 However , the truth of the accounts has been disputed by some historians ; in 1984 , Malcolm Brown and Shirley Seaton concluded that there were probably attempts to play organised matches which failed due to the state of the ground , but that the contemporary reports were either hearsay or refer to ' kick @-@ about ' matches with ' made @-@ up footballs ' such as a bully @-@ beef tin . Chris Baker , former chairman of The Western Front Association and author of The Truce : The Day the War Stopped is also skeptical , but says that although there is little hard evidence , the most likely place that an organised match could have taken place was near the village of Messines : " There are two references to a game being played on the British side , but nothing from the Germans . If somebody one day found a letter from a German soldier who was in that area , then we would have something credible . " In fact , there is a German reference . Leutnant Kurt <unk> of Germany 's 134th Saxons Infantry Regiment said that the English " brought a soccer ball from their trenches , and pretty soon a lively game ensued . How marvelously wonderful , yet how strange it was . " In 2011 , Mike Dash concluded that " there is plenty of evidence that football was played that Christmas Day — mostly by men of the same nationality , but in at least three or four places between troops from the opposing armies " . 
