Bradford Pals badges

The likelihood is that Bradford City AFC will be adopting the Bradford Pals badge in 2015 (refer page 43 of 'A History of Bradford City AFC in Objects') and ahead of this bantamspast is commissioning a limited edition run of 100 enamel badges to feature the Bradford Pals / West Yorkshire regiment crests against a claret and amber background. The initiative is to help raise funds for the appeal but also to produce what we consider to be a tasteful derivation of the badge before other variants start to appear. BCAFC does not have the monopoly on Pals commemorations but the claret and amber colours of the regiment are part of a shared heritage. The bantamspast badges therefore include claret and amber but deliberately have not incorporated a BCAFC crest. A bantamspast inscription on the reverse serves to denote the association with BCAFC supporters.

The badges are designed as shown. The horse of the WY Regiment will be produced in 3D. They will be 20mm in diameter and inscribed on the back: BANTAMSPAST X OF 100 etc and are being sold in pairs.

A little number remain available. If you would like to order a pair please confim by email. Collection / despatch and payment arrangements will be confirmed later this month. The cost per pair of badges will be £15.

Please ensure that your name, mobile number and postal address are clearly stated in your email.

On Saturday 29th November Dave Pendleton is organising a special event in conjunction with supporters of Leyton Orient to raise money for the 'Honour the Pals Appeal'. It takes place from noon at Jacobs Beer House, Kent Street, Bradford. It is a free event, but donations will be welcome towards the T&A's appeal to erect a memorial to the Bradford Pals on the Somme.

Football and the Great War

The supreme sacrifice of the players of Bradford City and Leyton Orient
29 November 2014

As the world commemorates the centenary of the Great War there is a growing appreciation that the war affected all aspects of everyday life. Football was no exception. Although the 1914/15 league season was played to its conclusion – albeit against a background of mounting criticism – football and footballers increasingly played a full part in the conflict. Matches were used as occasions to boost recruiting. Indeed, at half-time during the first division Bradford derby at Park Avenue, Bradford City’s famous England international Dickie Bond wore his Bradford Pals uniform and made an appeal to spectators to join up.

Inevitably, like men in all walks of life, as the war progressed footballers were killed and injured in ever increasing numbers at the front. By the war’s end nine Bradford City and two Bradford Park Avenue players had been died. Those losses were replicated across the country. Leyton Orient, then known as Clapton Orient, lost three players killed and ten others wounded.

On Saturday 29 November Bradford City play Leyton Orient. This allows an opportunity to reflect on the losses of both clubs in the war to end all wars. Supporters of City and Orient have previously organised trips to the battlefields of France and Flanders. David Pendleton, from Bradford City’s bantamspast museum, and Steve Jenkins, vice chairman of the Leyton Orient Supporters’ Club, will speak about their trips to the Western Front and give a brief summary of the footballers who paid the ultimate price. Bradford poet Glyn Watkins will close proceedings with a reading.

The event will raise money for the ‘Honour the Pals Appeal’ being organised by the Telegraph & Argus newspaper. The appeal is seeking to erect a memorial to the Bradford Pals at Serre on the Somme where, at 7.30am on 1 July 1916, 2,000 Bradford Pals left their trenches to attack the German lines. In the space of a few hours 1,770 were killed or wounded. It was without doubt the darkest day in Bradford’s history.

The fund raising event will commence at noon over lunch at the Jacobs Ale House, Kent Street, in the city centre. The landlady of Jacobs, Christina Wagstaff, has kindly offered to donate profits from the bar food to the ‘Honour the Heroes’ appeal. At 12.30pm David Pendleton and Steve Jenkins will make their presentations. After 1pm there will be a walking tour via the Cenotaph to the Midland Hotel’s Spirit of Bradford bar where there is a display about the hotel’s links with Bradford City FA Cup winning team of 1911. Two of the cup winners who are pictured on the display, Jimmy Speirs and Robert Torrance, died in the Great War. There we will toast their memory. Those attending the match at Valley Parade will then move on towards the game.

The presentations and walk are free, but we will be asking for donations towards the ‘Honour the Pals’ appeal.

Bradford City and Remembering the Great War

Across the world commemorations have begun to mark the centenary of the Great War. The next four years will witness numerous acts of remembrance. As Bradford City AFC lost nine players in the Great War it is important that we, as a club and a community, consider an appropriate manner to honour, not just the nine players, but also the thousands of Bradfordians, who died in that terrible conflict.

The Great War broke out on 4 August 1914 just as the 1914/15 football season was about to get underway. As one of the top five sides in the country, Bradford City approached the new season with an expectation of success in both the league and cup competitions. Bradford (Park Avenue) had joined their neighbours in the top flight giving the city of Bradford two first division teams. At first it was not expected that the outbreak of war would have too much impact on the football season. This was a reflection of the popular sentiment that ‘it would be all over by Christmas’. Both Bradford clubs admitted soldiers free of charge to their matches and made substantial donations from gate money to the War Relief Fund. 

As the war ground to a stalemate it was realised that a large army would be required to achieve victory. To boost recruiting local battalions were formed so that men could serve alongside their friends, these became known as the ‘Pals battalions’. The appeal to local patriotism was obvious and the Pals battalions adopted the name of their respective towns. Those recruited in September 1914 became known as the Bradford Pals. Each new recruit was given a metal badge displaying the city of Bradford coat of arms as its centre-piece.  The Bradford Pals were based at the Valley Parade Barracks which was just behind City’s Main Stand. In October 1914 almost the entire Pals battalion of 1,069 men were among a 25,0000 crowd that saw City thrash Aston Villa 3-0. Fittingly Oscar Fox, who was to later serve with the Pals, scored a second half hat-trick. 

Although the continuation of the Football League fixtures attracted some criticism, there was little doubt that the game aided fund raising and recruiting. At several matches the Bradford Church Lads’ Brigade collected money for the Lord Mayor’s War Fund and cigarettes for the soldiers. Even the highly anticipated first ever Football League meeting between Bradford City and Bradford (Park Avenue) was overshadowed by the war. While the majority of the 29,802 crowd would have enjoyed the City’s thrilling 3-2 victory, there was no escaping the conflict. At half-time the former president of Bradford City, Alfred Ayrton, made a short, but rousing, speech, which was followed by showers of money and cigarettes onto the pitch. By December 1914 it was reported that ten thousand Bradford men were in military service. Arguably, the last echo of Bradford City’s golden pre-war era came on Boxing Day 1914 when 35,000 spectators crammed into Valley Parade for the visit of Everton. Many were in uniform and apparently there was a strange atmosphere in the ground. Perhaps it was recognised as the last great gathering before many would leave for the front and the possibility that some would never see Bradford again. 

As 1915 dawned the fact that of 1,800 professional footballers only 122 had enlisted in the armed forces was used to criticise the game. It was a little unfair as most footballers had signed one year contracts before the war had broken out. Given the ‘it’ll be all over by Christmas’ sentiment it is understandable that there was not a flood of footballers to the recruiting offices in 1914. However, during 1915 that situation would change dramatically. Of course, some were already at the front. Frank Buckley, who had cost City a considerable transfer fee in the summer of 1914, had been released from his contract and was serving with the Footballers’ Battalion. Bradford City’s former centre half Gerald Kirk and the Bradford (Park Avenue) amateurs Donald Bell and Kirby had also enlisted. Two City players, Dickie Bond and Harry Walden, both of whom had previously served in the army, joined the Bradford Pals in April 1915. In time several City players would also join the ranks of the Bradford Pals: the Scottish international goal keeper Jock Ewart, Cleckheaton born Irvine Boocock, Joe Linford,  and, as previously mentioned, Oscar Fox. 

The final game of the 1914/15 season was the derby match at Bradford Park Avenue on Wednesday 28 April 1915. The Bradford Daily Argus carried full length portraits of Bond and Walden in their army uniforms. On the same page the sad news of the death of former City player Gerald Kirk was announced. He died of wounds sustained whilst leading his company into action in Belgium. The kick off was moved back to 6pm to allow thousands of workers in overalls to attend the match straight from their factories. At half-time the 25,000 crowd watched Captain Burton of the Bradford Pals hold up the front page of the Bradford Daily Argus that featured the photographs of Bond and Walden. Dickie Bond donned his corporal’s jacket to join his captain in appealing for new recruits. Avenue’s 3-0 victory should have been a moment to savour for the Avenueites, but instead it was the last Football League match for both clubs for four long years. 

On the morning of 1 July 1916 the 2,000 men of the Bradford Pals left their trenches to make an attack the German lines during the Battle of the Somme. In little more than an hour 1,770 had been killed or wounded. It was one of the darkest days in the history of the city of Bradford.

Throughout the period 2014 to 2018 Bradford City AFC will be commemorating the loss of the nine players who died via a series of articles in the match day programme. Clearly, given the close ties with the Bradford Pals, and the recruiting drive during 1914 and 1915, that period in our history should be remembered. One suggestion is that the club should adopt the badge of the Bradford Pals for the 2015/16 season. It would be a visual reminder of those who went before us and endured so much. The club invited the publication of this article in order to open a debate as to how to commemorate the Bradford Pals at Valley Parade. 

France-Belgium 2014

 

And so the fourth annual bantamspast trip to the battlefields of the Great War is over. A party of twenty-six travelled around northern France in glorious sunshine, paying another pilgrimage to recognise the sacrifice and tragedy of those lost fighting in what should have been the war to end all wars.

The poignancy of locations such as Vimy Ridge, now a Canadian national historic site, where 3,598 Canadians lost their lives taking the strategic ridge, or France’s Notre Dame de Lorette Cemetery where 22,970 French soldiers have found their final resting place, is impossible for even the most casual visitor to ignore. However, equally effecting are places such as the tiny British cemetery at the village of Ors where Wilfred Owen, one of the greatest war poets, is buried, or the Le Trou Aid Post Cemetery, the beautiful last resting place of three Bradford Pals.

At many of the locations we visited research by members of the group ensured that we were able to pay our respects to Bradfordians buried so far from home. Their surnames and the streets where they lived were familiar to us. From Exeter Street to Leeds Road; Manningham Lane to Toller Lane, we stood and remembered our fellow townsmen. The one Bradford City link came at Bethune where we visited to grave of John Ayrton, the son of Bradford City’s first ever chairman Alfred Ayrton. We were asked by his niece (Alfred’s granddaughter who still lives in Manningham) to lay flowers at his grave. We were delighted to do it and remember a man whose father helped found our football club and even came up with the name ‘Bradford City’.

Next year we begin to enter the period where the centenaries of the deaths of the nine Bradford City players killed in the Great War begin. The first will be Gerald Kirk, who died on 24 April 1915. We hope to be at his graveside in Belgium one hundred years to the day after his untimely death.

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.

Latest News from bantamspast

How to reflect such an unforgettable season? That will be the task in hand for the small bantamspast team this summer. We are delighted to have been invited to work closely with Mark Lawn to produce a new 2013 Suite at Valley Parade. Although we are at a very early stage of developing ideas, the overall vision is an exciting one and we hope we will produce something that will capture the magic of this remarkable season and its historical context. As the project progresses we will post further details, but with a major Cup Final and a Play-Off Final victory to reflect on, we are not short of content and artefacts – including a large shiny trophy.

On Thursday 30 May the annual bantamspast trip to the battlefields of the Great War gets underway. This year the focus is Belgium and in particular the infamous Ypres Salient. Several City players met their deaths near the Belgian town. The FA Cup captain and goal scorer Jimmy Speirs was killed during the terrible Battle of Passchendaele in 1917. We are planning to visit the location where he was killed and of course his final resting place. The man of the match in the FA Cup Final replay Robert Torrance was blasted into oblivion in 1918 and his body was never found. We will remember him at the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing where his name is inscribed. At nearby Poperinghe is the grave of City’s amateur centre half Gerald Kirk. He was killed in the wake of the first use of poison gas in warfare in 1915. Leading his company in a counter attack trying desperately, and successfully, to defend a gap in the Allied lines. The Dalesman paid with his life. The centre half who replaced Gerald in the Bantams’ team was James Comrie. Another man with no known grave his name is inscribed among the 56,000 of the Menin Gate at Ypres. Of course, this terrible litany is only a tiny fraction of the huge losses suffered at Ypres. Many of the people on the trip will be bringing stories of their own family’s loss with them, as well as that of the wider City of Bradford. If it proves practicable David Pendleton will provide a daily blog of the trip which takes place between Thursday 30 May and Sunday 2 June.

We are also collaborating with the Bradford based theatre company Northern Lines in the writing of their production ‘City Stories: It’s Only the Cup. War, Love and Football’, which will be staged at the New Bradford Playhouse, Little Germany, 27/28 June.

Finally, we will be adding around a dozen new framed images to the displays in our museum in exile at Bantams Bar on the Kop. At the moment admission is only available to holders of Bantams Bar season tickets and individual match day tickets. However, we have also added a couple of new images to our museum in exile display at the Corn Dolly public house on Bolton Road in the city centre. Admission is open to all – for the price of a pint!

We Remember

This year Remembrance Sunday falls on 11 November: the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, when the guns finally fell silent in 1918 and on the Great War. Whilst we take a few moments to think of those who fought and died in conflicts around the world, here at bantamspast we particularly remember former players and supporters of Bradford City.

Of the players, in the Great War the club lost: Jimmy Speirs, Robert Torrance, Evelyn Lintott, Ernest Goodwin, George Draycott, Gerald Kirk, Jimmy Conlin, James Comrie and Harry Potter. In the Second World War we lost Alfred Keeling and guest players Sidney Pugh and Ernest Tuckett.

A roll call of the club’s supporters killed in conflicts is obviously impossible to collate. However, those who took part in this year’s trip to the Somme were particularly affected by the fate of the Bradford Pals. We visited the grave of Manningham born Arthur Greenwood, a private in the first Bradford Pals who was killed on the 1st July 1916 – the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Among his personal effects were several postcards of Bradford City teams, including those great FA Cup winners of 1911.

We will remember them.

France 2012 - Day Three

Saturday 2 June
In blazing sunshine our first call was at the enormous Lochnagar Crater. The Lochnagar mine was an explosive-packed mine created by the Royal Engineer tunnelling companies which was detonated at 7:28 am on 1 July 1916. The Lochnagar mine was the largest ever detonated and reputedly was heard in London. The explosion was witnessed from the air by 2nd Lieutenant C.A. Lewis of No. 3 Squadron RFC:

The whole earth heaved and flashed, a tremendous and magnificent column rose up in the sky. There was an ear-splitting roar drowning all the guns, flinging the machine sideways in the repercussing air. The earth column rose higher and higher to almost 4,000 feet. There it hung, or seemed to hang, for a moment in the air, like the silhouette of some great cypress tree, then fell away in a widening cone of dust and debris.

The description is of a man-made volcano and that is exactly what the aftermath looks like. The crater is absolutely enormous, a deep bowl scooped out of the chalky soil as if by some giant hand. From Lochnagar we visited the final resting place of a Bradford sportsman who had evaded our attention on the previous year’s trip – Bradford Northern’s Harry Ruck. He is buried in the large Caterpillar Valley Cemetery at Longueval. The cemetery is within sight of the infamous trio of Delville Wood, High Wood and Mametz Wood. Harry played for Bradford Northern at their former Birch Lane ground at West Bowling – two decades before Odsal Stadium was developed. He was the only Rugby League player from Bradford killed in the Great War. We laid a cross on his grave and will be passing photographs of his final resting place to our friends at the Bradford Bulls. Caterpillar Valley Cemetery also had the New Zealand memorial to the missing on one wall and there was an empty grave from where the body of an unknown New Zealand soldier was exhumed and taken the Wellington where he now lies at the centre of the country’s memorial to the Great War. The now empty grave informs visitors, in both English and Maori, how the solider was randomly selected to become New Zealand’s unknown warrior.

The multi-national nature of the British Empire troops who fought on the Somme was a theme that continued when we moved onto the South African National Memorial Museum at Delville Wood. The impressive museum is situated along a grass walkway among the re-grown trees of Delville Wood – or Devil’s Wood as it was nicknamed by the soldiers. Among the trees the ground is still pock marked with shell holes and behind the museum is the only tree to have survived the battering the wood received. The South African Memorial Museum is a stunning piece of architecture and is one of the best memorials on the entire Western Front. It is based on a Cape fort, from the outside there are thick stone walls, but once inside the visitor is faced with a circular structure with full length glass panels that overlook an inner court yard. The story of the South African’s in the Great War, and beyond, is related in a series of display that guide the visitor in a clockwise direction. The museum is sited in Delville Wood in order to preserve the memory of the three South African battalions that captured the wood, but were almost wiped out in the process. To read such a story of bravery and sacrifice and then to walk into the woods today, where only the birdsong disturbs the tranquillity, is a moving experience.

We were making such good progress that we decided to make some additional unplanned stops. First was at the Footballers’ Battalion Memorial which was unveiled by the Football League in 2010. The Battalion were part of the Middlesex Regiment and it contained many professional footballers including Bradford City’s Frank Buckley. They, alongside the South Africans, took and held Delville Wood, albeit with fearful casualties. Beneath the memorial were wreaths from numerous Football League clubs. Had we known about the location of the memorial we would have added one from Bradford City – perhaps another day? We moved onto Mametz Wood and viewed the vivid red dragon memorial to the 38th (Welsh) Division who suffered 5,000 casualties in taking the wood.

We returned to our planned itinerary and the huge obelisk memorial at Pozières to the 1st Australian Division. They were the original 'ANZACS' - members of the Australian Imperial Force that fought at Gallipoli in 1915. They took part in the capture of Pozières, which was secured in heavy fighting on 25th July 1916, and in the subsequent fighting around the village and towards Mouquet Farm. In doing so they lost 5,285 men. While many of our party went for lunch at Le Tommy Cafe in the village a small number walked alongside the main road to the huge Pozières British Cemetery that contains the graves of 2,756 soldiers and the memorial to the missing that surrounds the graves and has over 14,000 names inscribed on its walls. There are many Australians buried so far from home at Pozières. I walked around the cemetery and tried to read as many of the names as possible. It’s a strange feeling, but a compelling one; you feel the need to remember as many as possible of them. Perhaps by reading their names you bring them back to life for a few seconds? We rejoined the rest of the party in Le Tommy and found a group of Australian visitors already taking refreshment. We were later joined by a small group from Northern Ireland. The Somme should be, and in some ways is, a shrine that links the English speaking peoples.

We completed our visit to the Somme sector by viewing the tank memorial which commemorates the site where tanks were first used as a weapon of war on 15 September 1916. Directly opposite was another Australian Memorial on the site of Pozières Windmill – a strategic site which was captured by the Australians. Apparently nowhere else on the Somme did the Australians fall as thickly as at the Windmill. So it is appropriate that soil from the site was scattered on the coffin of the grave of the unknown Australian soldier buried at the national memorial in the capital of Canberra. We drove the Butte de Walencourt, the limit of the advance of 1916 and looked back at the Somme battlefield. It had been a sobering and thought provoking visit, but we were following in the footsteps of the Bradford Pals and so we followed them from the Somme and to the Battle of Neuve Chapelle.

At the nearby Vieille-Chapelle Cemetery we gathered around the graves of the two Bradford Pals shot for desertion: Herbert Crimmins and Arthur Wild. There was an air of sadness and forgiveness. We cannot imagine the horrors that they had been through and it does appear that their desertion was not premeditated but was simply the result of having one too many drinks. I wrote in the cemetery visitor book that they were forgiven in Bradford and I hope that many share my sentiments.

We than had another unexpected visit when we stopped at the fabulous Indian Memorial. A circular memorial that contains that names 4,743 Indian soldiers and labourers who died during the conflict and have no known grave. The high walls give a great sense of peace when you are inside memorial, but outside the walls are pockmarked with bullet holes from the Second World War. A couple of minutes’ walk up the road is the Portuguese Cemetery and Memorial. There are around 2,000 Portuguese soldiers buried in the cemetery. While the graves are maintained it wasn’t to the very high standard of the British Cemeteries and it gave us cause to be thankful for the continued work of Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

The final stop on our tour was one that was unrelated to the Great War, but when I saw it I realised we simply had to stop and pay our respects. The two Bradford Pals shot for desertion were executed in the village of Lestrem. In the Second World War this was the location of a notorious massacre. In 1940 the Royal Norfolk Regiment were stubbornly holding back the German advance on the evacuation beaches of Dunkirk. They fought until they ran out of ammunition and eventually surrendered. Unfortunately their captors were an SS regiment. The men were taken to a barn and 97 unarmed men were murdered by the SS with machine guns. Astonishingly two men survived and were hidden by the villagers. After the war the testimony of the survivors ensured that the SS officer who ordered the massacre was hung for his crime. We visited the graves of the brave Norfolk’s, while there an elderly villager told us that he had met many of the British soldiers in days leading up to the massacre and he told us exactly where they had been shot. Thus our final pilgrimage was at a roadside overlooking the barn wall where the men had been lined up and executed. It was a sobering end to a sobering trip.

We returned to Lille and the following day we boarded the Eurostar and bade a fond farewell to northern France. In London we enjoyed a refreshment stop at the Betjeman Bar on St Pancras station before heading north on the Grand Central service direct to Bradford Interchange. The final act came when a small group of us had a farewell pint in the City Vaults. There we toasted Herbert Crimmins and Albert Wild.

France 2012 - Day Two

Friday 1 June

The morning saw our coach waiting, with our Belgian friends the Depoorter family, outside the hotel. Within an hour we were in sight of the huge Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme. It has 72,202 names inscribed on its wall. Among them are hundreds of names from the West Yorkshire regiments. This year many of the group had researched individual stories of soldiers from the two Bradford Pals battalions who suffered so grievously on the first day of the infamous Battle of the Somme. A name cast in stone was brought to life, with an often familiar street name, place of work and family story. Here were men who walked the same streets as us, drank in the same pubs and, in some cases, watched football from the Valley Parade terraces. As was related last year, one of the names is Bradford City’s England international midfielder Evelyn Lintott, killed by machine gun fire while leading the Leeds Pals on 1 July 1916.

A short drive from Thiepval took us to Mill Road Cemetery where many Bradford soldiers have found their last resting place. Just across the fields was the imposing Ulster Memorial which served as a reminder that it was here that Bradford City reserve Ernest Goodwin was mortally wounded whilst serving with a Belle Vue based West Yorkshire territorial battalion who were supporting the Ulster Division on that fateful morning of 1 July 1916. The difficulty when visiting the Somme battlefields today is making the mental leap from the beautifully tended cemeteries and rolling green fields to the killing fields guarded by barbed wire, lashed with machine gun fire, strewn with the dead and dying. The Newfoundland Memorial Park at Beaumont-Hamel helps the visitor make the connection. Seventy four acres of trenches and battlefield has been preserved as a memorial to the Newfoundland Regiment which was all but wiped out during their attack on 1 July 1916. It is the largest section of the Somme battlefield that has been preserved. Although now covered in lush grass, the trenches and no man’s land are intact. Young Canadian guides show visitors around the site free of charge. Our guide was a law student taking a summer sabbatical to work at the park. He helped bring to life the battle and explained why the people of Newfoundland felt moved to purchase the site as a memorial to the 780 men of the regiment of whom 90% became casualties. As he explained it was the second biggest loss of any British regiment – the worst being the 10th Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment, attacking west of Fricourt village. He mentioned that fact specifically knowing we were visiting from West Yorkshire. It wouldn’t be the last time in the trip when we were reminded of our ties with the many nations who took part in the horrendous actions during the Battle of the Somme – brothers in arms and blood.

We lunched at Auchonvilliers. Known as ‘Ocean Villas’ to the British troops, today it is a tea room and bar run by British woman Avril Williams. There is a preserved trench in the back yard and a cellar beneath the tea room which was used by the French and British as a dressing station. Apparently, a British solider who was shot at dawn spent his last night in the cellar. It was here that we were met by the mayor of the village of Bus les Artois. City fan Mick Kirby had arranged for the mayor to meet and dine with us. His village was the place where the Bradford and Leeds Pals had been billeted in the nights leading up to the Battle of the Somme. Later we would drink in Bus les Artois' only bar where so many Bradfordians would have enjoyed their last night before marching towards the guns and going over the top on 1 July 1916.

First we went to the place where the Pals attacked on that fateful morning, Serre. We walked up a dirt track to the tiny Serre Road Number 3 Cemetery and the location of the British front line. To our left was the Leeds trench, from whence the Leeds Pals attacked, including Bradford City’s England international Evelyn Lintott. Just behind the Leeds trench was Bradford trench from where the 1st Bradford Pals emerged. The majority of them did not even make it as far as the British front line before being mown down. The 2nd Bradford Pals followed and suffered an almost identical fate. Of the 2,000 Bradfordians who emerged from their trenches, around 1,770 were killed or wounded. A generation of young men were gone and Bradford would never be the same again. To be stood on the very ground where the history of our city was changed forever was humbling. We were a world away from the sound of the Town Hall bells, terraced houses, mill chimneys and looming moors, but, to borrow a hackney phrase, here was a corner of a French field that is forever Bradford.

Just a couple of minutes’ walk away is the wooded valley that contains the Sheffield Memorial Park, where we discovered memorials to various northern Pals regiments: Accrington, Barnsley and Sheffield. Nailed to a tree near the beautiful Railway Hollow Cemetery was a small brass plaque remembering the Bradford Pals. I wasn’t the only one who thought that it seemed wrong that such a miniscule plaque was the only reminder of the 1,770 Bradfordians who became casualties over the course of a couple of hours on 1 July 1916. However, how we view the First World War is different to those who actually survived the horrors of the trenches. Apparently, many of the Bradford Pals who returned home did not want a memorial. They thought it was best forgotten.

We walked back to the Serre Road Number One Cemetery where we found the graves of many of the Bradford Pals killed in the assault. Finding soldiers who were born, or lived, in the vicinity of Valley Parade is fairly easy. But it is impossible to know whether they were actually City fans – or so we thought. I began researching the life story of Manningham born Arthur Greenwood. I discovered that his family had moved to Great Horton and that he had followed his father’s career as a barber. Arthur’s shop was at 386 Great Horton Road – which today is part of the Mumtaz restaurant. A keen swimmer Arthur was treasurer of the Bradford ‘Water Rats’ Swimming Club. He was one of first one thousand to enlist and was therefore in the 1st Bradford Pals (16th battalion Prince of Wales’ Own West Yorkshire Regiment). Naturally, Arthur became the battalion’s barber and was well known to all the men. Arthur went over the top with his best mate Charlie Lee at Serre. In a letter to Arthur’s parents Charlie described the attack thus:

"We left the trench at 7.30 on Saturday morning, July 1st, after waiting all night. I shall never forget it. He was very cheerful. As soon as we got out our corporal was killed. Then Arthur and I took the lead. We kept together until we got just behind the front line. There we found we were the only two left. We got into a shell hole. There were a lot of killed and wounded in the hole, our captain being amongst them. It was here that Arthur got hit with shrapnel. He said as I was leaving, for I had to go on, ‘Well good luck Charlie lad, I shall creep out alright’. That was all he said and I heard nothing more until late at night, when I was told he had been found where I left him. Another shell had burst and killed him before he could get out of the shell hole. I have lost a true pal."

We visited Arthur’s grave at Serre Number One Cemetery and placed a cross beneath his headstone. It was quite a moment, for here lay a man who stood on the Valley Parade terraces watching that great Bradford City team in the years leading up to the Great War. How do we know this? Well, in April 2011 one of his descendents sold some of Arthur’s personal effects on eBay. Among them were six postcards of Bradford City team groups, including one of the FA Cup winning squad of the 1910/11 season. From Serre we drove the matter of a few minutes to Euston Road Cemetery. The Bradford Pals marched past Euston Road en route to the front line the night before the attack and saw large mass graves being dug. Today, many of the men who looked, undoubtedly in some trepidation at the sight of the waiting graves, lay in Euston Road. One Pal there is Norman Waddilove. The son of a millionaire, whose family founded Provident Finance whose headquarters today overlook the newly opened City Park, Norman nevertheless joined up, and died, as a private solider. His uncle was chairman of Bradford Park Avenue between the wars and was a great supporter of the Bradford Cricket League.

Another short drive saw us revisiting the Bradford Pals memorial plaque on the churchyard of the village of Herbuterne. The location was chosen for the memorial as forty four Bradford Pals were killed in the nearby Rossignol Wood. We found their last resting place at Owl Trench Cemetery. It’s a peaceful spot alongside a quiet road with the woods overlooking the cemetery on a slope. I reflected that it was an odd spot for lads from Bradford Moor and Idle to have ended up at. We walked back down the road to the Rossignol Wood Cemetery which, unusually, housed seventy German graves. We wanted to see if the German’s were the involved in the fight with the forty four dead Pals, but the dates were significantly different. You do come across the occasional German soldiers’ graves in British and Commonwealth cemeteries. Their headstones are instantly recognisable as they are pointed as opposed to the smooth semi-circle that surmounts the British graves. However, the vast majority of German casualties were repatriated to Germany.

So it was onto the village of Bus les Artois and what turned out to be the highlight of the trip. The night before the Battle of the Somme opened two Bradford Pals, Private’s Herbert Crimmins and Arthur Wild, went for a drink in the bar in Bus les Artois. They got drunk and slept it off in a field, missing the bloody 1st of July as a result. They were arrested and later shot for desertion, despite pleas for clemency from their commanding officer. The mayor of the village showed us graffiti carved into the soft stone of the local church by British troops. We then went to the local pub where the two Pals had their fateful night on the drink. The villagers had turned out in good numbers to meet us and City fan Mick Kirby, who had done a fabulous job setting up the meeting with the mayor and arranging for the bar to be opened for our arrival, made a speech in French to the villagers, which was greeted with warm applause. We were undoubtedly popular visitors, not least because the bar had recently closed and the locals were taking the opportunity to revisit their bar, but there was also a recognition of our shared history. Two locals surprised us by bringing along their copies of David Raw’s book on the Bradford Pals. One villager told us that his father had become friends with a Bradford family whose son had been killed whilst serving with the Bradford Pals. They began visiting Bus les Artois between the wars and subsequent generations have kept in touch with one another. The entente cordial was aided by free beer for visitors and locals alike – I smiled wryly when I noticed that the beer was German. I wondered what the Pals would have made of that fact! An impromptu football match broke out between some local children and a number of our party. It was a fairly even game as the youthful Gallic enthusiasm was offset by the higher (if somewhat breathless and alcohol impaired) skill levels of the visitors from Bradford. The former owner of the bar, a lady in her nineties and now wheelchair bound, was handed the majority of the presents brought from Bradford which were intended for the mayor! The joy on her face was infectious. We eventually left for our overnight stop at Albert with waves and hearty au revoirs, the link between Bus les Artois and Bradford had been thoroughly re-cemented ninety six years on from when the Pals marched away from the welcoming glow of the local bar towards the sound of the guns.

In the Footsteps of the Bradford Pals: France 2012

In the wake of last year’s successful trip to visit the graves of the eleven Bradford footballers who perished in the Great War the bantamspast museum organised a return to the battlefields of France and in particular the Somme region. Last year’s visit to Serre, where the Bradford Pals attacked on that fateful morning of 1 July 1916, was by necessity brief, but many expressed a wish to return and walk in the footsteps of the Bradford Pals. Hence on 31 May a group of City fans found themselves gathered on Bradford Interchange station readying themselves for a trip to France.

Day One
Thursday 31 May

We spoiled ourselves this year and travelled first class on Grand Central’s direct service to London King’s Cross. As the majority of the group travelled together the previous year the miles fairly shot by as we caught up with one another and made new friends among the five who were fresh faces. As we had one hour and forty five minutes to make the short walk from King’s Cross to St. Pancras we had ample time to admire the ongoing transformation of King’s Cross. Although it will never be able to replicate the glamour of St. Pancras, the new departure hall of King’s Cross is a stunning piece of architecture. Another new addition, the Parcel Yard public house (a Fullers pub situated on the upper part of the departure concourse), naturally attracted our attention. I would like to say that this was our first refreshment halt of the day, but it wasn’t as a small number of our gang had decamped to the Turls Green (or Lloyds bar) in Centenary Square at half nine in the morning. It reinforced the feeling that these trips were becoming rail borne versions of the infamous CTC 73 away trips.

It still seems odd that the Eurostar journey to Lille is significantly shorter than the rail journey from Bradford. We raced through the Kent countryside at 186mph, a quick twenty minutes in the Channel Tunnel, and one hour and twenty minutes after leaving London we were in the French city of Lille. A brisk ten minute walk and we were at our hotel in the inner-suburb of Romarin. The bar next door to the hotel was rapidly invaded, but shocked at the 8pm closure, we had to decamp into the city centre. En route some of our party learned that you have validate your tickets before boarding the tram, others learned you had to actually purchase a ticket! Less said the better. A crash course in French menus later and we had all dined and enjoyed the delights of Lille at night.

France-Belgium 2011 - A Final Picture

Our band of travellers at Jimmy Speirs' grave. An appropriate way to end the celebrations of Glorious 1911.

France-Belgium 2011 - James Comrie

The huge Menin Gate at Ypres has become the site of one of the best known and poignant ceremonies that surrounds the modern memory of the First World War. Every night members of the Ypres fire brigade play the last post beneath the imposing gate on which are inscribed the names of 56,000 men who died in the defence of Ypres and have no known grave.

Among those names is James Comrie, signed when Bradford City gained promotion to the first division and he replaced Gerald Kirk in the team. When the war came James was living in Lincoln, but for reasons unknown he ended up serving with the Northumberland Fusiliers. He was killed near Ypres, but has no known grave. As large crowds gathered to witness the last post ceremony, the traffic was stopped and the bugles sounded their lament, I looked for James' name, but found myself pondering the eleven men whose graves we had visited.

My eyes were then drawn to the endless lists of names on the Menin Gate. I read as many as I could, thinking of the places and lives they had left behind. This is no glorification of war, far from it, there was only sadness and a thankfulness that my generation had not been asked to face the horrors that these ordinary men had.

France-Belgium 2011 - Gerald Kirk

The village of Poperinghe was for British troops a respite from the hell of Ypres. This was the railhead for the infamous Ypres Salient but also a place where bars and restaurants could be visited. For City's amateur centre half Gerald Kirk it was the place he came to die. Badly wounded during the defence of St Julian following the first ever gas attack in the history of warfare, when the German's released poison gas on French colonial troops who ran for their lives at the sight of the yellow gas clouds.

Gerald's company were thrown into a hasty counter attack designed to plug the gap in the line, it was successful but it cost Gerald Kirk his life. Badly wounded he was taken to Poperinghe, but the following day he succumbed and he lies in the Poperinghe Old British Cemetery.

France-Belgium 2011 - Robert Torrance

As you walk down the gravel path to the Tyne Cot Cemetery halfway up the Passchendaele ridge, a soft woman's voice reads a name, regiment and age at the time of death. It's a beautiful litany of the 300,000 men who died in the infamous Battle of Passchdaele. Tyne Cot is the largest British and Commonwealth war cemetery in the world. Over twelve thousands graves and an additional 36,000 on its Memorial to the Missing. This truly is the Silent City.

Among the names on the Memorial to the Missing is that of Robert Torrance. Probably Bradford City's greatest defender. The auburn haired centre half was the man-of-the-match in the 1911 FA Cup Final replay. Seven years later he lost an arm during an artillery barrage near the Belgian town of Ypes. The field hospital he was taken to was then shelled and Robert was blasted into oblivion. His body was never found. Today he may still lie undiscovered under a Belgian field, or he may lie in a grave marked simply 'known unto God'.

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.