After I retired as football correspondent and commentator at the World Cup in Brazil, I was invited to make occasional contributions to some special programmes on 5 live. Little did I know how ‘special’ the first one would be.
I have never taken part in anything before like Tunics For Goalposts – never felt so emotionally involved in a project – never learned so much from one hour.
Like most people, I have been made aware of the horror of the First World War. There probably isn’t a single family in the UK without some connection to the horrendous events between 1914 and 1918.
My knowledge though was sketchy and superficial. I had never visited any of the frontline battlefields in Belgium and France, something I would now urge everyone to try and do.
When you do, as I discovered, it is of course impossible to fully comprehend what it must have been like to experience such personal carnage and trauma – however walking ankle deep in autumnal mud on a raw November morning shrouded in mist across the ploughed battlefields on the Somme does offer an insight into how desperate it must have been for the troops, huddled together in rat-infested trenches, deprived of sleep, numb with cold and terrified that every day could be your last.
Everywhere you walk in those farmlands and forests, you are mindful of the fact that more often than not your footsteps are being made over hallowed soil, a massed burial ground underneath filled with so many bodies never recovered from the bloody conflict after vanishing beneath a quagmire of craters.
Among those entombed having lost their lives so young were footballers, who would never return to their clubs. Players from all levels of the game united in their supreme sacrifice.
Originally our intention on 5 live was to make a programme about the infamous Christmas truce matches in 1914, to discover and debate whether they were fact or fiction. This will be an important part of the programme, however the more we researched the subject it became clear that we should take on a wider brief and pay tribute to the footballers who gave their lives for their country.
When war broke out in August 1914, football was initially pilloried in many quarters as the league programme continued and the game came under great pressure. Attitudes soon changed. Hearts in Scotland led the way as football answered the call, and uniquely many of the players who decided to enlist for service did so by signing up for the 17th Middlesex regiment which was to become known as the footballers battalion.
I was accompanied on my visit to France by Andrew Riddoch, author of When the Whistle Blows, the definitive story of the footballers battalion. In the book and in the programme, Andrew documents stories of remarkable gallantry by footballers on the frontline and records how whenever the opportunity presented itself they still managed to put their tunics down for goalposts and play games.
Andrew highlights the story of one of the most popular players who lost his life, the Grimsby Town captain Sidney Wheelhouse. 5 live made it possible for two of his descendants to travel with us in France to visit his grave for the first time. Sid’s great granddaughter Diane and husband Dean, a Falklands veteran have ensured that his name is never forgotten in Grimsby and after laying a wreath and leaving a Grimsby Town scarf by his gravestone now feel an even closer bond with him after what was an overwhelmingly emotional experience for them both.
Sidney was one of the unlucky ones who didn’t return. The Great War was such a lottery. My mother was born five years after the war ended and told me that her father jack had signed up for service after lying about his age. At the tender age of 17. A notebook in the breast pocket of his uniform deflected a sniper’s bullet and saved his life…and mine!
Mike Ingham is a presenter on BBC Radio 5 live.
- Tunics for Goalposts will be broadcast on BBC Radio 5 live on Thursday 11 December at 8pm.
- Find out more about footballers in WW1 on the BBC iWonder website.
- Experience BBC iWonder’s interactive drama Footballers United.
