Men Who Played the Game ― Sportsmen Who Gave Their Life in the Great War

The Great War marked a profound change in attitudes to war and the conduct of it. Six million men from the British Isles served in it, 720,000 (12%) were killed. Junior offices had a 20% survival rate; up to 80% of a battalion could be lost. Battle had changed from engagement by professionals to wholesale, mechanized slaughter. The effect on servicemen and those at home was profound, perhaps never more so than in the case of sportsmen, who fought battles’ on the pitch or in the ring according to rules devised for fair play. Men Who Played the Game explores the development and importance of sport in Britain and the Empire leading up to the outbreak of the First World War, and the part played by sportsmen in the conflict. The book includes revelatory chapters on how sport the fans, the governing bodies and the sportsmen themselves responded to the coming of war. The rest of the book discovers the stories of individuals and groups of sportsmen, giving accounts of their pre-war sporting success, and their subsequent military service. It includes several sports rugby, football, cricket, athletics, tennis, boxing; social hierarchy gentlemen’ and players’; several nationalities English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish, Australian, New Zealanders; and several theatres of war Western Front, Gallipoli, Africa, the Middle East. Here are stories about the famous Hearts football team, soccer stars Leigh Rhoose, Jimmy Speirs and the first mixed race footballer Walter Tull. Rugby Union is represented by All Black captain Dave Gallagher, British Lion David Bedell-Sivright and a swathe of England captains; cricket by the fate of the Kent County side and Booth, Jeeves and Burns: three all-rounders killed on the Somme. Historian Mike Rees’s book is an inspiring and informative exploration of the relationship of sport and war, and of sporting Britain, and a moving testimony to the service of so many sportsmen.

Mike Rees is a former deputy head teacher and history teacher. He is a part-time tutor with the University of South Wales supporting schools in a variety of historical projects. His Masters thesis was The Disintegration of the Liberal Party 1931-1933’. Rees is treasurer of the Gwent Branch of the Western Front Association. He regularly gives talks to history groups on a range of subjects connected to World War One, including artists and poets, David Lloyd George, the Treaty of Versailles and sport.