The 1911 Annual Memorial Dinner

26 April 2014

1911 Club, Valley Parade

Ever since the success of the dinner that commemorated the centenary of Bradford City’s FA Cup triumph, the organisers of the bantamspast museum have arranged an annual dinner on 26 April, the date when Jimmy Speirs' headed goal won the famous trophy for the Bantams. This year the 103^rd anniversary falls on a Saturday, so it is appropriate that the host venue will be Bradford City’s own 1911 Club. 

The evening will comprise a three course carvery dinner and an after dinner speaker. The cost is, perhaps appropriately, £19.11. As we approach the centenary of the Great War, the bantamspast museum’s David Pendleton will speak about the impact of the conflict on the football club and will reveal plans in place to commemorate the centenary. Nine City players died in the war, including the captain and goal scorer in the FA Cup final Jimmy Speirs and the man-of-the-match Robert Torrance.

The dinner takes place on Saturday 26 April, 7.30pm for 8pm at the 1911 Club, Valley Parade. There are only sixty places available, so the event is expected to sell out. Tickets are available from the 1911 Reception.

Belgian Blog - Day Two

Glorious sunshine greeted the second day of the bantamspast trip to the battlefields of the Great War. In the morning we left a football, used in the warm up at Wembley this year, at the site of the 1914 Christmas Day truce when British and German troops played football in no man's land. The site is marked by a wooden cross where visitors regularly leave footballs. Bradford City chairman Mark Lawn kindly supplied a ball and he wrote a message of remembrance from all at Valley Parade.

The day was to be dominated by thoughts of City's captain and goal scorer in the 1911 FA Cup Final Jimmy Speirs. A chance meeting at the site of one of the huge British mines exploded on the Messines Ridge with a group of Scottish doctors, who were undertaking a cycling tour of the Ypres area, gave us an insight into the fate of Jimmy Speirs. One of the doctors had written a book entitled 'War Surgery 1914-1918' examining the treatment of wounds during the conflict. Jimmy Speirs was shot through the thigh during the Battle of Passchendaele. The doctor explained that he would have suffered a broken femur. By 1917 the rapid strapping of such wounds, using a specially developed strap, vastly improved survival rates. However, it had to be applied almost immediately and as Jimmy was shot advancing across an open field it is probable that such a procedure was unlikely. His fate was probably sealed the moment he was shot. The muddy shell hole he was placed in lessened even further the chances of survival as infection was probable. In the end Jimmy was left in the shelter of the shell hole as his company continued their advance. The intention was to return, but sadly they were unable to and Jimmy was never seen alive again. In all probability he died an agonising and lonely death.

In the afternoon we visited the exact spot where he died, The two farms, named Iberian and Gallipoli by the British troops, from where the German's opened fire on Jimmy's company are still in existence - although they were probably rebuilt after the war. The open field over which Jimmy advanced offered little cover. We looked across the windy farmer's field where our great cup winner met his untimely end, it was difficult to visualise how it would have looked during the war. Appropriately we ended our trip at the graveside of Jimmy Speirs. Once again Bradford remembered.

Blog from Belgium - Day One

The annual bantamspast trip to the battlefields of the Great War is this year concentrating on the Ypres Salient in Belgium. Scene of some of the most bloody fighting of the conflict, Ypres became the final resting place of Bradford City's FA Cup winning captain and goalscorer Jimmy Speirs and the man-of-the-match in the replayed final Robert Torrance.

The first day commenced in drizzly conditions at Essex Farm Cemetery where John McCrae wrote the famous poem 'In Flanders Fields' whilst serving with the Canadian Army Medical Corps. Adjacent to the cemetery is the large obelisk memorial to the 49th West Riding Division. The division included the Belle Vue based 1/6th West Yorkshire Regiment. Among their casualties was City reserve Ernest Goodwin. Part of the divisional artillery was the 2nd West Riding Royal Field Artillery. They were based at the Valley Parade Drill Hall. When they mustered to depart for France at the start of the war it is reported that they used the Valley Parade pitch to store their guns and horses.

We moved on from Essex Farm to visit several cemeteries. The highlight was Lijssenhoek, which is the second largest British war cemetery in the world with some 9,901 burials. A highly informative visitor centre illustrates the work of the adjacent casualty clearing station which treated 300,000 injured soldiers.

After lunch and in increasingly glorious sunshine we searched for the site of the location where Robert Torrance was mortally wounded. Sadly he has no known grave. However, just across the fields from where the action took place where Torrance lost an arm and later died, is Klien Vierstraat British Cemetery. It is the home of bodies discovered after the war and if Robert does have a grave he is likely to be among the 109 that are marked 'A Solider of the Great War, known unto God'.

We continued the unforgettable day at the famous locations of Sanctuary Wood and Hill 60. Tomorrow we will seek out the location where Jimmy Speirs met his untimely end. Find out if we were successful when the blog is published tomorrow night.

City Heroes - Finding Robert Torrance

City Heroes - Finding Robert Torrance is the title of what promises to be a memorable and moving night at Bradford Cathedral on 11th November, Remembrance Day, 2009.

Co-written and produced by Bradford based poet and showman Glyn Watkins and David Pendleton, curator of the Bradford City Museum, it is subtitled 'The City of Bradford, Bradford City, the F.A. Cup and the War To End Wars', and includes projected images and guest appearances by both the West Riding Cup and the F.A. Cup, both of which were made by former Bradford jewelers, Fattorini's.

It tells the largely forgotten tale of the earliest days of Manningham F.C., the rugby club that became Bradford City in 1903; how City went on to bring the new F.A. Cup back to the town in which it was made and what happened to some of the players in the First World War, including Jimmy Speirs, who scored the Cup winning goal. We particularly highlight the story of Robert Torrance, who was married at Bradford Cathedral in 1915, killed by shell in 1918, and is one of tens of thousands of World War I British and Empire casualties with no known grave.

The show begins at 7.30 and admission is free.

The Cathedral will be open from 6.30 onwards for short tours and to give people a chance to see the cups.
There will be a collection.
Anyone intending to come and see City Heroes - Finding Robert Torrance is urged to reserve seats by calling the Cathedral on 01274 777720.

Jimmy's Return - More details

The museum’s full size figure of FA Cup legend Jimmy Speirs returned to Valley Parade following a two year loan to the Passchendaele Museum in Belgium. We loaned the figure to help the Museum commemorate the ninetieth anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele in which Speirs was killed along with 300,000 British and Commonwealth troops.

Last week bantamspast’s David Pendleton travelled to Belgium to visit the Passchendaele Museum and bring the figure of Speirs back to Valley Parade in time for the new football season. On Saturday David, along with his daughter Rosie and fellow City fan Glyn Watkins met Frank at the Passchendaele Museum. Frank kindly drove our small party to Dochy Farm New British Cemetery where Jimmy Speirs is buried. We were pleased to note that Jimmy has received a new headstone and for the first time in ninety years his name is now spelt correctly on his grave – it had been spelt Spiers, an error that had been made on Jimmy’s enrolment form when he first joined the army.

Frank then drove us to the Passchendaele Museum, where we were given a guided tour. The museum is well worth a visit and has an impressive reconstruction of a British dug out. We later visited Tyne Cot Cemetery, the largest British war cemetery in the world, where we viewed the memorial to that other great FA Cup winner – Robert Torrance. Sadly, he has no known grave and is commemorated on Tyne Cot’s Memorial to the Missing.

Frank gave our party a lift to Kortrijk railway station – sadly as we had the cut-out figure of Speirs booked on a London bound Eurostar that evening, we had to turn down Frank’s offer to watch his beloved Kortrijk play Anderlecht on the opening day of the Belgian football season. We received a few bemused looks as we boarded a Ghent bound train with the large cut-out. After a short stop at Ghent we arrived in good time at Brussels to place the figure on a Eurostar bound for London. We followed two days later and picked Jimmy up from St Pancras. It was quite a challenge to get the cut-out, its base and a large framed photograph from there to King’s Cross. By now the group was down to David and Rosie, so the short distance was a bit of a struggle. However, the helpful National Express staff soon had our items stowed in the guard's van and we were soon heading north. At Leeds it was an easy hop to a Forster Square bound train and bantamspast’s John Ashton met us at the station for the short journey to Valley Parade.

The cut-out figure of Jimmy Speirs will be on display once more when City open their home campaign against Port Vale on Saturday 15 August. Our thanks to Frank at the Passchendaele Museum for his hospitality. The staff of SNCB, Eurostar, National Express East Coast and Northern Trains for their assistance in getting Jimmy Speirs back to Valley Parade in time for the new season. A fuller account of the journey will appear in a forthcoming City Gent.

Jimmy Returns

Just to allay all fears, bantamspast can confirm that the life-sized figure of Jimmy Speirs is now safely back in the museum after its long stay in Belgium. Here it is with fellow traveller, Dave Pendleton, still in its protective wrapping, outside the museum this afternoon. More details of the trip to follow.

Front Room Almost Complete

Today more of our heroes have been returned to the Front Room. Two members of our current management team, David Wetherall and Stuart McCall, are now in residence along with John Hendrie and a hero of the 1920s, Willie Watson (right). Jimmy Speirs' details will be added soon, but don't forget you can find much more about him at his own site.