Football on the frontline: The ball British WWI soldiers dribbled towards their deaths after being sent over the top

By Daily Mail Reporter
Updated: 12:33 EST, 10 March 2011

• Ball used in amazing stunt stitched up again after discovery nearly 100 years after Battle of Loos
  

It seems to be a stunt too extraordinary to be believed.

But, while staring death in the face, a group of World War One soldiers hatched a plan to dribble six footballs towards the German front line in a unique display of British bravado and courage.

Their commanding officer rumbled them on the eve of the Battle of Loos in 1915, and before the attack shot five of the balls rendering them useless.

The football was in danger of disintegrating after languishing in the sergeant's mess for 50 years, but experts painstakingly restored it for this weekend's regimental  St Patrick's Day Parade

But the soccer team of the London Irish Rifles managed to keep the sixth ball hidden and, defying orders, dribbled it as they advanced across No Man's Land while under heavy machine gun and mortar fire.

The footballing soldiers' antics, even more extraordinary than the official truce called on Christmas Day 1914 when thousands of troops emerged from the trenches to have a kick-about, went down in folklore among the men of the London Irish Rifles and the ball was displayed at the regimental museum in Camberwell, south east London, until 50 years ago.

After that it languished in a container in the sergeant's mess at the museum for the next five decades but recently resurfaced in a decrepit state and in danger of perishing into a pile of dust.

The painting by Lady Butler that immortalised footballers of the London Irish Rifles charging the enemy lines at the Battle of Loos in 1915

The ball has been restored with painstaking care at the Leather Conservation Centre in Northampton

Conservation experts were called in and, after painstaking restoration, the ball will now be the centrepiece of the regiment's St Patrick's Day parade this weekend.

The 1st Battalion of the London Irish Rifles was sent to the Western Front in May 1915 and took part in the first major British offensive of the war in September.

Nigel Wilkinson, vice-chairman of the London Irish Rifles Regimental Association, explained: 'The London Irish had a first class football team and they were keen to score a goal in Jerry's front line trenches.

'One of the platoon commanders thought this was a bad idea and just before the whistles blew for the attack he went round puncturing all those that he could find.'

On a plate: The ball made an appearance at a London Irish Old Comrades dinner in 1923

But the last remaining ball had been stuffed up the tunic of team captain Sergeant Frank Edwards who removed it and blew it up with his mouth while his comrades gave him cover.

As the whistle for the 'big push' sounded, Sgt Edwards booted the ball out of the trenches. It was passed between a small band of men before it ended up being pierced on barbed wire on the German front line.

'Defying orders, the London Irish kicked off the big push by punting the football into No Man's Land and went hell for leather after it,' Mr Wilkinson said.

Sgt Edwards was said to have dribbled the ball for 20 yards before he went down injured when he was shot through the thigh. Private Micky Mileham stopped to fix a tourniquet to the wound and saved his life.

London Irish football team captain Sgt Frank Edwards who punted the ball out of the trenches and dribbled it for 20 yards towards the enemy before being shot in the thigh

Pte Mileman, Pte Bill Taylor and Pte Walter 'Jimmy' Dalby were later recorded as having kicked the ball at some point.

Some time after the devastating battle - which resulted in 50,000 British casualties - the muddy ball was recovered from the battlefield and taken back to Britain.

'The ball wasn't necessarily lost over the last 50 years but more overlooked and neglected, Mr Wilkinson explained.

'Frank Edwards' grandson-in-law Ed Harris recently wrote a book called the Footballer of Loos. During his research he asked us what had happened to the ball after it was removed from the museum.

'We found it in a container in the sergeant's mess. It was in a very poor condition and was at risk of disintegrating into dust.

'We are delighted the ball has been conserved and will be okay for another 100 years and will be the focus of the story of the Battle of Loos.'

In the battalion's record of World War One, Second Lieutenant SF Major noted how the men were seen to pass and re-pass the ball until they disappeared in a smoke cloud towards the German front line.

In his record in the Weekly Dispatch, Pte Phil Gibbs wrote of how the men cried out 'on the ball London Irish' as they advanced.

The episode was later immortalised in a watercolour painting by historical artist Lady Butler.

Susan Harris, granddaughter of Sgt Edwards, from Whitton, south west London, who died in 1964 aged 71, said: 'I remember my grandfather very well and remember his love of football.

'His story is one that has been forgotten about so I'm delighted that his ball has been conserved for the future.'

Yvette Fletcher, head on conservation at the Leather Conservation Centre in Northampton, said: 'It came to us in quite a bad state.  There were a lot of tears in the leather which was very weak and we were concerned it would fall apart.

'We used leather dyed the same colour and we patched it together from the inside. The rubber bladder had completely perished so we padded the inside out with pure cotton to give it the shape.

'There is still the rudimentary stitching on the ball from where it was repaired having been cut on the barbed wire.

'It is still very fragile which is not surprising as it is a football that has been through the First World War.'

A cartoon depicting the men of the London Irish Rifles booting their football towards the German Front Line

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