SalfordOnline.com is looking for anyone who may know the families of a group of cup-winning army footballers from 100 years ago.
While researching a story about the history of First World War recruitment in Salford, we came across this photograph from a June 1915 edition of Eccles Journal.
It shows a fine bunch of young men from the Number 7 B Company (Eccles) of the 2nd Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers.
This group of young men were in what was referred to as The Eccles Pals – even though there was no Battalion with this name, they were all part of the 2nd Salford Pals 16th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers.
The team had triumphed in a football shield while at a training camp in Conway, North Wales before they were sent off to their doom on the Western Front in France.
They include Privates Evans, Berry, Slater, Webb, Boardman, Ellison, Lynagh, Percival, Lee, Rogerson, Thorley, Fish, and Higham.
The others in this photograph are Sergeant Taylor and Brooks and Lance Corporal Croft.
It’s believed they perished in the brutal slaughter of The Battle of the Somme on their very first day of fighting.
The Battallion was decimated at Thiepval Ridge on 1 July 1916.
180 men died within 10 minutes when the Eccles Pals climbed out of their trenches to assault the chateau at Thiepval.
Most were cut down within yards and, at the end of the day, only 18 of them remained unharmed; the rest lay killed or wounded between enemy lines.
During the war years the Journal recorded the deaths of no fewer than 808 men and youths
whose homes were in the borough of Eccles and its immediate vicinity.
It’s possible these men are listed on the Roll of Honour in Eccles Church and while we hope some returned home to Salford from the carnage of the Western Front it is sadly unlikely.
That same month Lord Derby toured the country in recruitment rallies to persuade thousands of young men to join the army and help the fight in Europe and beyond.
In June 1915 Derby came to Eccles to inspect the 20th Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers to which the Eccles Bantams were attached.
He was the brains behind the ‘Derby scheme’ where men who lived and worked in the same streets and factories would join up in the mistaken belief that, as ‘Pals’, they would look after one another in combat.
In reality, each suffered heavy casualties and the impact on individual towns and communities was immediate and devastating.
If any of these men were your relatives or you know anything about them
we would love to hear from you – please email tonyflynn@salfordonline.com.
