maintain that the ‘lost generation’ thesis is no myth: what should concern us is the war’s qualitative, no less than its quantitative, impact. Almost exactly half the men who joined the British Army in the war had volunteered, and it was not until the middle of 1916 that conscripts appeared at the front in appreciable numbers.

Clive Harris and Julian Whippy, both experienced battlefield guides, have chosen to explore one specific aspect of this impact by considering the sportsmen killed in the war. It is impossible to resist the conclusion that these were men of outstanding merit, whose character, courage and promise would be sorely missed, and whose physical and moral strength meant so much to their comrades. The rugby international Edgar Mobbs was killed as a lieutenant colonel, doing a job he could easily have delegated to a subaltern, the risk so obvious that one officer yelled, ‘For God’s sake, Sir, get down.’ The rower and professional pianist Frederick Septimus Kelly had already won a Distinguished Service Cross with the Royal Naval Division in Gallipoli before being killed as a company commander on the Western Front. The footballer Donny Bell had joined up as a private soldier and been commissioned from the ranks to die on the Somme, winning a posthumous Victoria Cross.

Whole battalions were made up of sportsmen. 17th and 23rd Middlesex were recruited from footballers; 16th Royal Scots, drawn from Heart of Midlothian supporters, was bravely commanded by the club’s chairman, and 13th Rife Brigade contained many distinguished golfers. The authors rightly include Arthur Jones, an ‘Aussie rules’ footballer, killed as a lance corporal when the Australian Light Horse made its impossible charge across the Nek on Gallipoli, and the Canadian hockey player Frank McGee, killed as an infantry officer on the Somme.

This is, as Shakespeare would have put it, ‘a noble fellowship of death.’ There will always be aspects of the war, like its capital courts-martial or some of its more unenterprising offensives, that rightly give us pause for thought. But the pages that follow illuminate the lives of decent men -spread across the social spectrum from Oxbridge to the ranks of the pre-war regular army -who deserve our admiration. I concluded my own book Tommy by saying that the sufferings of my grandfather’s generation both lifted my spirits and broke my heart, and I can think of no more fitting tribute to the sportsmen who, in this timely and affectionate book, played the game up to the very last whistle.

Richard Holmes

Authors’ Introductions

Buttoned up against a cold northerly wind, I walked slowly along the lines of headstones in Rue-de Berceaux Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery near Richebourg L’Avoue in Northern France reading each name as I went. Researching a future battlefield tour of the 1915 forgotten front had drawn me to this quiet, secluded French battlefield. In search of stories to tell, my eyes fell upon a headstone that stood out from the others. Surrounded by men from British Army Regiments, there, still proudly displaying his globe and laurel wreath badge, lay a Royal Marine. Why was this man buried here? The answer was revealed in the cemetery register. Captain Anthony Frederick Wilding, aged thirty-one, was a former Wimbledon Tennis Champion. Not only had I found my first story, the discovery had awakened in me a desire to discover more of these great sporting icons behind the headstones of Flanders.

The huge numbers killed in the Great War are difficult to comprehend but telling stories through the humanising medium of sport offers a common understanding and such stories are still there to be found. Amongst those many hundreds of thousands of lives cut short by the Great War were those of hundreds of young men who had demonstrated terrific athletic and sporting promise.

Coupled with my life long passion for history, especially of the two World Wars, I am a passionate and enduring fan of West Ham United. Standing recently at Upton Park cheering (and yes, sometimes groaning), I wondered if the highly rewarded players running around before me would hang up their boots if the country really was ‘backs to the wall’? Would those stout hearted England ‘fans’ with three lions on their chest -some of them behaving so badly in Europe -answer the call of ‘their’ country and allow themselves to become moulded into the finest soldiers of the world, in the British Army? In answer to the last question I say ‘yes’ emphatically. The proof is out there today in the hot, sandy corners of the globe and in the obituaries of our young men and women being flown home in caskets draped in the Union fag.

Several books have been written on sport and sportsmen in war, but these have been written predominantly from a sports journalist approach, tending to focus on sporting achievements and often summing up their wartime roles in a short, often ‘tragic waste of war’ slanted sentence. The same writers fill our red top newspaper columns and act as pundits in radio and television studios, churning out sporting hero clichees, often with little thought of the realities of conflict and the effects of their comments on their audiences. In times of peace perhaps, sporting icons act for communities, almost as ‘pseudo war heroes’ fulfilling deep, primitive and tribal needs but they do not display heroism; for bravery must also be present alongside achievement over adversity for that accolade to stick. Once found though it will be lapped up by an eager public thirsting to read about real heroes in ‘ripping yarns’ in the Boys’ Own style. As well as heroes, sport brings rivalries. Adversarial clashes between two great competitors can appear opposite and yet identical (Britain versus Germany?) and this can be echoed on the battlefield too. Some sport sociologists have even suggested that sport is ‘war without weapons’-ritualised conflict minus the bombs, bullets and death.

Uncovering the stories behind these men who played ‘the greater game’ but who did not live to hear the final whistle and then writing about them, has moved Clive and I to become very fond of them. We are proud, therefore, to share their stories with you.

Julian Whippy. Bedfordshire, December 2007

I can remember the Saturday well, it was March 1984 and I was given a clear choice; shopping in Stevenage with my Auntie Jo or football at the Valley with my Uncle Richard. The decision was an easy one. I had been to countless football matches before, Watford, Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea and West Ham but none felt as comfortable as the minute I stepped onto the vast East Terrace and looked over an almost Peter Pan view of London. My uncle, seeing my awe swiftly announced, ‘Your family hasn’t always come from Hertfordshire you know, this place is in your blood.’ At that moment, during a 3-3 draw with Grimsby Town, I became a ‘pukka’ football fan and remain one twenty-four years on.

My equal passion is history and in particular the Great War. From those precious times as a youth when I would visit numerous veterans who had retired from London to Welwyn Garden City, to my battlefield tour company today, the subject remains one of intense fascination and admiration. In researching this book Julian and I spent many a haunting moment on the ‘old front line’; from The Nek at Gallipoli in search of Arthur Septimus Montague Jones or in treading in the footsteps of Alex ‘Sandy’ Turnbull at Cherisy our desire to tell the story of these remarkable men led us to write The Greater Game -our tribute to those sporting icons who fell in the Great War.

I can recall Bill Hay, a veteran of the 9/Royal Scots telling John Nicholls, ‘We’d play whenever we got the chance; we had Bill and Jimmy Broad, two brothers who were professionals with Manchester City and that made us the best team in the division. Without doubt the most full bloodied games were friendly matches against 2 Platoon, I’d end up fighting with a stroppy sergeant called Wollocks, I would annoy him by spelling his name with a B!’ This was but one memory of one man of the millions in khaki, but an indication of the relevance of sport as an oft -needed diversion from the wearisome rigours of trench life that existed for so many who served between 1914-1918.

My inspiration in life remains the countless men like Bill, ordinary fellows who served their country in an extraordinary time. I am sure, however, that were he around to read this book today he would agree that many of the characters that feature within its pages were extraordinary men in extraordinary times and that is exactly what makes them so interesting to us all almost a century on.

Clive Harris Hertfordshire, December 2007

Chapter 1

Ronald Poulton Palmer

‘His presence was like a gleam of sunshine’

Swerving and dodging as he carved his way through the French back line, the crowd cheered then laughed as first he feigned a drop kick and two of the French team crashed into each other comically before he sprinted through the resulting gap to score his fourth try of the game. There was little doubt that ‘Ronnie’ Poulton Palmer was on fine form again.

France had scored first and were still in the game until half-time when England led 13-8 but England ran away with it in the second half and won convincingly 39-13. England had won the Grand Slam; the year was 1914. Just a year later Poulton Palmer was dead; killed whilst fighting for his country rather than merely playing for it.

Ronald Poulton, as he was christened, had developed an ability to read the opposition in rugby matches and mount darting runs at lightning speed. As early as 1907 The Meteor reported that he was ‘a really good three-quarter, with plenty of pace; has an excellent swerving run and makes good openings, but is sometimes inclined to pass somewhat wildly; a good tackle and a fair kick.’ It lists him then as being ‘18 years old, 5 foot 11 inches and 10 stone 6 pounds’ and goes on, ‘he gathers the ball beautifully, holding the ball with both hands at arms length, swerving forward, combining excellently with those around him, seldom without success. If his tackling improves he will become a truly great player.’ Clearly the slightly deformed little finger of his right hand, which had troubled him in his early years, was no hindrance in top flight sport.

In the pre-war Edwardian era Ronald played alongside the influential Adrian Stoop. Many have said that Stoop’s style of rugby football back play was a revolutionary approach to the work of the ‘backs’ and led to the modern era in terms of rugby three-quarter tactics. Stoop played for Harlequins and England as did Poulton Palmer, so no doubt the two friends influenced each other and perhaps some of Stoop’s work was inspired by the handling and creativity of ‘Ronnie’.

Stoop went on to become captain of Harlequins, won fifteen caps for England and was later President of the RFU. Now, in the shadow of the huge Twickenham complex, Harlequins’ home at the ‘Stoop Memorial Stadium’ is named after him.

It was only when he had reached the age of twelve that Ronald started to shine in athletics and ball games; this was in his fourth year at the Oxford Preparatory School. It is clear from the school records that he was a bigger than average pupil and his height and weight were about average for a boy two years his senior. Perhaps it was this sudden growth spurt that allowed him to excel in classes and matches on the fields. This was also his first year of playing rugby and he caught the eye of those recording the match. An after school match report records that, ‘he was the best of the three-quarters on the day, however sometimes less effective in defence and was seen to scoot away from the enemy.’

Pupils of the Oxford Prep School are known as ‘Dragons’ and on leaving naturally become ‘Old Dragons’. In his last year at the school, Ronald’s Headmaster paid tribute to him by writing, ‘his presence was like a gleam of sunshine.’ Sporting achievements had continued to accrue as a Dragon and he was top scorer in hockey, good at gymnastics and played cricket for the School XI. It is thought he was the best all-round sportsman that the school has ever produced. His academic prowess was also evident and he submitted an essay on Mary Queen of Scots which won a top prize. Often the centre of attention and much liked by his fellow pupils he was seen as the ‘life and soul’ of many teams. If there was one possible drawback to his personality it was that he seemed a terrible chatterbox and bets were often laid, whilst on train journeys to other schools for away matches, that he could not stay silent for at least five minutes! Apparently Ronald never won the bet. Ronald left Oxford Prep in 1903, thereby becoming an ‘Old Dragon’. Seventy-four other Old Dragons were to fall in the Great War.

Ronald Poulton had been born on 12 September 1889 at Wykeham House on the Banbury Road in Oxford, a house which would

Reviews for The Greater Game

[atticusfinch1048 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Greater Game – A Well Written and Researched BookThis is one of the most interesting books that has been published that covers the period of the Great War, especially now as there is nobody left to tell the stories and remind us of those who paid the ulitmate price. This book looks at that through the eyes of sporting icons, covering a wide range of sports, that brings home how young some were and what we lost.The book opens with Ronald Poulton Palmer a Rugby Union player, England international and if he had lived would have gone on to run Huntley Palmer biscuits. Poulton Palmer was not just any rugby player but one of England’s most famous of the period, who had enjoyed dominance on the pitch especially against the French.One of my favoutite chapters is the one that covers Alex ‘Sandy’ Turnbull, a footballer who found fame at Manchester City, then after scandal, a ban was to play for Manchester United. A man that had won the FA Cup with Manchester City and then did the same at United where he also won a couple of league championships. It covers how he came down from a mining town in Scotland, to play in what is now the capital of English football.There is another chapter that covers how Association Football went to war and covers the footballing VC Donald Simpsell Bell a man who had played for Newcastle and Bradford Park Avenue. There is also a chapter on Jack Harrision who played Rugby League for Hull and who today has a statue outside the KC Stadium in Hull.In this book we learn about the tennis player who went to war, the Aussie Rules player killed in action as well as the Sportsmen of France who paid the supreme price. We get a look at the boxers who went to war and those who could not beat the final count. The rowers who did great things for their sport but who were not to return.The Sporting Battalions that were raised and the men in them that answered the call of their nation such as the 13th Rifle Brigade and the famous Footballers Batallion the 17th and 23rd Batalions Middlesex Regiment. We also have a chapter on the Hearts of Midlothian team who signed up enmass and many were to die on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, comrades and friends until the end.Clive Harris and Julian Whippy have researched and written an excellent book that brings home how young people were who died. That not only did the ordinary man in the street fight but they were fighting alongside their sporting heroes . These are two men as battlefield tour guides who have brought their knowledge of the era to bear on this book and written something that will stand the test of time.