Jump to content

Chelsea FC: World War One


Upsetter

Recommended Posts

In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Somme

Taken from the official Chelsea site, a look back at the role of the club during the First World War.

 

crowd.jpg

The Khaki Crowd, 5 December 1914

 

The ultimatum to withdraw from Belgium ignored, Britain declared a state of war with Germany at 11pm on 4 August 1914. No aspect of life in England would ever be the same and football neither enjoyed nor offered sanctuary from the horrors that followed.

Four days later the Defence of the Realm Act made it illegal, amongst other things, to buy binoculars, light fireworks, use invisible ink when writing abroad or buy strong alcohol in a railway refreshment room.

In August 1914 many British ex-footballers had training jobs based in the heart of the conflict, in Germany, Austria and Belgium. A former coach at the Bridge, Harry Ransom, was in Budapest, ‘but managed to reach London safely after being twice stopped on suspicion of being a foreign spy.’

At first football attempted to carry on regardless, but a ferocious attack by the media and parliament on so-called shirkers among the playing staff and supporters knocked the game back on its heels.

In many walks of life hordes of workmates were going off to fight in ‘pals regiments’. But recruitment drives at London grounds were unsuccessful. Notoriously, not a single volunteer joined up at Stamford Bridge, where a Colonel Burn had lectured a crowd of 16,000. (Perhaps announcing that his own son had already been killed in France was not the cleverest enticement.)

Chelsea had responded regularly in the matchday programme with contempt for the ‘mud-slingers’, publishing a photograph of a crowd comprising almost entirely of men in uniform and therefore ‘doing their bit’ for King and country (pictured top). They also printed dozens of letters from fighting men craving to hear how their beloved Pensioners were faring, particularly as they progressed to the FA Cup final for the first time ever in 1914/15.

Exiled Belgians were handed tickets to games, including a 2-2 draw with Oldham. They were ‘Chelsea partisans to a man – and woman,’ cheered the Chelsea goals and ‘seemed almost to forget their own terrible sufferings.’

The club was also quick to collect money in a ‘Footballs for Tommies’ scheme to dispatch 50 top-quality footballs off to servicemen on the frontline who applied for one at Stamford Bridge (see programme extract right). They were sent in November 1914. One of them may even have been used in the legendary Christmas truce match a month later.

‘The Southdown Battalion of the Sussex Regiment are proud in the possession of the ball used in our match v Liverpool,’ it was announced. Two representatives from that battalion, Lieutenants Clifford Whitley and Ernest Wenden helped establish a ‘Chelsea Supporters’ Company’ with a recruitment drive at the Bridge. (Perhaps as a result, both went on to marry Maie and Julia, daughters of Chelsea director Fred Parker.)

The Chelsea hierarchy also supported the grand initiative of a Footballer’s Battalion, the 17th Middlesex, created on 14 December 1914. Not only did several current and former players sign up, but club secretary Bert Palmer became ‘Honorary Recruiting Officer’ for the 17th, prompting the attestations of 60-70 soldiers. One of the first was Chelsea’s star winger Teddy Foord.

An odd memento of the club’s closeness to this fabled battalion lies in a unique engraved silver plate on display in the Chelsea FC Museum. The inscription reads: ‘In Honour of the Khaki Recruits – Our Chelsea Diehards. Presented to the Earl of Lonsdale by the men of the 17th Battalion Middlesex Regt. and Chelsea Football and Athletic Company Limited, Feb 12 1916.’

 

1417113400332.jpg

 

By then the Football League had been suspended and regionalised. The Pensioners had lost the FA Cup final at Old Trafford 0-3 to Sheffield United and, disastrously, finished in a relegation slot. However it later emerged that players from Liverpool and Manchester United had colluded to fix a match, saving the latter from the drop and condemning Chelsea. The football community was scandalised, and when the war was over the League made sure the Pensioners were reinstated in the top flight.

In the meantime the small-scale football served up 1915 to 1918 offered little succour from the bad news hitting nearly every family.

Among the Chelsea-related, past and present, Max Seeberg was interned simply because of his German surname; Vivian ‘Jack’ Woodward was wounded in action but recovered; George Hilsdon was gassed; coach Harry Brown and board members Parker, Palmer and Mears all lost immediate family;  while Bob ‘Pom-Pom’ Whiting, Arthur Wileman, Bob Atherton, George Kennedy, Philip Smith and George Lake all died of wounds suffered in the conflict.

Kennedy, a half-back during the 1908/09 season who emigrated in 1914 and was a company sergeant-major in the 42nd Canadian Highlanders, died during the capture of Passchendaele on 16 November 1917. He was Chelsea’s most decorated former player, receiving the Military Medal and Distinguished Conduct Medal earlier that year (his attestation paper is shown on the right).

Most poignantly, Lake died just a four days before the armistice of 11 November 1918. He was the only serving first team Chelsea player claimed by this most brutal of conflicts.
 

Key Matches:

 

Chelsea 0 Sheffield United 3, 24 April 1915 FA Cup Final

_jcr_content.autoteaser.jpeg

It took 10 seasons to reach Chelsea’s first FA Cup final, but it was a far from joyous occasion.

The 1914/15 season had continued despite the outbreak of World War One and with casualties rising, the football authorities were coming under increasing pressure to abandon professional football.

Nevertheless, a crowd of 50,000 attended the final at Old Trafford, many of them soldiers on leave from the front and still dressed in their uniforms.

It was a dark, dismal, overcast day and the majority of the crowd cheered for our opponents. Our captain, the England international Vivian Woodward had been granted leave from the war and travelled back for the game but, despite pressure from the directors, refused to play, stating that Bob Thomson who had played in the earlier rounds deserved his place in the team, this despite Thomson not having fully recovered from a dislocated shoulder.

Yet it probably made little difference to the result. Chelsea were poor and managed just two attacks on the United goal. Mistakes by the normally reliable Jack Harrow and keeper Jim Molyneux gifted United a first-half goal. As fog enveloped the ground United added two further goals and the game was over long before the final whistle.

To make matters worse the team stayed north to finish the League season but managed one point in fixtures against Everton and Notts County and were subsequently relegated for the second time in our history.  
.

 

Chelsea 3 Fulham 0, 26 April 1919 London Combination Victory Cup final

_jcr_content.autoteaser.jpeg

From summer 1915 and for the duration of the war, professional football was broken down into regions. Clubs in the capital and south-east, no longer under Football League jurisdiction, formed the London Combination, and in December 1918 its committee created the Victory Cup.

By the spring the finalists were decided: west London neighbours Fulham and Chelsea, who would play at the recently reopened Highbury on Saturday 26 April 1919.

Despite heavy rain a crowd of 36,000 came to celebrate peace, normality and Chelsea’s second cup final in five years. It had been the nature of Great War football that guest players might appear in team line-ups and this was no exception. Chelsea’s key man on the day was borrowed from Arsenal’s books: Jock Rutherford.

Behind him the ‘Great Dane’, midfielder Nils Middelboe, was magisterial, with his intelligence and raking stride, and inside-right Ben Whitehouse had a hand in all three of the Pensioners’ goals.

Two were scored by Gunner Rutherford, the other by regular royal blue Harry Wilding, and all came in the last 20 minutes of an engaging contest. The trophy, presented by Arsenal chairman Henry Norris’s wife Edith, was never contested again, although the London Combination morphed into a competition for reserve teams.

The Cup marked the end of Great War restrictions. Chelsea rejoined Football League Division One a few months later and would set a new record average home attendance in the English game of 42,860 in 1919/20. Football was back – thankfully without the bangs.
 

1914 Matchday Cover

1415292793444.jpg

 

Roll of Honour

Serving and former Chelsea footballers who were killed during World War One.

Robert Atherton
Died 19 October 1917

George Kennedy
Died 16 November 1917

George Lake
Died 6 November 1918

Philip Smith
Died 29 September 1918

Robert Whiting
Died 28 April 1917

Arthur Wileman
Died 28 April 1918

Norman Wood
Died 28 July 1916

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites





Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...
Please Sign In or Sign Up