1914-1915 Football and the War Football Was, As It Always Has Been

1914-1915 Football and the War Football was, as it always has been, ritualised conflict. Whether of course as a pressure valve to work off innate aggression or as means of fuelling that aggression remains endlessly debatable. Above all of course, football was team work. Controlled aggression and disciplined team work were essential to effective soldiering. The authorities were well aware of the potential of football and of sport in general to test those they were about to send to war. In particular they perceived sportsmanship as an attribute of leadership. William Carr, who came from a Kincardineshire farming family, told the story of his Commission Board. “What games did you play at school?” “We didn’t play games, Sir.” “You didn’t play games?” The officer stared in disbelief. Carr did not, at that stage, receive his commission and the reason may well have been the fact that he had gone to a school at which ‘games’ were not at the peak of the curricular hierarchy, and by definition therefore he could not have been a gentleman. Had he gone to such a school and told the Board so, his sporting experience would have been analysed as a sign of his potential strengths as an officer. Footballers and the War The history of the 16th Royal Scots, charts the fate of a first world war battalion with a significant contingent of professional footballers in its ranks. In the case of the 16th Royal Scots, the biggest single contingent, fifteen men, was from Heart of Midlothian Football Club. Others who served had played for a plethora of Scottish clubs including Hibernian, Cowdenbeath, Dunfermline Athletic, East Fife, Falkirk and Raith Rovers. Eleven Heart of Midlothian players died in or as a result of the war. The contribution of Scottish footballers to the military effort of 1914-18 was of course enormously significant. A cohort of men from ordinary backgrounds who were heroes in their time and communities because of their extraordinary skills with a ball. The story of Brechin City is typical of Scottish football, with its proud but often struggling teams (at every level) and their proud but often frustrated supporters across the industrial towns of Scotland. Brechin City, like most small town teams of the time, recruited most of its players from the town itself, the local impact of that sacrifice was even more dramatic. The 1914-15 season started shortly after the declaration of war on 4 August 1914. The Brechin Advertiser noted that the 5th Black Watch, the Forfarshire Territorial battalion, had, on the previous week, been at Monzie, near Crieff, on its annual training camp. Late on the Wednesday, 29 July, the Battalion’s Special Service men were informed to be ready to march off at six the next morning. Some two hundred of them, including some twenty five Brechin men, entrained at Crieff on the Thursday morning. For these two hundred, full-time war service had begun, although their initial duty was guarding the Tay Bridge rather than embarking for the continent. That came, for most of the Battalion, less than three months later. The remainder of the Battalion, in the meantime, completed its camp and returned to their home towns on the Saturday, 1 August, and Sunday, 2 August, the Brechin detachment, under Lieutenant Archibald Duke, attending Divine Service at the Cathedral on the Sunday. After further training, the 5th Black Watch was among the first Scottish Territorial battalions to reach the front line, arriving in Le Havre on 1 November. Within days of the declaration of war, Mr T Forsyth the chairman of Airdrieonians Football Club added his voice to patriotic crescendo. “I am very much disappointed that in this serious crisis in the nation’s history no step has been taken by the Scottish Football Association nor by the Scottish League to lend their valuable help to their country in its time of need. There may, no doubt, be in course of time subscriptions and ‘gates’ to the funds, but that is a mere trifle. More than that is needed. Lord Kitchener has asked for additional men for the army, and in the face of that requirement we are faced with the ironic fact of about 10,000 of the finest trained men in the country, disporting themselves at the game of football. Playing football at a time when our men are fighting and dying on the battlefield is too repugnant for anyone to be a party to, and unless some action is taken I will feel compelled to resign as chairman of the club, and take no further part in football.” Forsyth’s fulminations did not go unanswered. George Cumming, Secretary of both Brechin City and the Forfarshire Football Association, at the county association’s AGM, stated that “the past year has been the most remarkable in the history of football. The war has played havoc with the national game and the teams engaged in it, and it looks as if next season will be no better. There is no club in Forfarshire which has made money this season. Montrose put up the shutters after a few weeks, while Brechin has had the peculiarly remarkable record of not having a home engagement in the first half of the season. Arbroath Amateurs gave up football entirely for the cannon ball. All honour to the members of that club, and their fallen heroes. In recent months much undeserved criticism has been directed against footballers for not coming forward to enlist. Footballers are just as good patriots as any other class of sportsmen, and out of the seven senior clubs in Forfarshire over eighty members have joined the colours.” The war had an immediate effect on football in Brechin. D Company of the 5th Black Watch, the local company of the local Territorial Battalion, included in its numbers Private Tom Irvine, who had played occasionally for City over the years, and, as of September 1914, Private James Milne, the ex-Dundee player who had played for Brechin in 1910-11 and 1911-12, both of whom volunteered for foreign service. Also among the 5th Black Watch volunteers for foreign service in September 1914 were local Junior footballers, Robert Jaffrey, Gordon Macfarlane and David Vallentine, Macfarlane and Jaffray each having played for City. James Adam, vice- captain of Brechin Hearts, who like Macfarlane and Jaffray, had played one game for City, enlisted early in the war. David Vallentine’s brother, James Vallentine, “a well-known football player with the Hearts, (who) occasionally sported the City colours,” enlisted in the Scots Guards. George Cumming junior, himself a junior player and the son of George Cumming, the secretary, of Brechin City FC, was serving in the 5th Irish Lancers and later transferred to the Scots Guards. By November, former regular City player David Easson was serving with the Army Service Corps. In December 1914 Davie Glen, Brechin’s veteran goal-scorer, enlisted in the Royal Scots. By January 1915 George Richardson, who had played for Brechin Hearts, Brechin Rovers and Brechin City, had enlisted in the 6th Scottish Rifles, the Cameronians. Richardson, who was a joiner to trade, was to become a sergeant, transfer to the Machine Gun Corps and win a Military Medal, arrived in France during 1915. In January 1915 there enlisted, in the Royal Army Medical Corps, Frank Forbes, who had played his last game for City in November 1914. Later that month Willie Campbell, the Edzell greenkeeper and regular City player over many years, enlisted in the Royal Scots. James Melvin enlisted in April 1915 in the Motor Transport Section of the Army Service Corps. Brechin City played out season 1914-15 in the Northern League which thereafter ceased to function until after the war ended. The most complete league table traced illustrates what a poor season 1914-15 was for Brechin. P W L D F A Pts Forfar Athletic 6 4 0 2 19 9 10 Aberdeen A 7 3 2 2 11 11 8 Aberdeen A 8 2 3 3 16 18 7 Arbroath 4 3 1 0 15 3 6 Dundee Hibs 4 1 0 3 12 7 5 Montrose 3 1 1 1 7 7 3 Brechin City 8 1 6 1 7 28 3 Arbroath Amateurs 1 0 1 0 0 2 0 Crieff Morrissonians 1 0 1 0 1 6 0 Although the league fixtures were unfinished Forfar Athletic were recognised as champions. With one league win, one draw and six defeats and twenty eight goals against and only seven goals for, this last season was the nadir of City’s fortunes. In addition to the dismal league record, Brechin beat Montrose 3-1 in the first round of the Qualifying Cup but lost 7-1 to Lochgelly in the second round. Arbroath beat Brechin by three goals to nil in the first round of the Forfarshire Cup. Brechin Advertiser reports of the fixtures in 1914-15 are of limited quality, team lists are frequently missing and scorers seldom quoted. In a few cases partial team lists can be adduced from names quoted in the reports. The most regular players in the Brechin line-up were Allan with at least nine games, Laing with seven, Hunter, Robertson and Richardson with six each and Harry Hampton and George Hastings with five each. Robertson had at least six games in goal and Sturrock one. Skene and Johnstone had at least two games each at right back and Aitken and Hill at least one. Laing appears to have played at left back on at least nine occasions. Richardson seems to have played at right half at least six times and Rae once.

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