School helps to remember the Liverpool FC Heroes of WWI
by Educate Magazine November 6, 2018 · All News / Primary School News
Liverpool Football Club has commemorated LFC players involved in the First World War at a moving ceremony held at the Club’s Kirkby Academy.
During the ceremony, seven trees were planted to create a living legacy for each of the seven LFC players who served and died in the First World War, 100 years ago.
The ceremony was attended by local school children from Northwood Primary School, Kirkby.
The tree planting ceremony forms part of the national ‘Football Remembers’ campaign, which remembers some of the unsung heroes of the First World War; the footballers of the time, who bravely joined up and went off to war, leaving the hallowed turf of professional football pitches for the trenches of the front line.
The campaign has been organised in partnership with the Woodland Trust and National Football Museum’s ‘For Club and Country project’, The Premier League, English Football League, Professional Footballers’ Association and Football Association.
Between 1914 and 1918, almost every team in the league sent players to the front, and many never returned.
The Woodland Trust’s project ‘For Club and Country’ also remembers the women, who single-handedly kept the national game alive during the conflict, playing in front of hundreds of thousands of supporters.
Bill Bygroves, LFC Club chaplain and Red Neighbours team member, said: “This project is a touching way to commemorate football’s important role in the First World War, and recognises each of the players who bravely fought and died for their country.
“These trees will remain here at the LFC Academy for all players, staff and future generations to appreciate.”
The ceremony was attended by representatives of the club, players from the LFC Academy, Club Ambassador Robbie Fowler, Armed Forces service personnel, representatives of the Royal British Legion, and military veterans who play at the LFC Academy each week at sessions organised by the LFC Foundation.
Supporters can find out more about their club’s history and football’s involvement in the war by visiting www.forclubandcountry.org.uk/liverpool
