The Football and War Network is staging Football at War, an event celebrating footballers, including those of Ipswich Town and in Suffolk, and their teams in wartime, at the Great War Huts, Brook Farm Camp in Bury St Edmunds on Saturday 19th July (9.30am-4.30pm).
Talks include Steve Bolton speaking about Orwell Ladies FC of the Great War to the Tractor Girls of Today: Over 100 Years of Women’s Football in Suffolk, Steve Jenkins’s They Took The Lead - The Story of Clapton Orient's Major Contribution to the Footballers' Battalion in the Great War, Clive Harris - A Tale of Two Footballing Men; Alex 'Sandy' Turnbull and Donald Bell and Taff Gillingham on How Football Fouled the Christmas Truce.
Alex Alexandrou of the Football and War Network will host and will give a short talk about Games of Remembrance – 2014-2018 Exhibition.
There will also be an exhibition included in the ticket price featuring some Town-related artefacts, among them medals won by HF Steel, of both the war and footballing varieties.
The Reverend Harry F Steel was an inside forward/winger with Town from the 1897/98 season to 1911/12, who served as a non-combatant during the First World War.
A number of Steel’s teammates from the 1913/14 season, pictured below, fought in the war, among them Alf Liffen (front row, third left), who died, and Ernie Bugg (sixth left), who lost a leg.
The event takes place inside original 1914-18 buildings with more details and tickets available here.