The Final Whistle – The Great War in Fifteen Players
by Stephen Cooper
History Press 2012, this edition Spellmount 2013
Paperback 347pp Paperback £9.99 Oxfam £1.99
ISBN-13: 978 0 7524 9900 0
I’ve always been interested in rugby and the Great War and I did some research on rugby internationals who were killed in the two World Wars, but it came to nothing because (a) I’m lazy and (b) Nigel Mccrery wrote Into Touch.
This book takes a slightly different approach, looking at the lives of fifteen members of Rosslyn Park rugby club who were killed in the Great War. They represent about 20% of the club’s fatalities during the war (72 killed from 350 members or ex-members who served in the war).
I’ve always liked this sort of book, with stories that turn statistics into people, and I’ve always liked rugby, as I’m not fashioned by nature for games of grace and skill. On the quiet I’m also an admirer of Edgar Mobbs, a well known player of the time. However, this isn’t about Mobbs, as he didn’t play for Rosslyn Park.
It is about Charles Bayley, great-nephew of General Gordon, who was one of the first two Royal Flying Corps officers to be killed in action in the Great War, on 22nd August 1914 or Guy du Maurier, regular soldier and playwright (yes, he was one of that du Maurier family), who killed in action in 1915 at the age of 49. It’s about other people too, including international players, an Olympic silver medallist and a VC winner.
Don’t expect a cross section of British casualties though; it’s about officers or people who could have been officers. Rugby was a game for people from good schools, and they were required to name their school when applying for membership. That, as the author admits, was a great help in doing the research James Urquhart is an exception to this, listing Grimsby Municipal College as his school (though he did end up at Cambridge University). In truth he wasn’t even a Rosslyn Park player, he just seems to have given them as his team when he played for the Barbarians (captained by Edgar Mobbs) versus Shoreham Camp. He only gets a couple of lines.
Despite this, it’s an excellent view of the Great War and rugby of the period, including the Western Front, Gallipolli, aircraft, ships, tanks and balloons, and obviously written by a man with a good command of the subject and a great enthusiasm.
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Sounds very interesting even though as a Mainer, I’m only vaguely aware of what rugby is. Not very sports-minded, I’m afraid. 🙂
There is a lot of non-rugby material in ittoo.
Dammit, Quercus. I stopped buying books some time ago to give myself at least a chance of making reasonable headway into those I have and have not yet read. Now you go and tempt me.
My work is done… 🙂
🙂
Yes, rugby union was more or less exclusively an upper class game, although the very, very top public schools continued to play football as well. I had a feeling that there was actually a footballers’ battalion somewhere in WW1, so I looked it up:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_Battalion
Yes, I remember reading an article once that said the schools with cloisters tended to play games more like football and those with fields tended towards a rugby style of game.
In the war there was also the East Surrey Regiment which kicked a football across No Man’s Land on the first day of the Somme.