On Sept. 25, 1915, Sgt. Frank Edwards along with the men from the 1st London Irish Rifles were on the front lines during the Battle of Loos. The men had a simple task: kill Germans on the other side. So, Sgt. Edwards and his team hatched a plan to assault the enemy while dribbling six soccer balls across No Man's Land; for the sole purpose to distract them from the deadly mission while also shocking the enemy. But the night before the offensive their commanding officer rumbled them - and shot five of the balls rendering them useless.
Sgt. Edwards hid the last ball under his tunic and when the whistle blew, they went "over the top", kicked it out into no man's land, calling "Play up London Irish!". The men fanned out like a line of forwards; passing the ball between themselves while being bombarded with mortar and machine-gun fire.
Sergeant Edwards dribbled the ball 20 yards before he was shot in the thigh. He was evacuated off of the field and survived.
The attack was bloody but successful. The ball itself also made it into the German trenches.
Edwards' football was found after the battle, lodged in the German barbed wire, and was on display at the regimental museum in Camberwell, London, up until the 1970's, when it was put into storage in the sergeant's mess and forgotten. Enquiries about the ball in 2011 led to its rediscovery in a very poor condition, and at risk of disintegrating completely. It was sent to the Leather Conservation Centre in Northampton for repairs and restoration, and has since been on display at the London Irish Rifles Association museum.
Sgt Edwards went down in army folklore and he was known as the 'Footballer of Loos'. #stayzero #zerofoxtrot #ww1 #ballsdeep #soccer #loos