Video: Exactly 100 years on, the tragedies that befell Bradford’s FA Cup winning team

The same war had also claimed the life of Second Lieutenant Donald Simpson Bell, who had played professional football for Bradford Park Avenue.

Their names may not be known to most of today’s teenagers but almost a century after the young men’s lives were stolen from them, their stories are now being used to educate a new generation of school children in the war and its effects at home.

Pupils at Aireville School in Skipton will be studying the lives of the two footballers before next month going to visit the notorious battlefields of Flanders and the Somme.

This year marks the centenary anniversary of Bradford City’s 1911 FA Cup final victory, offering a timely reminder of Speirs’ glorious triumph before his life was cut tragically short.

Graham Smeaton, an English teacher at Aireville School, said: “The goal was scored by Jimmy Speirs. While he was not born in Bradford– he was born in Scotland – we thought that it was an obvious link, with him scoring the goal and then volunteering in 1915 and then dying on the battlefield.”

As part of their studies the youngsters will visit Donald Bell’s grave in Gordon Dump Cemetery in France and that of Jimmy Speirs at Dochy Farm New British Cemetery in Belgium.

Mr Smeaton said the annual pilgrimage to the battlefields and graveyards around the French and Belgian border links into the school’s GCSE studies.

Last year pupils followed up the story of Pt Harry Iredale from Skipton after visiting his grave.

Mr Smeaton said: “They do units on the First World War but also on the effects and social aspects of it – which is why they link to a local man. The school likes them to be aware of the local aspects of the war.

“I suspect a lot of them go thinking it’s a week away from school.

“And then they come back saying that it gets them thinking in an alternative way about what’s happened.

“They do actually go into the trenches and graveyards. Some of them take photographs of the surnames they have. They all come back and say it is one of the best things they have done at school.”

Yesterday marked the actual centenary anniversary of Bradford City’s 1911 FA Cup final triumph. On April 26, 1911, Bradford City FC won the FA Cup for the only time in their history with a winning goal from captain, Jimmy Speirs.

The players claimed victory having played a hard-fought rematch against Newcastle United at Manchester’s Old Trafford.

More than 100,000 people welcomed the team home outside the Exchange Station and, due to the crowds, it took the entourage more than an hour to make the short journey to a reception at the Midland Hotel.

The club became the first recipient of the current trophy which was designed and produced by Fattorini’s of Bradford.

Yesterday students, staff and guests gathered at Aireville School to pay tribute to the two players as well as the other local men of Skipton and Craven who came forward in their hundreds to volunteer to fight in the First World War, perhaps unaware of the full horrors that modern warfare would bring.

Nick Cusack, senior executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association, presented 48 students and staff with replica, 1914-style football shirts to be worn when the school makes its annual visit to the battlefields of Flanders and the Somme in the next few weeks.

Staff and students were also joined by Lt Col. David O’Kelly and Captain John Dennis, of the Yorkshire Regiment, who brought with them a contemporary replica of the FA Cup.

The regiment looks after the regimental football trophy, The Gunthorpe Cup, which is an exact, contemporary copy of the cup created for the 1911 FA Cup final.

Speaking before the commemorative event, Aireville School’s headteacher Mark O’Neill said it was “something quite unique – a chance for our students to engage with the past in a way which few people will ever be able to experience.”

Guests also included representatives from Bradford City FC and Bradford Park Avenue FC.

Teacher Dominic Fitzgerald said it is “absolutely fantastic that, 100 years on, we are able to pay tribute, not only to Jimmy Speirs and the rest of the team, but also to ‘our’ local soldiers, in this way.”

Unique recipient of Victoria cross

Second Lieutenant Donald Simpson Bell was the only English professional footballer to be awarded the Victoria Cross.

He was awarded the highest military decoration for his actions in 1916, single- handedly knocking out an enemy machine gun position.

Second Lt Bell, from Harrogate, had been a teacher and played football as an amateur for Crystal Palace, Bishop Auckland and Newcastle United, before turning professional for Bradford Park Avenue in 1913.

He joined the 9th Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment – as the Green Howards were then known – shortly after the outbreak of war in 1914, and his actions on July 5, 1916, at Horseshoe Trench near La Boisselle during the Battle of the Somme won him the VC.

He attacked a German machine gun post, running through open ground and then shooting the gunner and blowing up the position with hand grenades.

Five days later he was killed in an attack on another German position.