- Jul 7, 2003
- 47,639
Unfashionable as it is to praise the Argus, there's a lovely article in their First World War spread today about Albion players who were lost during the conflict. Some desperately poignant stories in there.
Robert "Pom Pom" Whiting, a goalkeeper who played 320 times for the Albion (I know many of you will know all about him, no intent to patronise here, I just imagine there's a fair few who won't know his story). He enlisted in the famous Footballers' Battalion and was posted to the Western Front. Came home on leave in the summer of 1916 with his wife Nellie due to give birth to their third child, Pom Pom couldn't face returning when it was his time to go back to the front, and went missing. He was found four months later and court martialled. Such was the need for soldiers, rather than being imprisoned or shot, he was demoted in rank and sent back to France, where, in April 1917, he was killed by a shell while tending to injured comrades. He has no known grave, and his widow faced unfounded rumours that he'd been shot for desertion, compelling her to write to the Argus to set the record straight.
Four other Albion men went to war, and never returned: Private Jasper Batey (aged 25 when killed), Private Clement Matthews (26), Private Frederick Bates (33) and Private Charles Dexter (27).
There's a line in the article relating to the death of Jasper Batey: "A parcel of cigarettes was sent by the club to his grieving comrades at the front". I've no idea why- perhaps it's the perceived triviality of such a gesture in the face of such horror- but that really gets me.
Hard to comprehend such stuff in a modern context, isn't it?
Robert "Pom Pom" Whiting, a goalkeeper who played 320 times for the Albion (I know many of you will know all about him, no intent to patronise here, I just imagine there's a fair few who won't know his story). He enlisted in the famous Footballers' Battalion and was posted to the Western Front. Came home on leave in the summer of 1916 with his wife Nellie due to give birth to their third child, Pom Pom couldn't face returning when it was his time to go back to the front, and went missing. He was found four months later and court martialled. Such was the need for soldiers, rather than being imprisoned or shot, he was demoted in rank and sent back to France, where, in April 1917, he was killed by a shell while tending to injured comrades. He has no known grave, and his widow faced unfounded rumours that he'd been shot for desertion, compelling her to write to the Argus to set the record straight.
Four other Albion men went to war, and never returned: Private Jasper Batey (aged 25 when killed), Private Clement Matthews (26), Private Frederick Bates (33) and Private Charles Dexter (27).
There's a line in the article relating to the death of Jasper Batey: "A parcel of cigarettes was sent by the club to his grieving comrades at the front". I've no idea why- perhaps it's the perceived triviality of such a gesture in the face of such horror- but that really gets me.
Hard to comprehend such stuff in a modern context, isn't it?
I knew about the marble stone, but I wasn't sure if I was imagining the Pom Pom banner. 
