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At the end of the 1913-14 season, there were rumblings across Europe and the propaganda machine was beginning to swing into action at home, but nobody really believed that war was coming. There had been posturing before, but Germany’s economy was closely linked to Britain’s and it would make no sense to threaten that with a major war. There hadn’t been a large-scale continental conflict that threatened Britain for a century. And besides, a system of alliances kept the competing forces in balance. And then, on the 28th June 1914, on the other side of Europe, a teenager fired the shot that changes the world. The posturing became threats, the threats became action, and within a month the world was at war. By the 4th August Britain had joined the conflict, drawn in by its own alliance system.
Football, as you might expect, had a problem. The British Expeditionary Force – the small, professional army maintained for this kind of conflict – was all but wiped out before Christmas, as the football season was in full swing. The call for volunteers went out; conscription would come in 1917. People across the country joined up en masse, and they were expected to, and football tried to figure out how to play its part. On the 15th December, a meeting was called at Fulham Town Hall, and the 17th Middlesex Regiment was formed. It would be known as the Footballers Battalion.
Key to its formation were Henry Wells-Holland and Robert Dalrymple, one the chairman of, and the other playing for, Clapton Orient. They joined Fred “Spider” Parker, Orient’s captain, and a handful of others. Dalrymple had spent much of his career at Hearts, and the Scottish club also responded enthusiastically when the message was sent north. Of the 35 footballers who joined up at that first meeting, an ten played for Clapton Orient.
Wells-Holland had a military background, and that meant that ten platers was simply not enough to satisfy his recruitment drive. He went back to the club with the Footballers Battalion formed, and started encouraging other players to join the service. With the help of the original ten, they set about impressing the importance of the endeavour on their teammates, and as the football season continued into 1915, Clapton Orient eventually became the first English club to sign up together, as the ten swelled to 41. In Scotland, Dalrymple had worked his magic at Hearts, and they did the same.
At the end of the 1914-15 season, Orient welcomed Leicester Fosse to Millfields Road for the final fixture. 20,000 spectators packed into the cramped ground – squeezing in around the anti-aircraft gun that had been positioned on the Spion Kop – and cheered their side on to a 2-0 victory. At the final whistle, the original ten changed into their army uniforms and, with other members of the Footballers Battalion, paraded around the pitch before heading off to their training camp. They were captured on film (the footage is on YouTube), and they were soon followed by the remaining 31 players and staff.
The Footballers Battalion was sent to France, where they acquitted themselves honourable among the rest of the British forces. They were to be included in major plans to break the German lines across the Western Front, including the Battle of Verdun, Battle of Passchendaele, and the Battle of the Somme. The three battles alone had a combined death toll approaching 2.5 million. Particularly deadly for the Footballers Battalion was the Somme. Although not involved in the opening exchanges, they saw heavy fighting in Devil’s Wood. Orient lost three of their players – they were comparatively lucky compared to some other clubs – in the fighting.
Defender George Scott died of his wounds in a military hospital in Le Cateau, but Willie Jonas and Richard McFadden were together in the thick of the fighting. Jonas had been something of a favourite with the ladies of the East End, receiving dozens of fawning letters every week and eventually taking out a piece in the local newspaper, asking that, as flattered as he was, they could please stop sending them. McFadden, a goalscorer with a killer instinct, was even better known. He was a hero in East London, having saved a man from a burning building, and saved a child who was drowning in the River Lea. His exploits continued in France, where he would regularly crawl out into No-Man’s Land to haul his injured comrades back to the British lines. He was honoured for this with the Military Medal for Bravery.
McFadden witnessed Jonas’ death, writing back to his club that they were both trapped in a trench at the Somme. “Willie turned to me and said “Goodbye Mac”, Best of luck, special love to my sweetheart Mary Jane,” and Jonas stood up to leave the trench. His final recorded words were “best regards to the lads at Orient” and he was gone, over the trench and not seen again.
McFadden survived the battle with heavy wounds, and received his medal and a promotion, before sadly losing his life in a shell blast not long afterwards. The Manchester Football Chronicle recorded that “Two things distinguished Richard McFadden throughout his career as a footballer – his heroism and his goal-scoring proclivities. In civil life he was a hero, and he proved himself a hero on the battlefield.”
At the closing of hostilities, as the country mourned, Clapton Orient looked back at the heavy toll the conflict had taken on their club. Tributes poured in, including one from King George V himself:
“Good luck to Clapton Orient FC, no football club had paid a greater price to patriotism.”
Company Serjeant Major Richard McFadden MM F/162
Private William Jonas F/32
Private George Scott 1583.
We Will Remember Them.
