OUT-of-touch FIFA bureaucrats who are blocking England and Scotland players from wearing poppies on their shirts for their World Cup qualifier clash on Armistice Day, have clearly lost their memory.
They forget the great debt the world owes to footballers who were killed or injured fighting for freedom in two World Wars – victories that allow the pen-pushers the freedom to make their petty rules unhindered by political interference.
It comes as more than 200,000 people have signed a petition calling for footballers to be allowed to wear their poppy with pride.
Of the 5,000 men playing professional football at the outbreak of WW1 in 1914, no fewer than 2,000 signed up to serve their country.
They didn’t do it for political reasons, they did it for the greater good and many paid a terrible price.
On September 6th 1914, author Arthur Conan Doyle made a direct appeal for footballers to volunteer for service and many heeded the call.
Of the 600 original members of the Footballers Battalion, part of the Middlesex Regiment, formed early in World War I, no fewer than 500 are estimated to have perished.
Clapton Orient alone sent 40 players and staff to war and the club lost three of its finest players at the Battle of the Somme.
Sixteen members of the Heart of Midlothian first team squad, then the best team in Scotland, answered an appeal for volunteers.
Seven of them died in action, two more succumbed to the effects of gas and a tenth was crippled by injuries and never played again.
Amateur players fought too, and the Corinthians club alone lost 22 players and 48 other members.
When World War Two was declared, footballers were once again among those who came forward.
It wasn’t because of politics. Their country was fighting for its life.
Southampton football club, which lost eleven players or former players in WWI lost another three in WWII.
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Norman Catlin was killed in the sinking of HMS Gloucester off the coast of Crete in May 1941 and Sid Gueran was killed in action in September 1944 in the Battle of Arnhem.
Charlie Sillett, whose sons John and Peter went on to play for Chelsea and, in John’s case, went on to manage Coventry City to FA Cup glory in 1987, joined the Royal Navy and was killed in a U-boat attack on an allied convoy in 1945.
The hundreds of footballers killed or injured in World Wars will be among the thousands upon thousands of servicemen and women remembered with poppies not just by football fans but by the entire nation on November 11 and on Remembrance Sunday.
But, it seems, they won’t be remembered by the cold-hearted bureaucrats at FIFA.
Here are 11 good reasons why FIFA should change its mind and let the England and Scotland players wear poppies for their World Cup qualifier clash on Armistice Day, Novermber 11:
Name: Leigh ‘Dick’ Roose
Position: Goalkeeper
Teams: Stoke, Everton, Sunderland, Celtic, Port Vale, Huddersfield Town, Aston Villa, and 24 caps for Wales
Service: Joined the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1914 and served in France and Gallipoli, then enlisted in the Royal Fusiliers in 1916 and served on the Western Front, notably as a grenade thrower.
Won the Military Medal and was promoted to Lance Corporal but was killed, aged 38, during the Battle of the Somme. His body was not recovered.
Name: Oscar Linkson
Position: Full-back
Teams: Manchester United
Service: He was a private in the 1st Football Battalion. He went missing, presumed dead, at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, aged 28. His body was never recovered.
Name: Evelyn Lintott
Position: Defender
Teams: Plymouth Argyle, QPR, Bradford City and Leeds City, and seven caps for England
Service: Served as a Lieutenant in the 15th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment.
He was killed by gunfire, aged 33, in 1916 during the Battle of the Somme.
Name: Harry Goslin
Position: Defender
Teams: Bolton Wanderers and England
Service: With World War II inevitable, he stood in front of the microphone in the middle of the pitch in April 1939 and told the crowd that after the match the Bolton team would sign up for the Territorial Army.
Promoted to Sergeant with 53rd (Bolton) Field Regiment and saw action leading up to withdrawal from Dunkirk, 1939.
Promoted to Lieutenant and served in Egypt, Mesopotamia and finally Italy. Mortally wounded by a mortar in December 1943, aged 34.
Name: Donald Bell
Position: Full-back
Teams: Crystal Palace, Newcastle United and Bradford Park Avenue.
Service: Won Victoria Cross at the Battle of the Somme in 1916 when he was a Second Lieutenant with the 9th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment. He was killed five days later, aged 25.
Name: James Hodge Speedie
Position: Inside forward
Teams: Heart of Midlothian
Service: When the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders made an appeal for volunteers at half-time of Heart’s match against Falkirk in November 1914, he was one of several first team players to sign up after the full-time whistle.
He was killed at the Battle of Loos on September 25, 1915, aged 21.
Name: Walter Tull
Position: Midfielder
Teams: Spurs and Northampton Town, the first Afro-Caribbean to play in the Football League’s top division.
Service: He was a Second Lieutenant in the 1st Football Battalion.
He was killed, aged 29, in the Second Battle of the Somme in 1918.
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Name: William ‘Billy’ Jonas
Position: Midfielder
Teams: Clapton Orient
Service: Jonas was one of ten Orient players who signed up for the original Footballers Battalion in December 1914.
During the Battle of the Somme in July 1916 he found himself trapped in a trench with friend and Orient striker Richard McFadden at Delville Wood.
Under heavy fire, he said goodbye and good luck to McFadden, asked him to pass his love to his wife and regards ‘to the lads at the Orient’, then jumped out of the trench and was killed immediately, aged 25.
His body was not recovered.
Name: Alexander ‘Sandy’ Turnbull
Position: Inside forward
Teams: Manchester City and Manchester United. Scored the only goal as United won the 1909 FA Cup.
Service: Was a Lance-sergeant in the 8th Battalion, East Surrey Regiment.
He was killed in action at Arras, France, in 1917, aged 32.
Name: Alan Fowler
Position: Striker
Teams: Leeds United and Swindon Town
Service: He joined the 4th Battalion the Dorsetshire Regiment as a sergeant PT instructor early in WW2 but soon saw frontline action, being commended for saving three lives during fightin in 1941.
His regiment was part of the 43rd Wessex Division leading the break-out from Caen during the Normandy invasion on July 10, 1944 when he was killed by friendly fire from British Typhoon fighter planes, aged 33.
Name: Richard McFadden
Position: Striker
Teams: Clapton Orient and on verge of first Scotland cap.
Service: Was among the ten Orient players who signed up for the original Footballers Battalion in December 1914 along with his old school friend Billy Jonas.
Wrote to the club about seeing his pal killed at Delville Wood, but by the time the club received the letter in November he too had died from injuries received in a shell blast. He was 27.
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