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ABSTRACT
The image of British troops advancing into battle kicking a football is part of Britain’s First World War collective memory. However, research suggests that this happened only twice, with the better-known event being on the opening day of the Battle of the Somme when ‘B’ Company of the 8 Battalion of the East Surrey Regiment kicked two footballs ahead of them. The East Surreys were one of the few battalions to reach their objective. However on this bloodiest day in the history of the British Army, the football charge is but a footnote to military historians despite becoming a national ‘micro-level’ myth. This paper, researched in an antiquarian spirit, is concerned with the recovery of the empirical detail of the event motivated by a desire to discover the objective reality of the collective memory and explore the underlying rationale of this football charge.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Hands, ‘Preface’, 431; Vamplew, ‘Exploding the Myths’.
2. Adams, ‘A Game for Christmas’; Adams, ‘Did “Old Bill” Watch Football’; Adams and Petney, ‘Germany 3- Scotland 2ʹ; and Brown and Seaton, Christmas Truce.
3. Adams, ‘Over the Top: “A Foul; a Blurry Foul!”’; Adams, ‘Over the Top: Images of the Football Charges’; and Holmes, Tommy, xxiii.
4. Masefield, The Old Front Line, 31.
5. Hart, The Somme, 20, 57.
6. Ibid.; Robertson, From Private to Field Marshall.
7. Langley, The East Surrey Regiment, 72.
8. Brown, The Somme; Gilbert, Somme; Hart, The Somme; Macdonald, Somme; Middlebrook, The First Day on the Somme; Philpott, Bloody Victory; Roberts, Elegy; Sheffield, The Somme; Sheldon, The German Army on the Somme; and van Emden, The Somme.
9. Nichols, The 18th Division, 2–3; and Pearse and Sloman, History of the East Surrey Regiment.
10. Irwin, 8/East Surrey Regiment.
11. A. Diaper, ‘Kicking Football to the Front: An investigation into the role of English football during the Great War’ (MA thesis, University of Central Lancashire, 1997); Evening Standard, 16 November 1914.
12. Baynes, Far From a Donkey; Adams, ‘Football: A counterpoint’; and Mason and Riedi, Sport and the Military.
13. Waquet, ‘Sport in the Trenches’, 13.
14. Terraine, General Jack’s Diary, 57.
15. Adams, ‘Football: A counterpoint’; and Terraine, General Jack’s Diary, 91 fn.
16. War Diary.
17. Nevill, ‘Letter home’, 50.
18. Ibid., 56.
19. War Diary.
20. Maxse, ‘Agenda’.
21. Gliddon, Somme 1916; Pearse and Sloman, History of the East Surrey Regiment.
22. War Diary, Irwin, 8/East Surrey Regiment.
23. Harris, Billie.
24. War Diary, Nevill, ‘Letter home’, 171.
25. Nichols, The 18th Division.
26. Heath, ‘Document 2554ʹ, 1916.
27. Langley, The East Surrey Regiment, 73 fn.
28. Irwin, 8/East Surrey Regiment.
29. War Diary, ‘Appendix 10, Trench Topics’.
30. Langley, The East Surrey Regiment, 73.
31. War Diary, ‘Appendix I, Operation Order’.
32. Ibid.
33. War Diary. The War Diary would have been written up after the battle and, due to the casualties, probably by an officer not actually involved in the attack.
34. Middlebrook, The First Day on the Somme, 124.
35. War Diary, ‘Appendix II, Report on the Attack on the Montauban Ridge’; and Philpott, Bloody Victory.
36. Pearse and Sloman, History of the East Surrey Regiment, 224; War Diary.
37. Nichols, The 18th Division; War Diary.
38. War Diary. He is buried in Carnoy Military Cemetery (Cem. Ref. E.28); his headstone features the badge of the East Yorkshire Regiment and has had at least one football left by visitors on the author’s research visits.
39. Middlebrook, The First Day on the Somme.
40. War Diary.
41. Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory, 26; and Adams, ‘Over the Top: Images of the Football Charges’.
42. Sillars, Art and Survival, 64.
43. Adams, ‘Over the Top: Images of the Football Charges’, 205.
44. A partial list of events is recorded in the ‘East Surrey Regiment Scrapbook of Press Cuttings Volume 2.’ Surrey History Centre Reference ESR/1/12/12.
45. Veitch, ‘Play up! Play up! 375; G.D. Sheffield, ‘Officer-Man Relations, Morale and Discipline in the British Army, 1902–1922ʹ (PhD diss., King’s College, London, 1994), 128; and Harris, Billie, 210.
46. J.D. Campbell, ‘The Army Isn’t All Work: Physical Culture in the Evolution of The British Army, 1860–1920ʹ (PhD thesis, The University of Maine, 2003); Eksteins, Rites of Spring; Moorhouse, Forged by Fire; and Parker, Into Battle; Veitch, ‘Play up! Play up!
47. Nichols, The 18th Division. 40.
48. Langley, The East Surrey Regiment, 73; and Irwin, 8/East Surrey Regiment.
49. Gliddon, The Battle of the Somme; Holt and Holt, Major & Mrs Holt’s Battlefield Guide to the Somme; Middlebrook, The First Day on the Somme; and Youel and Edgell, The Somme.
50. Langley, The East Surrey Regiment, 73.
51. Thorne, C. Condolence letter to mother of Private George Pollard, 3 September 1916. Surrey History Centre, Guildford. Reference ESR/25/RICH/1. Pollard was ‘missing’; he is commemorated on the Thiepval memorial, Pier and Face 6B.
52. Hetherington, Ernest Cooper. ‘Private Papers’. Surrey History Centre Reference ESR/18/3/1-2.
53. Ackerley, My Father and Myself, 57.
54. Langley, The East Surrey Regiment, 73.
55. Alcock, C.W. ‘Letter to Miss Nevill’, 15 July 1916. Private Papers of Captain C.W. Alcock MBE, Department of Documents.20586, Imperial War Museum.
56. Sorrell, J. ‘Letter to Mrs Nevill’ and Irwin, Alfred Percy Bulteen. ‘Manuscript letter’ 15 July 1916., Private Papers of Captain W. P. Nevill, Department of Documents.11213, Imperial War Museum. According to Regimental records, Sorrell accompanied the ball on several cash raising visits to garden parties later in the war.
57. Jeeves, ‘In the Battle of the Somme’, 27.
58. Winter, Sites of Memory; and Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory.
59. Gilbert, Somme.
60. Sillars, Art and Survival.
61. Nichols, The 18th Division, 41; and Irwin, 8/East Surrey Regiment.
62. Hart, The Somme, 104.
63. General Staff, 1917a. SS.143 Instructions for the Training of Platoons for Offensive Action. Base Stationary Unit, France: Army Printing and Publishing Services; Moorhouse, Forged by Fire.