This year Remembrance Sunday falls on 11 November: the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, when the guns finally fell silent in 1918 and on the Great War. Whilst we take a few moments to think of those who fought and died in conflicts around the world, here at bantamspast we particularly remember former players and supporters of Bradford City.

Of the players, in the Great War the club lost: Jimmy Speirs, Robert Torrance, Evelyn Lintott, Ernest Goodwin, George Draycott, Gerald Kirk, Jimmy Conlin, James Comrie and Harry Potter. In the Second World War we lost Alfred Keeling and guest players Sidney Pugh and Ernest Tuckett.

A roll call of the club’s supporters killed in conflicts is obviously impossible to collate. However, those who took part in this year’s trip to the Somme were particularly affected by the fate of the Bradford Pals. We visited the grave of Manningham born Arthur Greenwood, a private in the first Bradford Pals who was killed on the 1st July 1916 – the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Among his personal effects were several postcards of Bradford City teams, including those great FA Cup winners of 1911.

We will remember them.

Saturday 2 June
In blazing sunshine our first call was at the enormous Lochnagar Crater. The Lochnagar mine was an explosive-packed mine created by the Royal Engineer tunnelling companies which was detonated at 7:28 am on 1 July 1916. The Lochnagar mine was the largest ever detonated and reputedly was heard in London. The explosion was witnessed from the air by 2nd Lieutenant C.A. Lewis of No. 3 Squadron RFC:

The whole earth heaved and flashed, a tremendous and magnificent column rose up in the sky. There was an ear-splitting roar drowning all the guns, flinging the machine sideways in the repercussing air. The earth column rose higher and higher to almost 4,000 feet. There it hung, or seemed to hang, for a moment in the air, like the silhouette of some great cypress tree, then fell away in a widening cone of dust and debris.

The description is of a man-made volcano and that is exactly what the aftermath looks like. The crater is absolutely enormous, a deep bowl scooped out of the chalky soil as if by some giant hand. From Lochnagar we visited the final resting place of a Bradford sportsman who had evaded our attention on the previous year’s trip – Bradford Northern’s Harry Ruck. He is buried in the large Caterpillar Valley Cemetery at Longueval. The cemetery is within sight of the infamous trio of Delville Wood, High Wood and Mametz Wood. Harry played for Bradford Northern at their former Birch Lane ground at West Bowling – two decades before Odsal Stadium was developed. He was the only Rugby League player from Bradford killed in the Great War. We laid a cross on his grave and will be passing photographs of his final resting place to our friends at the Bradford Bulls. Caterpillar Valley Cemetery also had the New Zealand memorial to the missing on one wall and there was an empty grave from where the body of an unknown New Zealand soldier was exhumed and taken the Wellington where he now lies at the centre of the country’s memorial to the Great War. The now empty grave informs visitors, in both English and Maori, how the solider was randomly selected to become New Zealand’s unknown warrior.

The multi-national nature of the British Empire troops who fought on the Somme was a theme that continued when we moved onto the South African National Memorial Museum at Delville Wood. The impressive museum is situated along a grass walkway among the re-grown trees of Delville Wood – or Devil’s Wood as it was nicknamed by the soldiers. Among the trees the ground is still pock marked with shell holes and behind the museum is the only tree to have survived the battering the wood received. The South African Memorial Museum is a stunning piece of architecture and is one of the best memorials on the entire Western Front. It is based on a Cape fort, from the outside there are thick stone walls, but once inside the visitor is faced with a circular structure with full length glass panels that overlook an inner court yard. The story of the South African’s in the Great War, and beyond, is related in a series of display that guide the visitor in a clockwise direction. The museum is sited in Delville Wood in order to preserve the memory of the three South African battalions that captured the wood, but were almost wiped out in the process. To read such a story of bravery and sacrifice and then to walk into the woods today, where only the birdsong disturbs the tranquillity, is a moving experience.

We were making such good progress that we decided to make some additional unplanned stops. First was at the Footballers’ Battalion Memorial which was unveiled by the Football League in 2010. The Battalion were part of the Middlesex Regiment and it contained many professional footballers including Bradford City’s Frank Buckley. They, alongside the South Africans, took and held Delville Wood, albeit with fearful casualties. Beneath the memorial were wreaths from numerous Football League clubs. Had we known about the location of the memorial we would have added one from Bradford City – perhaps another day? We moved onto Mametz Wood and viewed the vivid red dragon memorial to the 38th (Welsh) Division who suffered 5,000 casualties in taking the wood.

We returned to our planned itinerary and the huge obelisk memorial at Pozières to the 1st Australian Division. They were the original 'ANZACS' - members of the Australian Imperial Force that fought at Gallipoli in 1915. They took part in the capture of Pozières, which was secured in heavy fighting on 25th July 1916, and in the subsequent fighting around the village and towards Mouquet Farm. In doing so they lost 5,285 men. While many of our party went for lunch at Le Tommy Cafe in the village a small number walked alongside the main road to the huge Pozières British Cemetery that contains the graves of 2,756 soldiers and the memorial to the missing that surrounds the graves and has over 14,000 names inscribed on its walls. There are many Australians buried so far from home at Pozières. I walked around the cemetery and tried to read as many of the names as possible. It’s a strange feeling, but a compelling one; you feel the need to remember as many as possible of them. Perhaps by reading their names you bring them back to life for a few seconds? We rejoined the rest of the party in Le Tommy and found a group of Australian visitors already taking refreshment. We were later joined by a small group from Northern Ireland. The Somme should be, and in some ways is, a shrine that links the English speaking peoples.

We completed our visit to the Somme sector by viewing the tank memorial which commemorates the site where tanks were first used as a weapon of war on 15 September 1916. Directly opposite was another Australian Memorial on the site of Pozières Windmill – a strategic site which was captured by the Australians. Apparently nowhere else on the Somme did the Australians fall as thickly as at the Windmill. So it is appropriate that soil from the site was scattered on the coffin of the grave of the unknown Australian soldier buried at the national memorial in the capital of Canberra. We drove the Butte de Walencourt, the limit of the advance of 1916 and looked back at the Somme battlefield. It had been a sobering and thought provoking visit, but we were following in the footsteps of the Bradford Pals and so we followed them from the Somme and to the Battle of Neuve Chapelle.

At the nearby Vieille-Chapelle Cemetery we gathered around the graves of the two Bradford Pals shot for desertion: Herbert Crimmins and Arthur Wild. There was an air of sadness and forgiveness. We cannot imagine the horrors that they had been through and it does appear that their desertion was not premeditated but was simply the result of having one too many drinks. I wrote in the cemetery visitor book that they were forgiven in Bradford and I hope that many share my sentiments.

We than had another unexpected visit when we stopped at the fabulous Indian Memorial. A circular memorial that contains that names 4,743 Indian soldiers and labourers who died during the conflict and have no known grave. The high walls give a great sense of peace when you are inside memorial, but outside the walls are pockmarked with bullet holes from the Second World War. A couple of minutes’ walk up the road is the Portuguese Cemetery and Memorial. There are around 2,000 Portuguese soldiers buried in the cemetery. While the graves are maintained it wasn’t to the very high standard of the British Cemeteries and it gave us cause to be thankful for the continued work of Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

The final stop on our tour was one that was unrelated to the Great War, but when I saw it I realised we simply had to stop and pay our respects. The two Bradford Pals shot for desertion were executed in the village of Lestrem. In the Second World War this was the location of a notorious massacre. In 1940 the Royal Norfolk Regiment were stubbornly holding back the German advance on the evacuation beaches of Dunkirk. They fought until they ran out of ammunition and eventually surrendered. Unfortunately their captors were an SS regiment. The men were taken to a barn and 97 unarmed men were murdered by the SS with machine guns. Astonishingly two men survived and were hidden by the villagers. After the war the testimony of the survivors ensured that the SS officer who ordered the massacre was hung for his crime. We visited the graves of the brave Norfolk’s, while there an elderly villager told us that he had met many of the British soldiers in days leading up to the massacre and he told us exactly where they had been shot. Thus our final pilgrimage was at a roadside overlooking the barn wall where the men had been lined up and executed. It was a sobering end to a sobering trip.

We returned to Lille and the following day we boarded the Eurostar and bade a fond farewell to northern France. In London we enjoyed a refreshment stop at the Betjeman Bar on St Pancras station before heading north on the Grand Central service direct to Bradford Interchange. The final act came when a small group of us had a farewell pint in the City Vaults. There we toasted Herbert Crimmins and Albert Wild.

Friday 1 June

The morning saw our coach waiting, with our Belgian friends the Depoorter family, outside the hotel. Within an hour we were in sight of the huge Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme. It has 72,202 names inscribed on its wall. Among them are hundreds of names from the West Yorkshire regiments. This year many of the group had researched individual stories of soldiers from the two Bradford Pals battalions who suffered so grievously on the first day of the infamous Battle of the Somme. A name cast in stone was brought to life, with an often familiar street name, place of work and family story. Here were men who walked the same streets as us, drank in the same pubs and, in some cases, watched football from the Valley Parade terraces. As was related last year, one of the names is Bradford City’s England international midfielder Evelyn Lintott, killed by machine gun fire while leading the Leeds Pals on 1 July 1916.

A short drive from Thiepval took us to Mill Road Cemetery where many Bradford soldiers have found their last resting place. Just across the fields was the imposing Ulster Memorial which served as a reminder that it was here that Bradford City reserve Ernest Goodwin was mortally wounded whilst serving with a Belle Vue based West Yorkshire territorial battalion who were supporting the Ulster Division on that fateful morning of 1 July 1916. The difficulty when visiting the Somme battlefields today is making the mental leap from the beautifully tended cemeteries and rolling green fields to the killing fields guarded by barbed wire, lashed with machine gun fire, strewn with the dead and dying. The Newfoundland Memorial Park at Beaumont-Hamel helps the visitor make the connection. Seventy four acres of trenches and battlefield has been preserved as a memorial to the Newfoundland Regiment which was all but wiped out during their attack on 1 July 1916. It is the largest section of the Somme battlefield that has been preserved. Although now covered in lush grass, the trenches and no man’s land are intact. Young Canadian guides show visitors around the site free of charge. Our guide was a law student taking a summer sabbatical to work at the park. He helped bring to life the battle and explained why the people of Newfoundland felt moved to purchase the site as a memorial to the 780 men of the regiment of whom 90% became casualties. As he explained it was the second biggest loss of any British regiment – the worst being the 10th Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment, attacking west of Fricourt village. He mentioned that fact specifically knowing we were visiting from West Yorkshire. It wouldn’t be the last time in the trip when we were reminded of our ties with the many nations who took part in the horrendous actions during the Battle of the Somme – brothers in arms and blood.

We lunched at Auchonvilliers. Known as ‘Ocean Villas’ to the British troops, today it is a tea room and bar run by British woman Avril Williams. There is a preserved trench in the back yard and a cellar beneath the tea room which was used by the French and British as a dressing station. Apparently, a British solider who was shot at dawn spent his last night in the cellar. It was here that we were met by the mayor of the village of Bus les Artois. City fan Mick Kirby had arranged for the mayor to meet and dine with us. His village was the place where the Bradford and Leeds Pals had been billeted in the nights leading up to the Battle of the Somme. Later we would drink in Bus les Artois' only bar where so many Bradfordians would have enjoyed their last night before marching towards the guns and going over the top on 1 July 1916.

First we went to the place where the Pals attacked on that fateful morning, Serre. We walked up a dirt track to the tiny Serre Road Number 3 Cemetery and the location of the British front line. To our left was the Leeds trench, from whence the Leeds Pals attacked, including Bradford City’s England international Evelyn Lintott. Just behind the Leeds trench was Bradford trench from where the 1st Bradford Pals emerged. The majority of them did not even make it as far as the British front line before being mown down. The 2nd Bradford Pals followed and suffered an almost identical fate. Of the 2,000 Bradfordians who emerged from their trenches, around 1,770 were killed or wounded. A generation of young men were gone and Bradford would never be the same again. To be stood on the very ground where the history of our city was changed forever was humbling. We were a world away from the sound of the Town Hall bells, terraced houses, mill chimneys and looming moors, but, to borrow a hackney phrase, here was a corner of a French field that is forever Bradford.

Just a couple of minutes’ walk away is the wooded valley that contains the Sheffield Memorial Park, where we discovered memorials to various northern Pals regiments: Accrington, Barnsley and Sheffield. Nailed to a tree near the beautiful Railway Hollow Cemetery was a small brass plaque remembering the Bradford Pals. I wasn’t the only one who thought that it seemed wrong that such a miniscule plaque was the only reminder of the 1,770 Bradfordians who became casualties over the course of a couple of hours on 1 July 1916. However, how we view the First World War is different to those who actually survived the horrors of the trenches. Apparently, many of the Bradford Pals who returned home did not want a memorial. They thought it was best forgotten.

We walked back to the Serre Road Number One Cemetery where we found the graves of many of the Bradford Pals killed in the assault. Finding soldiers who were born, or lived, in the vicinity of Valley Parade is fairly easy. But it is impossible to know whether they were actually City fans – or so we thought. I began researching the life story of Manningham born Arthur Greenwood. I discovered that his family had moved to Great Horton and that he had followed his father’s career as a barber. Arthur’s shop was at 386 Great Horton Road – which today is part of the Mumtaz restaurant. A keen swimmer Arthur was treasurer of the Bradford ‘Water Rats’ Swimming Club. He was one of first one thousand to enlist and was therefore in the 1st Bradford Pals (16th battalion Prince of Wales’ Own West Yorkshire Regiment). Naturally, Arthur became the battalion’s barber and was well known to all the men. Arthur went over the top with his best mate Charlie Lee at Serre. In a letter to Arthur’s parents Charlie described the attack thus:

"We left the trench at 7.30 on Saturday morning, July 1st, after waiting all night. I shall never forget it. He was very cheerful. As soon as we got out our corporal was killed. Then Arthur and I took the lead. We kept together until we got just behind the front line. There we found we were the only two left. We got into a shell hole. There were a lot of killed and wounded in the hole, our captain being amongst them. It was here that Arthur got hit with shrapnel. He said as I was leaving, for I had to go on, ‘Well good luck Charlie lad, I shall creep out alright’. That was all he said and I heard nothing more until late at night, when I was told he had been found where I left him. Another shell had burst and killed him before he could get out of the shell hole. I have lost a true pal."

We visited Arthur’s grave at Serre Number One Cemetery and placed a cross beneath his headstone. It was quite a moment, for here lay a man who stood on the Valley Parade terraces watching that great Bradford City team in the years leading up to the Great War. How do we know this? Well, in April 2011 one of his descendents sold some of Arthur’s personal effects on eBay. Among them were six postcards of Bradford City team groups, including one of the FA Cup winning squad of the 1910/11 season. From Serre we drove the matter of a few minutes to Euston Road Cemetery. The Bradford Pals marched past Euston Road en route to the front line the night before the attack and saw large mass graves being dug. Today, many of the men who looked, undoubtedly in some trepidation at the sight of the waiting graves, lay in Euston Road. One Pal there is Norman Waddilove. The son of a millionaire, whose family founded Provident Finance whose headquarters today overlook the newly opened City Park, Norman nevertheless joined up, and died, as a private solider. His uncle was chairman of Bradford Park Avenue between the wars and was a great supporter of the Bradford Cricket League.

Another short drive saw us revisiting the Bradford Pals memorial plaque on the churchyard of the village of Herbuterne. The location was chosen for the memorial as forty four Bradford Pals were killed in the nearby Rossignol Wood. We found their last resting place at Owl Trench Cemetery. It’s a peaceful spot alongside a quiet road with the woods overlooking the cemetery on a slope. I reflected that it was an odd spot for lads from Bradford Moor and Idle to have ended up at. We walked back down the road to the Rossignol Wood Cemetery which, unusually, housed seventy German graves. We wanted to see if the German’s were the involved in the fight with the forty four dead Pals, but the dates were significantly different. You do come across the occasional German soldiers’ graves in British and Commonwealth cemeteries. Their headstones are instantly recognisable as they are pointed as opposed to the smooth semi-circle that surmounts the British graves. However, the vast majority of German casualties were repatriated to Germany.

So it was onto the village of Bus les Artois and what turned out to be the highlight of the trip. The night before the Battle of the Somme opened two Bradford Pals, Private’s Herbert Crimmins and Arthur Wild, went for a drink in the bar in Bus les Artois. They got drunk and slept it off in a field, missing the bloody 1st of July as a result. They were arrested and later shot for desertion, despite pleas for clemency from their commanding officer. The mayor of the village showed us graffiti carved into the soft stone of the local church by British troops. We then went to the local pub where the two Pals had their fateful night on the drink. The villagers had turned out in good numbers to meet us and City fan Mick Kirby, who had done a fabulous job setting up the meeting with the mayor and arranging for the bar to be opened for our arrival, made a speech in French to the villagers, which was greeted with warm applause. We were undoubtedly popular visitors, not least because the bar had recently closed and the locals were taking the opportunity to revisit their bar, but there was also a recognition of our shared history. Two locals surprised us by bringing along their copies of David Raw’s book on the Bradford Pals. One villager told us that his father had become friends with a Bradford family whose son had been killed whilst serving with the Bradford Pals. They began visiting Bus les Artois between the wars and subsequent generations have kept in touch with one another. The entente cordial was aided by free beer for visitors and locals alike – I smiled wryly when I noticed that the beer was German. I wondered what the Pals would have made of that fact! An impromptu football match broke out between some local children and a number of our party. It was a fairly even game as the youthful Gallic enthusiasm was offset by the higher (if somewhat breathless and alcohol impaired) skill levels of the visitors from Bradford. The former owner of the bar, a lady in her nineties and now wheelchair bound, was handed the majority of the presents brought from Bradford which were intended for the mayor! The joy on her face was infectious. We eventually left for our overnight stop at Albert with waves and hearty au revoirs, the link between Bus les Artois and Bradford had been thoroughly re-cemented ninety six years on from when the Pals marched away from the welcoming glow of the local bar towards the sound of the guns.

In the wake of last year’s successful trip to visit the graves of the eleven Bradford footballers who perished in the Great War the bantamspast museum organised a return to the battlefields of France and in particular the Somme region. Last year’s visit to Serre, where the Bradford Pals attacked on that fateful morning of 1 July 1916, was by necessity brief, but many expressed a wish to return and walk in the footsteps of the Bradford Pals. Hence on 31 May a group of City fans found themselves gathered on Bradford Interchange station readying themselves for a trip to France.

Day One
Thursday 31 May

We spoiled ourselves this year and travelled first class on Grand Central’s direct service to London King’s Cross. As the majority of the group travelled together the previous year the miles fairly shot by as we caught up with one another and made new friends among the five who were fresh faces. As we had one hour and forty five minutes to make the short walk from King’s Cross to St. Pancras we had ample time to admire the ongoing transformation of King’s Cross. Although it will never be able to replicate the glamour of St. Pancras, the new departure hall of King’s Cross is a stunning piece of architecture. Another new addition, the Parcel Yard public house (a Fullers pub situated on the upper part of the departure concourse), naturally attracted our attention. I would like to say that this was our first refreshment halt of the day, but it wasn’t as a small number of our gang had decamped to the Turls Green (or Lloyds bar) in Centenary Square at half nine in the morning. It reinforced the feeling that these trips were becoming rail borne versions of the infamous CTC 73 away trips.

It still seems odd that the Eurostar journey to Lille is significantly shorter than the rail journey from Bradford. We raced through the Kent countryside at 186mph, a quick twenty minutes in the Channel Tunnel, and one hour and twenty minutes after leaving London we were in the French city of Lille. A brisk ten minute walk and we were at our hotel in the inner-suburb of Romarin. The bar next door to the hotel was rapidly invaded, but shocked at the 8pm closure, we had to decamp into the city centre. En route some of our party learned that you have validate your tickets before boarding the tram, others learned you had to actually purchase a ticket! Less said the better. A crash course in French menus later and we had all dined and enjoyed the delights of Lille at night.

Our band of travellers at Jimmy Speirs' grave. An appropriate way to end the celebrations of Glorious 1911.

The huge Menin Gate at Ypres has become the site of one of the best known and poignant ceremonies that surrounds the modern memory of the First World War. Every night members of the Ypres fire brigade play the last post beneath the imposing gate on which are inscribed the names of 56,000 men who died in the defence of Ypres and have no known grave.

Among those names is James Comrie, signed when Bradford City gained promotion to the first division and he replaced Gerald Kirk in the team. When the war came James was living in Lincoln, but for reasons unknown he ended up serving with the Northumberland Fusiliers. He was killed near Ypres, but has no known grave. As large crowds gathered to witness the last post ceremony, the traffic was stopped and the bugles sounded their lament, I looked for James' name, but found myself pondering the eleven men whose graves we had visited.

My eyes were then drawn to the endless lists of names on the Menin Gate. I read as many as I could, thinking of the places and lives they had left behind. This is no glorification of war, far from it, there was only sadness and a thankfulness that my generation had not been asked to face the horrors that these ordinary men had.

The village of Poperinghe was for British troops a respite from the hell of Ypres. This was the railhead for the infamous Ypres Salient but also a place where bars and restaurants could be visited. For City's amateur centre half Gerald Kirk it was the place he came to die. Badly wounded during the defence of St Julian following the first ever gas attack in the history of warfare, when the German's released poison gas on French colonial troops who ran for their lives at the sight of the yellow gas clouds.

Gerald's company were thrown into a hasty counter attack designed to plug the gap in the line, it was successful but it cost Gerald Kirk his life. Badly wounded he was taken to Poperinghe, but the following day he succumbed and he lies in the Poperinghe Old British Cemetery.

As you walk down the gravel path to the Tyne Cot Cemetery halfway up the Passchendaele ridge, a soft woman's voice reads a name, regiment and age at the time of death. It's a beautiful litany of the 300,000 men who died in the infamous Battle of Passchdaele. Tyne Cot is the largest British and Commonwealth war cemetery in the world. Over twelve thousands graves and an additional 36,000 on its Memorial to the Missing. This truly is the Silent City.

Among the names on the Memorial to the Missing is that of Robert Torrance. Probably Bradford City's greatest defender. The auburn haired centre half was the man-of-the-match in the 1911 FA Cup Final replay. Seven years later he lost an arm during an artillery barrage near the Belgian town of Ypes. The field hospital he was taken to was then shelled and Robert was blasted into oblivion. His body was never found. Today he may still lie undiscovered under a Belgian field, or he may lie in a grave marked simply 'known unto God'.

The Nieupoort Memorial to the Missing was unlike any other we had seen thus far. It was situated in the centre of the town, at a main road intersection with trams and canals nearby.

City's first ever England international Jimmy Conlin is commemorated on the memorial. He was quite a character. The first City player to be sent off, only the second ever player in the world to be sold for over £1,000 and he was at the centre of a riot at Valley Parade against Manchester United in 1906.

Sadly, his brilliant career ended with suspension as drink got the better of him. Jimmy was killed in action at Neiupoort whilst serving with the Highland Light Infantry. He has no known grave and is thus commemorated by name on the memorial. The photograph shows bullet holes in the memorial from the Second World War.

Line after line of brilliant white headstones. Étaples British Cemetery, within sight of the sea, is a poignant place. Here wounded soldiers were brought from the front. If they survived they were placed on a boat for Britain and home. Sadly, over 12,000 got within sight and sound of the sea, and by association, home, before succumbing to their wounds.

Among the rows of headstones is City reserve Ernest Goodwin. He lived on South Parade right behind Valley Parade's main stand. Ernest was badly wounded by shrapnel attacking Thiepval during the Battle of the Somme. He made it to Étaples, but no further.

The huge Arras Memorial to the Missing lies alongside a major road just west of the city centre. Once inside the high walls of the memorial the noise of the traffic disappears and once again you find yourself in the tranquility of an English garden.

The beauty and peace of the Commonwealth Cemeteries strikes the visitor time and again. Among the 30,000 names on the Arras Memorial is that of City reserve Harry Potter. A native of Bradford, Harry was living in Girlington with a young family when war came. He died holding the line in the German all-or-nothing spring offensive of 1918. It was the beginning of the end of the 'war to end wars'.

Once the German offensive was spent, the British began a sustained push that rolled the German's back towards their border and eventual surrender. Little compensation for Harry's wife and young daughter left behind in Bradford.

The tiny village of Hebuterne has a plaque on its church wall commemorating the Bradford Pals. The location was chosen because it is close to where 44 Pals were killed in woodland, but it is a couple of miles distant from Serre where the majority of them were mown down on 1 July 1916. The area around Serre has several Pals memorials - Accrington, Barnsley, Sheffield to name but a few, so it does feel a bit odd that the Bradford Pals memorial stands on its own at Hebuterne.

Thanks to Steve Whittaker we were able to lay a claret and amber wreath to remember the Pals who died on the Somme. Both battalions were admitted free to Valley Parade in the days leading up to their departure from Bradford. Their initial meetings took place at the Drill Hall right next to the ground and undoubtedly many of them will have been supporters of Speirs, Torrance et al.

Indeed among the ranks of the Pals was none other than City's most famous player, the England international winger Dickie Bond, fortunately he survived the conflict.

A few minutes drive from Bell's redoubt is the final resting place of Bradford Park Avenue's Donald Bell VC. We walked down a grassy path between ploughed fields into what the troops called the Caterpillar Valley, dominated today by the large Gordon's Dump Cemetery.

Without a building in sight we walked among the long lines of brilliant white headstones. Several wreaths of poppies lay at the foot of Donald Bell's headstone - including ones from Aireville School, Skipton and Donald Bell's former school, Harrogate Grammar.

Undoubtedly, his grave attracts the most attention in the large cemetery, yet all the headstone are of exactly the same size and design; the message being that they fought together and died together, equals in life and death. It was a sentiment that was to change Britain and beyond, for among the battlefields of the Great War our modern world was formed.

The Somme.

The tall white cross of sacrifice that stand sentinel over every British and Commonwealth cemetery becomes a regular sight. We wind among narrow lanes and suddenly come across Bell’s Redoubt on the edge of the village of Contalmaison.

On the roadside stands a memorial marking the spot where Bradford Park Avenue’s Donald Bell died. He is commemorated because a few days before his death he charged across no man’s land under heavy fire and killed the crew of a machine gun that was decimating the attacking troops. For his extreme valour Bell was awarded the Victoria Cross. A few days later he attempted to repeat a similar act and was killed.

Alongside the memorial was a wreath of poppies from Bradford Park Avenue. It was strange seeing the familiar civic coat of arms so deep in the French countryside; a little piece of a foreign roadside that will be forever Bradford.

We have just received this photo of Ernest Goodwin from his family. He was a City reserve and was killed during the Great War. In June we will be visiting his last resting place at Étaples, France.

If Glorious 1911 was Bradford's finest hour, then the years 1914-18 were the bleakest the city has ever faced. The fate of Bradford City's FA Cup winning captain Jimmy Speirs perhaps epitomises the era. In 1911 he held the glittering FA Cup aloft to the cheers of 100,000 people packed onto the streets of Bradford; six years later he lay dying in a muddy shell hole.

As we celebrate the centenary of Bradford City's greatest triumph we will also remember the nine Bradford City players who lost their lives in the Great War. As we have seen among that number was the captain and goalscorer in the 1911 FA Cup final, Jimmy Speirs. Also killed was the man-of-the-match of the FA Cup final Robert Torrance. Sadly, Torrance has no known grave and is thus commemorated among the 36,000 names on the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing near Ypres, Belgium. Others with no known final resting place include City's England internationals Jimmy Conlin and Evelyn Lintott.

Bradford City fans will have an opportunity to visit the last resting places of the nine players during a trip to France and Belgium in June. As well as the nine players the visit will also take in Serre where the Bradford Pals attacked on the first day of the Battle of the Somme and the grave of Bradford Park Avenue's Donald Bell - the only professional footballer to be awarded the Victoria Cross.

The trip will take place between Thursday 2 June and Sunday 5 June 2011. People can book an early bird price of £270 if they pay before April. It includes all travel to and two nights accommodation in Lille and one night in Arras (including breakfast). The trip is strictly limited to twenty places and will be sold on a first come first served basis. To register interest please contact David Pendleton by email davidpendleton1@gmail.com or drop into the bantamspast museum at Valley Parade prior to home games.

Days after we announced the itinerary for our trip to visit the war graves of the nine City players killed in the Great War, slight changes have been made to the summer rail timetables. Unfortunately, due to required connection times at London we have had to slightly recast our travel plans. The new times are as follows:

Thursday 2 June

Depart Bradford Interchange 1022
Arrive King’s Cross 1345

Depart St Pancras 1434
Arrive Lille 1658

The only significant change is that our arrival time back into Bradford on Sunday 5 June is 1850. Apologies for the alterations which are beyond our control.

Our itinerary for the bantamspast trip to visit the war graves of the nine Bradford City players killed during the Great War is now in place. We are waiting to confirm hotel fees before we can announce an overall price for the trip, though it is likely to be in the £350 bracket (this includes all travel and accommodation, but not food and drink).

Places will be restricted to twenty people to make the trip manageable and will be on a strict first-come-first-served basis. Places will only be confirmed once a deposit has been paid. We will shortly announce the amount of the deposit required and how you can contact us. The deposit will be non-refundable; this because we have to pay a non-refundable deposit to the various companies. Please keep watching for updates as we hope to announce a price early next week.

Thursday 2 June

Dep Bradford Interchange 3.22pm
Arr London King’s Cross 6.44pm

Dep London St Pancras 7.34pm
Arr Lillie Europe 10.04pm

Night in Lille

Friday 2 June

Coach: Arras (Harry Potter), Etaples (Ernest Goodwin), Villers-Guislain (George Draycott), Theipval (Evelyn Lintott).

Night in Albert

Saturday 3 June

Coach: Neiuwpoort (Jimmy Conlin), Poperinge (Gerald Kirk), Tyne Cot (Robert Torrance), Dochy Farm (Jimmy Speirs), Ypres (James Comrie).

Night in Lille

Sunday 4 June

Dep Lille Europe 12.56pm
Arr London St Pancras 2.31pm

Dep London King’s Cross 3.57pm
Arr Bradford Interchange 7.09pm

This afternoon, prior to the Barnet game, bantamspast co-curator, David Pendleton, gave an illustrated presentation which outlined some of the many events being held in 2011 - the centenary of City's famous FA Cup win.

A large and enthusiastic crowd listened attentively as he spoke of the importance of the win back in 1911 and how essential it is that it be commemorated.

Briefly, the main features of the celebration are: a book, an exhibition at Bradford Industrial Museum and a Spring-Summer visit to the graves and memorials of the nine City players who died in the First World War.

David himself is currently writing the book, Glorious 1911, which will cover not only the cup run itself but also the lead up and aftermath - a period running from 1908 until 1922. He described how people can now become subscribers to the book. This will enable them to buy it at a reduced price of £10 (instead of £12), have their names printed in the book itself and also receive a commemorative 1911-2011 badge. A reminder that the application form to become a subscriber can be downloaded by clicking here.

The exhibition will run from March 19 until June 12 2011. Hopefully, at least 4 of the players' winning medals will be on display, in addition to a large number of artefacts and images.

The club have confirmed that the team will wear a replica 1911 kit for the home cup games next season.

The bantamspast team will also give a series of pre-match presentations to coincide with the anniversary of each game in the cup run. These will include the stories of players and officials along with a description of other events in the Bradford area at the time. We hope to give a real flavour of Bradford life in 1911.

We will give further information about these and other events as it becomes available. Once more we attempted to record the audio of David's presentation. Again, this was not successful but you can view the slides above.

Our event Finding Robert Torrance, held at Bradford Cathedral, which remembered the nine City players killed in the Great War, was a resounding success. A good turn out of people saw the early history of the club explained against the background of the lives of those nine City players. In a dramatic closing sequence, the names and images of the nine players were shown in complete silence. Then a moving rendition of the Last Post was played by Lucie Sanderson. It was a fitting event, coming as it did on Armistice Day, 11 November.

Our thanks to all involved, particularly Glyn Watkins, Mark Neale, Lucie Sanderson and the staff of Bradford Cathedral.

Picture shows Lucie Sanderson, the FA Cup and the 1911 Cup Winning Team.

Andy O’Brien England Shirt

Life long City fan Ben Stainthorpe is emigrating to America next week. We wish him and his family all the best in their new life. We would also like to thank Ben for continuing to loan the museum the match ball from the City v Liverpool match in May 2000; the game that saw City dramatically save their Premiership skins on the last day of the season. Ben has additionally loaned the museum two signs from the old Wembley Stadium. Ben has taken his Andy O’Brien England U-21 shirt to America with him as a reminder of his many happy years supporting, and working for, Bradford City. The shirt was on display in our large spherical case. Many thanks Ben and bon voyage!

City Heroes - Finding Robert Torrance

The museum’s David Pendleton was interviewed today by the BBC regarding our forthcoming event at Bradford Cathedral on 11 November. David talked about the life of that City great Robert Torrance – man-of-the-match in the 1911 FA Cup Final. Of course, Torrance met a terrible end during the Great War when he became one of the nine City players killed in that conflict. We’ll post details of when the interview will be broadcast later.

You can see and hear the story of Robert Torrance, and the eight other players who died in the Great War, at Bradford Cathedral on 11 November 2009 at 7.30pm. Admission is free, however, there will be a collection to cover costs.

The museum’s full size figure of FA Cup legend Jimmy Speirs returned to Valley Parade following a two year loan to the Passchendaele Museum in Belgium. We loaned the figure to help the Museum commemorate the ninetieth anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele in which Speirs was killed along with 300,000 British and Commonwealth troops.

Last week bantamspast’s David Pendleton travelled to Belgium to visit the Passchendaele Museum and bring the figure of Speirs back to Valley Parade in time for the new football season. On Saturday David, along with his daughter Rosie and fellow City fan Glyn Watkins met Frank at the Passchendaele Museum. Frank kindly drove our small party to Dochy Farm New British Cemetery where Jimmy Speirs is buried. We were pleased to note that Jimmy has received a new headstone and for the first time in ninety years his name is now spelt correctly on his grave – it had been spelt Spiers, an error that had been made on Jimmy’s enrolment form when he first joined the army.

Frank then drove us to the Passchendaele Museum, where we were given a guided tour. The museum is well worth a visit and has an impressive reconstruction of a British dug out. We later visited Tyne Cot Cemetery, the largest British war cemetery in the world, where we viewed the memorial to that other great FA Cup winner – Robert Torrance. Sadly, he has no known grave and is commemorated on Tyne Cot’s Memorial to the Missing.

Frank gave our party a lift to Kortrijk railway station – sadly as we had the cut-out figure of Speirs booked on a London bound Eurostar that evening, we had to turn down Frank’s offer to watch his beloved Kortrijk play Anderlecht on the opening day of the Belgian football season. We received a few bemused looks as we boarded a Ghent bound train with the large cut-out. After a short stop at Ghent we arrived in good time at Brussels to place the figure on a Eurostar bound for London. We followed two days later and picked Jimmy up from St Pancras. It was quite a challenge to get the cut-out, its base and a large framed photograph from there to King’s Cross. By now the group was down to David and Rosie, so the short distance was a bit of a struggle. However, the helpful National Express staff soon had our items stowed in the guard's van and we were soon heading north. At Leeds it was an easy hop to a Forster Square bound train and bantamspast’s John Ashton met us at the station for the short journey to Valley Parade.

The cut-out figure of Jimmy Speirs will be on display once more when City open their home campaign against Port Vale on Saturday 15 August. Our thanks to Frank at the Passchendaele Museum for his hospitality. The staff of SNCB, Eurostar, National Express East Coast and Northern Trains for their assistance in getting Jimmy Speirs back to Valley Parade in time for the new season. A fuller account of the journey will appear in a forthcoming City Gent.

Just to allay all fears, bantamspast can confirm that the life-sized figure of Jimmy Speirs is now safely back in the museum after its long stay in Belgium. Here it is with fellow traveller, Dave Pendleton, still in its protective wrapping, outside the museum this afternoon. More details of the trip to follow.

The bantamspast research department, in the shape of Chris Ambler, has been busy trying to find out whether the Crystal Palace website claim that our former player Harry Hanger died during the Great War is correct. The facts are inconclusive, but we are inclined to believe that the Harry Hanger who was killed in the conflict wasn’t the player who appeared for City between 1906-09.
City secured the signature of left half Harry Hanger from Kettering on 12 April 1906. The burly 5’ 9” centre half played 79 games for City, scoring 4 goals. In all but one of those games he played at left half (no.6), but did switch to right half for one game. After three years at Valley Parade Harry transferred to Crystal Palace. The Bradford Daily Argus reported on 17 May 1909 that he had signed for Southern League side Crystal Palace. In Terry Frost’s excellent Bradford City, The Complete Record book it states that Harry signed for Northampton, indeed, the Daily Argus had reported on 3 May 1909 that Harry and Frank Whittaker had signed for Northampton, but the report of 17 May appears to supersede the earlier story. Indeed, Harry did play 178 games for Palace, scoring 8 goals.
During the Great War on 19 January 1915 the Bradford Daily Argus reported: ‘H. Hanger, now of Crystal Palace, has enlisted in the Football Battalion.’ The Harry Hanger the Crystal Palace website refers to was killed whilst serving with the Household Cavalry. The British Army WW1 Medal Roll Index Cards show that the Hanger who was in the Household Cavalry enlisted on 6 October 1914. He was born at Market Harborough in Leicestershire, whilst Harry Hanger the footballer was born at Kettering.
So, it appears that the Harry Hanger who was killed whilst serving with the Household Cavalry was not the Harry Hanger who played for City and Palace. Though we are happy to be proved otherwise, for the time being we are not adding Harry to the nine City players killed in the Great War.
Our thanks to Chris Ambler for the hours put in researching the above at Bradford Central Library.

bantamspast reader Bill has written to us recently, claiming to have found another of City's fallen heroes. Harry Hanger played for the club between 1906 and 1909 and was part of the side that won the Second Division Championship in 1908. Shortly after this he was transferred to Crystal Palace where he enjoyed several successful seasons, becoming club captain.
Thanks to an entry in one of the Palace forums, Bill has discovered that Harry enlisted in Northampton in 1915 and was sadly killed in action in Flanders in March 1918.
We are currently checking details in order to confirm that the City and Palace Harry Hangers are the same person. If so, this is a truly remarkable find. Many thanks to Bill for doing the research and bringing it to our attention.