footballers The Football Battalion On 6 September 1914, author Arthur Conan Doyle made a direct appeal for footballers to volunteer for service. Many players heeded the calls, and a special Football Battalion was formed, as part of the Middlesex Regiment. The battalion was led by Frank Buckley, who later estimated that over 500 of the battalion's original 600 men had died. There were over 5,000 men playing professional football in Great Britain 1914, and of those, 2,000 joined the military services. Edinburgh City Pals The first of the footballers' battalions was raised in Edinburgh in November 1914 by Lieutenant Colonel Sir George McCrae. The 16th Royal Scots included players and supporters from Hearts, Hibernian, Falkirk and Raith Rovers, and recruitment of 1350 officers and men was completed in only six days. Decorated footballers A number of British footballers received medals for bravery during World War I, including Bernard Vann (MC and VC), Donald Simpson Bell (VC), William Angus (VC), Jimmy Speirs (MM), Tim Coleman (MM) and Davie Glen (MM). Others to receive decoration include Leigh Richmond Roose (MM) and Philip F. Fullard (MC and AFC). Other players who were not awarded medals have also been honoured, such as Walter Tull, who is honoured on both the Arras Memorial and at Northampton Town's Sixfields Stadium. Players killed in action Many football players, both amateur and professional, lost their lives. Larrett Roebuck was the first player from the English league to die, on 18 October 1914. Scottish side Heart of Midlothian lost seven players. Another Scottish side, Brechin City, lost six players. English team Bradford City, for example, lost nine players – first-team players Bob Torrance, Jimmy Speirs, Evelyn Lintott, James Conlin, James Comrie, Gerald Kirk, and reserve players George Draycott, Ernest Goodwin, and Harry Potter. William Baker, a member of the Plymouth Argyle team that won the Southern League in 1913, was killed in Serre during the Battle of the Somme. The website created by the Professional Footballers' Association, 'Football and the First World War' currently lists 296 players who were killed in the war. Memorials On 7 November 2004, the McCrae's Battalion Great War Memorial was unveiled in the village of Contalmaison, France after first being proposed in April 1919. It commemorates the men of McCrae's Battalion who were killed during the First Battle of the Somme. On 21 October 2010, the Footballers' Battalions Memorial was unveiled at Longueval, France,