Let the living answer the roll call of the dead:
Walter Tull of Spurs and Northampton Town KIA 1918;
And now the names of other Spurs:
George Badenoch 1915
Jim Chalmers 1915
John Fleming 1916
Frederick Griffiths 1917
Alan Haig-Brown 1918
John Hebdon 1917
Alf Hobday 1915
John Jarvie 1916
Edward Lightfoot 1918
William Lloyd 1914
Alexander MacGregor
William Weir 1918
Archibald Wilson 1916
Norman Wood 1916
Names from another century come back to haunt us:
George, John, Jim, Fred, Edward, William, Archie,
Names once shouted over a football pitch,
‘Give it to Walter’,
‘Over here, Freddie,
‘Shoot, Archie’;
The imperatives of a football team
Replaced by new orders in khaki, with
Night patrols, barbed wire and machine guns;
Muddied football boots forgotten
In the trench foot fields of Flanders;
The clamour from the ground and stands
No match for whizz bangs, mortars and howitzers;
The fogs of a November match,
Innocent memories in a gas attack:
‘Over the top tomorrow, George’,
‘Keep your head down, Archie’,
‘Stay quiet. Don’t shoot, Will’,
‘Don’t worry, Fred. We’ll get you on this stretcher’,
‘Where’s Jim?’
You would have known each other,
Played with or against each other,
Trained together,
Boarded ships and trains together,
Relieved each other in the trenches,
And who knows?
Some of the Spurs players who survived the war,
May have searched for your body, Walter,
Before and after your last breath and memories,
Memories of Spurs and Northampton,
And childhood,
And a grandmother who had been a slave,
And you, an officer now,
Revered and loved by his men,
Searching for you out there in no man’s land,
As you breathe your last breath,
In whatever corner of a foreign field,
Which will always be an England,
Where the wind rushes by.
Post-Script:
The following Spurs players also served during the Great War, and survived:
Harry Bagge
George Bowler
Billy Minter