Currently, the football world championship for the FIFA World Cup is taking place. In view of the contradictions between the nations, sometimes exploding into war, it is a good thing for sport fraternizes, they say. So, at Christmas 1914 at the frontline of the First World soldiers stopped fighting spontaneously and observed an unofficial truce. German and British soldiers left the trenches and started talking with each other and exchanged small presents like food and cigarettes. At several places even football matches were organized. The army command was upset, for sport fraternizes, isn’t it? The war had to go on! So, trying to approach the enemy was forbidden, and as we now know, this war would last till November 1918. Today several monuments remember this unusual event, like the one in Mesen in Belgium at the top of this blog, unveiled in 2015.
Later, football played again a role in the First World War, but now it was used by the British army as a means to motivate the soldiers and to maintain morale. So, on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916, captain Wilfred Nevill distributed four footballs among the four companies of his battalion. “Nevill and his fellow officers”, the Wikipedia tells us, “were concerned about how their men would behave when finally called on to go over the top. To provide his soldiers with a reassuringly familiar symbol, Nevill bought the footballs while on leave in London...” On one football was printed “The Great European Cup-Tie Final. East Surreys v Bavarians. Kick off at zero." (“Zero” is the time that the attack would start) Another ball had the text “NO REFEREE”, which was Nevill’s way of telling the men they needn’t treat the Germans too gently. (According to other sources there were only two balls) (ibid.) The company that would be the first to kick the ball into a German trench would win a prize. However, no ball reached the German trenches, and Nevill was killed in action, the same day.
It seems that this wasn’t the first time in this war that a football was used for motivating soldiers. “As early as 1915, a battalion … near Loos appears to have taken a ball at the foot in the attack full of bravado… [Also] “in the attack on Vimy Ridge on April 9, 1917, the Royal Canadian Regiment kicks a ball to the top of the ridge through the grenade funnels of the no man's land. This ball can … be admired in a museum in Canada”, another website tells us. “The war poet and captain Siegfried Sassoon read football news to his men to keep them calm for fighting on the Western Front,” so AI (I couldn’t check it, but it seems likely). However, Sassoon was quite sarcastic about the relationship between war and football, as we see in his poem “Does It Matter?”:
Does it matter?—losing your legs?...
For people will always be kind,
And you need not show that you mind
When the others come in after football
To gobble their muffins and eggs.
…
Anyway, football was no longer fraternizing. Football had become war, long before the Dutch football coach Rinus Michels had famously said these words, albeit in a somewhat different context. (see here)
The relation between football and war was very close in the First World War but doesn’t end with it. In the Second World War football was mainly used for keeping the soldiers fit and for recreation, but this also happened during the First World War. A try of the Germans to use football as a propaganda instrument to promote their own popularity in the Soviet Union failed (see here for the details). What’s worse is that sometimes a football conflict has led to war, like the Football War between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969. Riots after a match between the national teams made the existing tensions between the countries explode. The army of El Salvador invaded Honduras and a war of 100 hours followed. Football violence also played a part in the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
The impact of football on war can be negative, as we have seen, but it can be positive as well, as we have also seen. Sport fraternizes and basically football is not an exception. It brings people together and in this way it can shape relations and mutual understanding. Therefore it is unfortunate that a top referee from Somalia has been denied access to the US; that players and staff of the Iranian team are not allowed to spend the night in the USA; or that ticket prices for the matches are often extraordinary high. Just because of the possible positive effects of football the arrival of participants and spectators should be promoted and not stopped for fear of alleged dangers or for commercial reasons. Mutual understanding must be given a chance, whenever possible. Rules must give way to this.
Sources not mentioned in the text
- Een voetbal kerstverhaal
- Facts About Football In The Second World War
- Gielt Algra, “Voetbal is oorlog - Oorlog is voetbal”
- Wilfred Nevill en de Grote Europacup Finale (zondag 25 juni 1916)
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