France-Belgium 2011 - Jimmy Conlin

The Nieupoort Memorial to the Missing was unlike any other we had seen thus far. It was situated in the centre of the town, at a main road intersection with trams and canals nearby.

City's first ever England international Jimmy Conlin is commemorated on the memorial. He was quite a character. The first City player to be sent off, only the second ever player in the world to be sold for over £1,000 and he was at the centre of a riot at Valley Parade against Manchester United in 1906.

Sadly, his brilliant career ended with suspension as drink got the better of him. Jimmy was killed in action at Neiupoort whilst serving with the Highland Light Infantry. He has no known grave and is thus commemorated by name on the memorial. The photograph shows bullet holes in the memorial from the Second World War.

France-Belgium 2011 - Ernest Goodwin

Line after line of brilliant white headstones. Étaples British Cemetery, within sight of the sea, is a poignant place. Here wounded soldiers were brought from the front. If they survived they were placed on a boat for Britain and home. Sadly, over 12,000 got within sight and sound of the sea, and by association, home, before succumbing to their wounds.

Among the rows of headstones is City reserve Ernest Goodwin. He lived on South Parade right behind Valley Parade's main stand. Ernest was badly wounded by shrapnel attacking Thiepval during the Battle of the Somme. He made it to Étaples, but no further.

France-Belgium 2011 - Harry Potter

The huge Arras Memorial to the Missing lies alongside a major road just west of the city centre. Once inside the high walls of the memorial the noise of the traffic disappears and once again you find yourself in the tranquility of an English garden.

The beauty and peace of the Commonwealth Cemeteries strikes the visitor time and again. Among the 30,000 names on the Arras Memorial is that of City reserve Harry Potter. A native of Bradford, Harry was living in Girlington with a young family when war came. He died holding the line in the German all-or-nothing spring offensive of 1918. It was the beginning of the end of the 'war to end wars'.

Once the German offensive was spent, the British began a sustained push that rolled the German's back towards their border and eventual surrender. Little compensation for Harry's wife and young daughter left behind in Bradford.

France-Belgium 2011 - Bradford Pals Memorial

The tiny village of Hebuterne has a plaque on its church wall commemorating the Bradford Pals. The location was chosen because it is close to where 44 Pals were killed in woodland, but it is a couple of miles distant from Serre where the majority of them were mown down on 1 July 1916. The area around Serre has several Pals memorials - Accrington, Barnsley, Sheffield to name but a few, so it does feel a bit odd that the Bradford Pals memorial stands on its own at Hebuterne.

Thanks to Steve Whittaker we were able to lay a claret and amber wreath to remember the Pals who died on the Somme. Both battalions were admitted free to Valley Parade in the days leading up to their departure from Bradford. Their initial meetings took place at the Drill Hall right next to the ground and undoubtedly many of them will have been supporters of Speirs, Torrance et al.

Indeed among the ranks of the Pals was none other than City's most famous player, the England international winger Dickie Bond, fortunately he survived the conflict.

France-Belgium 2011 - Donald Bell - Part Two

A few minutes drive from Bell's redoubt is the final resting place of Bradford Park Avenue's Donald Bell VC. We walked down a grassy path between ploughed fields into what the troops called the Caterpillar Valley, dominated today by the large Gordon's Dump Cemetery.

Without a building in sight we walked among the long lines of brilliant white headstones. Several wreaths of poppies lay at the foot of Donald Bell's headstone - including ones from Aireville School, Skipton and Donald Bell's former school, Harrogate Grammar.

Undoubtedly, his grave attracts the most attention in the large cemetery, yet all the headstone are of exactly the same size and design; the message being that they fought together and died together, equals in life and death. It was a sentiment that was to change Britain and beyond, for among the battlefields of the Great War our modern world was formed.

France-Belgium 2011 - Donald Bell

The Somme.

The tall white cross of sacrifice that stand sentinel over every British and Commonwealth cemetery becomes a regular sight. We wind among narrow lanes and suddenly come across Bell’s Redoubt on the edge of the village of Contalmaison.

On the roadside stands a memorial marking the spot where Bradford Park Avenue’s Donald Bell died. He is commemorated because a few days before his death he charged across no man’s land under heavy fire and killed the crew of a machine gun that was decimating the attacking troops. For his extreme valour Bell was awarded the Victoria Cross. A few days later he attempted to repeat a similar act and was killed.

Alongside the memorial was a wreath of poppies from Bradford Park Avenue. It was strange seeing the familiar civic coat of arms so deep in the French countryside; a little piece of a foreign roadside that will be forever Bradford.

Bradford Park Avene's Jimmy Smith

Another remote French village, set in rolling fields of barley, Ramicourt. Situated on the edge of the village and on a rise is the final resting place of Bradford Park Avenue's Jimmy Smith. He was a striker with an incredible scoring rate. Signed to strengthen the Avenue side in the wake of their promotion to the top division, he carried on hitting the net with an unerring regularity. Just a few days before he was due to return home to Bradford to marry his fiancé at Heaton he was killed in action. His portrait hung in the boardroom at Park Avenue as as a reminder of his supreme sacrifice - I wonder what became of it after Park Avenue was demolished in 1980?

Unfortunately, his grave stone is badly worn, but will doubtless be replaced in the near future. As we looked out in brilliant sunshine over the fields of barley swaying gently in the breeze, it was once again difficult to comprehend the slaughter that had occurred in that place. If the cemeteries did not exist the battlefields of the Great War would have already been returned completely to nature. In some ways a sad thought, in others a lovely one.