The team that fought for Britain

Yesterday marked the 100^th anniversary of the beginning of Britain’s involvement in World War One, and with that comes a little bit of perspective. Perspective about what we value as being important in our lives. And whilst football cannot be seen as one of those things, there is an important story relating to football that I think deserves to be shared.

Modern day footballers are given, perhaps justifiably, various stereotypes concerning greed, wealth and attitude. A century ago, with considerably less media coverage, this existed on a smaller scale, but for a different reason altogether. With their compatriots fighting and dying on the battlefields, most footballers in Britain chose not to get involved. That was until Sir George McCrae raised a battalion from Edinburgh and the surrounding area. And the players of Heart of Midlothian led the way.

'C' Division, 16th Royal Scots
Edinburgh 1914

Top of the league in Scotland, and having won 19 out of their first 21 games, they were well clear of Glasgow Celtic. The Jambo half of Edinburgh would have been excited at the prospect of a first league title in nearly two decades. But, to fight for King and country required these men to swap maroon for khaki. Whilst balancing some basic army training with playing football, Hearts slid down the table whilst Celtic (who sent no prominent players to the war effort) took over and dominated in a similar way to how they currently do, all these years later.

Joined by players from Dunfermline, Raith Rovers and rivals Hibernian, McCrae's Battalion (a subdivision of the 16^th Royal Scots Regiment) began the fight in France in early 1916. The Battle of the Somme killed or badly wounded 636 of the 814 battalion members, with 7 Hearts casualties. 2 more died in the following years, believed to be from lung problems sustained in the fight.

This story is, quite surprisingly, almost unknown outside of Scotland. In a century of British football tragedies and memorials, McCrae's Battalion receives very little attention or recognition outside of Gorgie. It is for this reason that I share this story.

Of course, the young men of McCrae's Battalion shouldn't be singled out any more so than any other soldier who participated in the war effort. But I do hope this story also puts things into perspective in terms of how important yesterday’s anniversary was, especially given the comparatively trivial things, such as football, that we see as ‘important’ today.