Football heroes of the First World War remembered

Supporters and clubs from throughout the English league will have the chance to dedicate trees in “team groves” at the Woodland Trust’s First World War centenary wood at Langley Vale in Epsom, Surrey.

Hanging up their boots never to return after answering call to armsThe scheme, which is spearheaded by Sir Trevor Brooking and involves the National Football Museum, will create a “lasting living legacy” to players sent to the front between 1914 and 1918, many of whom never came home.

Players the wood is commemorating include Bradford Park Avenue’s Donald Bell, the first professional English footballer to enlist in the British Army, and the only one to be awarded the Victoria Cross.

Promoted to lance corporal and commissioned into the 9th Battalion, the Green Howards (Alexandra, Princess of Wales’ Own Yorkshire Regiment) he was awarded the VC for his actions on July 5 1916, at Horseshoe Trench in the Somme. He died in action on July 10 1916.

Among the other footballers who lost their lives in the conflict was Walter Tull, the first black outfield player in the top flight, who joined Northampton from Tottenham in 1911, before signing up to the Footballers Battalion in 1914.

He was promoted to sergeant in 1915, served on the Western and Italian fronts in the war and was the first black officer to lead white troops into battle. But he was killed at the Battle of Arras in 1918, with his body never found.

People can find out more about the project and the role their team’s footballers played in the First World War at www.forclubandcountry.org.uk and everyone who donates to the woodland will be remembered in a roll of honour.

Former england star Sir Trevor said: “The project is the perfect way to commemorate football’s important role in the First World War.”

See today’s Picture Past supplement for a special tribute to First World War troops from Yorkshire.