Saturday 12 November 2011

1914-and the FA have another battle over war

One of the big topics of the week has been the battle between the Football association and FIFA over the wearing of the poppy during this evening's friendly international against Spain.

Thanks to the intervention of Prince William,a compromise of sorts has been reached.

Turn the clock back to 1914 though and the FA's attitude to sacrifice was slightly different as this article in the Week shows

When Britain went to war with Germany in August 1914, all cricket and rugby competitions ceased as players flocked to enlist. The Rugby Football Union asked that all its members aged between 19 and 35 join up and stadiums such as Leicester's Welford Road were turned into recruitment centres.

Football, however, saw no reason to disrupt its schedule in order to help defeat Kaiser Wilhelm, even though many professional players were keen to enlist. Charlie Buchan, the Sunderland and England centre-forward, recalled that he "wanted to join up but, when the league decided that the competition should run until the following April, I was reminded that I had a contract to carry out".

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