School pupils, footballers and soldiers re-enact WW1 Christmas truce

[Blackleaf]

British and German school pupils are re-enacting a football game said to have taken place during the 1914 Christmas ceasefire of World War One between Britain and Germany.

Seaham School of Technology in County Durham is hosting a match against pupils from Realschule Alpen in Germany to mark the truce's 100th anniversary.

The 14 and 15 year olds will climb out of a specially built replica trench to greet each other in a reconstruction of no man's land.

As they play, carols will be sung in both languages by the school choir.

Meanwhile, soldiers and footballers in Dorset will go head-to-head later in a football match to mark the World War One Christmas truce.

A team from the Bovington army camp will play against the Dorchester Town football team dressed in army uniforms.

The commemorative event from 17:30 GMT, at Dorchester Town's Avenue Football Stadium, will include a minute's silence, live music, prayers and carols.

School pupils re-enact WW1 Christmas truce

BBC News
10 December 2014

A replica trench constructed in the school grounds will play a key role in the re-enactment

Pupils at a County Durham school are re-enacting a football game said to have taken place during the 1914 Christmas ceasefire of World War One.

Seaham School of Technology is hosting a match against pupils from Realschule Alpen in Germany.

The 14 and 15 year olds will climb out of a specially built replica trench to greet each other in a reconstruction of no man's land.

As they play, carols will be sung in both languages by the school choir.

Hundreds of children have visited the structure, which features replica machine guns, plastic barbed wire and model rats

Afterwards they will be served a meal based on soldiers' rations from 1914.

The project aims to bring history to life and explore the human consequences of the conflict.

The trench looks out across a patch of "No Man's Land", where the game will take place

Key to the re-enactment is the 39ft (12m) long replica trench, which has been used for history lessons and visited by hundreds of pupils from around the region.

David Shield, the school's head, said: "It has been amazing to see the creation of an authentic historical landscape which is now a focal point for living history and a visual reminder of one of the key moments in the conflict.

"We look forward to welcoming our friends from Germany to help us all understand exactly what happened and what is was like."

Smoke grenades and "flash bangs" add to the experience for visiting schoolchildren

Councillor John Robinson, chairman of Durham County Council, said: "This historical re-enactment reflects the moment when fighting troops recognised their adversaries as human beings and for a moment let a glimmer of friendship shine on a bleak and foreboding landscape.

"This project helps encourage reflection and promote humanity in our young learners by working in partnership from our friends from Germany."


BBC News - School pupils re-enact WW1 Christmas truce

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WW1 truce football game in Dorset to take place


BBC News
10 December 2014

A field outside Ploegsteert Wood, Flanders, Belgium, is where British and German soldiers played football during the World War One Christmas Day truce in 1914

Soldiers and footballers in Dorset will go head-to-head in a football match to mark the World War One Christmas truce.

A team from the Bovington army camp will play against the Dorchester Town football team dressed in army uniforms.

The commemorative event from 17:30 GMT, at the Avenue Football Stadium, will include a minute's silence, live music, prayers and carols.

The truce saw British and German soldiers across the Western Front play football together at Christmas 1914.

Spielberg's replica tank

A replica tank, built for Steven Spielberg for the film War Horse, will be on the roundabout next to the stadium.

Two thousand replica World War One books with the gospel of St John - the same as those given to the soldiers 100 years ago - have been donated to the event.

The 78th Bishop of Salisbury, the Right Reverend Nick Holtam, will be among VIPs who will arrive at the stadium in a limousine, flanked by the White Helmets Motorcycle display team.


Bishop of Salisbury Nick Holtam

The two teams will be dressed in the uniforms of German and British soldiers and a short service will be held before the game.

After the match, two identical trophies will be presented to the teams regardless of the result, as a symbol of peace and reconciliation.

Dorchester Town FC community director Allen Knott, said: "For me [this event] is very important. Our soldiers and all of our military go out and put their lives at risk so we can live in peace, and we must never forget that."

Team members will all be presented with a special medal to mark their involvement in the event.

Proceeds from the match will go to a number of charities.

Dorchester Town FC, nicknamed "The Magpies", will take part in the special match against a team of British soldiers

BBC News - WW1 truce football game in Dorset to take place

 

[Blackleaf]

Michel Platini, the President of European football's governing body UEFA, will today unveil a Christmas truce monument on Flanders Fields in western Belgium in memory of the famous football matches between British and German soldiers.

A century ago on Christmas Day, German and British enemies left their trenches and headed into no man's land in a few scattered locations on the Western Front for an unofficial truce.

And, as Mr Platini wrote to European Union leaders early this year, 'Together, they performed simple acts of reconciliation, culminating in the discovery of a shared language: football.'

Platini has been the President of Uefa since January 2007, when he took over from Lennart Johansson. The Frenchman is regarded as one of the greatest footballers of all time, regarded by pundits as one of the best passers in football history, as well as one of the best finishers, penalty kick and free kick specialists of all time. Amongst his many honours during his playing career was winning Euro 84 with France; the European Cup Winners' Cup with Juventus in 1984; and the European Cup (now known as the Champions League) with Juventus in 1985 when they beat Liverpool 1-0 in the Final at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels, during which 39 Juventus fans were killed in a crush in the stands, which caused UEFA to ban all English teams from European football until 1990.
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Football to remember the great game: UEFA’s Michel Platini to unveil Christmas Truce monument at Flanders Field

On Christmas Day 1914, British and German soldiers held unofficial truce
In a few scattered locations on the front lines they played football matches
Currently the famous games are remembered by a simply cross in Belgium ​

By Associated Press and Damien Gayle for MailOnline
11 December 2014
Daily Mail

UEFA President Michel Platini will today unveil a Christmas truce monument on Flanders Fields in western Belgium in memory of the famous football matches between British and German soldiers

UEFA President Michel Platini will today unveil a Christmas truce monument on Flanders Fields in western Belgium in memory of the famous football matches between British and German soldiers.

A century ago on Christmas Day, German and British enemies left their trenches and headed into no man's land in a few scattered locations on the Western Front for an unofficial truce.

And, as Mr Platini wrote to European Union leaders early this year, 'Together, they performed simple acts of reconciliation, culminating in the discovery of a shared language: football.'

Christmas truce: German and British soldiers stand together on the battlefield near Ploegsteert, Belgium, in December 1914. Today Uefa president Michael Platini will unveil a monument to the unofficial truce, which was marked by friendly football matches and kickabouts between the sides on the Western Front battlefields

For those involved, it was most of all a yearning for a sense of normality, however momentarily, that pushed them over the edge of their trenches, unarmed.

'Suddenly a Tommy came with a football,' wrote Lieutenant Johannes Niemann of Germany, referring to a British soldier. 'Teams were quickly established for a match on the frozen mud, and the Fritzes beat the Tommies 3-2.'

If not fully-fledged matches, other soldiers' diaries and various reports also spoke of balls being kicked about in friendship.

'A huge crowd was between the trenches. Someone produced a little rubber ball so of course a football match started,' wrote Lieutenant Charles Brockbank of the British Cheshire Regiment in his diary, which is part of 'The Greater Game' exhibit at the National Football Museum in Manchester.

Experience the world's greatest sport at the National Football Museum in Manchester, home to the world's biggest and finest collection of football artefacts and archives

The proponents of the sport have cherished that day as historic proof that there is little that can better bridge man's differences than football.

This Christmas, the British supermarket chain Sainsbury's has taken the idea and turned it into a blockbuster ad, showing opposing soldiers living the truce amid a football match at the centre of the heart-tugging, some say sanitised, view of that Great War day.

This unique event currently is marked by nothing more than a simple wooden cross on the side of a windswept field filled with scorpion weed.

At its base, amid wreaths of poppies, lie a smattering of balls and various club pennants, all in remembrance of the Christmas Truce of 1914.

Lest we forget: Footballs and other mementoes lie beneath the 'Christmas Truce' cross in St Yvon, Belgium, which was erected in 1999 to remember the football matches played in the no man's land of northern Europe

'Someone produced a little rubber ball so of course a football match started': The diary of First World War soldier Lieutenant Charles Brockbank, in which he details a football game that took place during the truce

The Beautiful Game: Re-enactors in First World War uniforms kick a football around during half time of a Christmas Truce match in August between British team Newark Town FC and German team Emmendingen in Messines, Belgium

The war had started on August 28th 1914 and Britain joined the conflict exactly a week later when she declared war on Germany, in accordance with the 1839 Treaty of London, after Germany invaded neutral Belgium. The German invasion of Belgium kicked off a series of events which quickly pit the German and Austro-Hungarian empires against Britain, France, Russia and several allies.

Germany swept into most of Belgium and northern France and even threatened Paris before the frontline was settled.

Armies entrenched themselves for most of the next four years. At the time, though, the prevailing expectation on both sides had been to be home for Christmas.



"The Scrap of Paper - Enlist Today", a British WW1 recruitment poster of 1914

Peace Game: An organiser holds a period-style football prior to the start of the Christmas Truce Peace Game football match in Belgium in August

When that didn't happen, an early sense of euphoria quickly made way for unrelenting gloom.

It set the stage for the Christmas truce and those magic kickabouts.

Football players themselves had been involved in the fighting from the early days. Of the 5,000 professional players at the time, about 2,000 joined the armed forces. Sometimes whole line-ups signed up at the same time to create what became known as the Footballers' Battalions.

London club Clapton Orient, now known as Leyton Orient, alone had about 40 players and staff joining the war effort, all following the steps of their team captain.

Scotland's top team at the time, Edinburgh club Hearts, had its whole team join the British Army one month ahead of that Christmas, a move which inspired others to join, Peter Francis of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission said. Christmas truce or not, seven members of that team were killed in the war.

One of the first footballers killed in the war was Larrett Roebuck, a Huddersfield Town defender. After playing for his team in a 1-0 victory at Leicester Fosse early in the 1914-15 season, he left for the Western Front and was killed in action on the eve of the first Battle for Ypres, a few miles from that patch of land in Ploegsteert.

'The story is that he set off running across the field with the machine guns going,' said Roebuck's grandson, Frank Wood. 'His friend saw him go down but he couldn't stop to help him. With the fight like that, you couldn't stop.'

CAMERON MEETS YOUNG FOOTBALLERS BEFORE THEY TRAVEL TO YPRES

The young footballers play for clubs including Chelsea and Spurs


The Prime Minister today met with a group of young footballers before they travelled to Belgium to play a match at Ypres.

The youngsters and Premier League representatives met David Cameron outside his home at Number 10 Downing Street early this morning.

Mr Cameron brandished a period-style leather football as he spoke with the youngsters at the door to Number 10, before the players lined up for a group photo.

The Greater Game exhibit:

http://www.nationalfootballmuseum.com/whats-on/event/2014/the-greater-game-football-and-the-first-world-war/19-12-14/


Read more: UEFA's Michel Platini to unveil Christmas truce monument at Flanders Field | Daily Mail Online
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[Blackleaf]

World War One: National Football Museum exhibition marks centenary of truce

18 December 2014
BBC News

The National Football Museum in Manchester is the biggest museum in the world dedicated to the world's most popular team sport

Manchester's National Football Museum is marking the centenary of World War One with a new exhibition looking at the role of football during the war.

The Greater Game - Football & The First World War details Christmas truce matches and commemorates the sacrifices made by players during the conflict.

It features a ball booted "over the top" by Captain Wilfred P. Nevill on the Battle of the Somme's first day.

The free exhibition opens on Friday at the museum in Cathedral Gardens.

A diary kept by Lt Charles B. Brockbank of the 6th Battalion, Cheshire Regiment is also on show. In it, he mentions a football match taking place on Christmas Day 1914 with a small rubber ball.

The exhibition includes a ball kicked 'over the top' by Captain W. P. Nevill on the first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916

The diary kept by Lt Charles Brockbank mentions a Christmas Day football match taking place in 1914

Wilfred Bartrop's 1912 FA Cup winner's medal

Other artefacts include Wilfred Bartrop's 1912 FA Cup winner's medal (Barnsley beat West Bromwich Albion 1-0 in the Final replay after it originally finished 0-0).

The former Barnsley player was the final footballer to lose his life in the conflict, killed in action four days before the end of the war in 1918.

A fairground game which was located in Blackpool Pleasure Beach just before the war is also on show

Modern conflicts are marked by photographer Sean Sutton, in association with the Mines Advisory Group, showing men, women and children affected by violence and conflict around the world.

Commissions by artist Malik Thomas show a series of artworks inspired by individual stories and artefacts in the exhibition.

The museum's director, Kevin Moore, said: "The love of football and the spirit of the game continues and we hope that everyone will come to learn more about this fascinating period of footballing history."

A Christmas kick-about?

Along parts of the Western Front, some men emerged from their trenches into No Man's Land on 25 December 1914.

Where truces did happen, enemy soldiers met, spent Christmas together and even exchanged gifts.

Although first-hand testimonies suggest there was no single organised football match between German and British sides, small-scale kickabouts were held between soldiers.

There was no official truce, however, and along other parts of the frontline bloody battles continued to take place over the Christmas period.



BBC News - World War One: National Football Museum exhibition marks centenary of truce

 

[skookumchuck]

What idiots you are to make an issue out of celebrating Christmas with the enemy then back to killing each other the next day......