Battle of the Somme Football

Billie (Wilfred) Nevill was educated at Dover College. He left university on 5th August 1914 and applied for a commission as soon as Lord Kitchener asked for volunteers to fight in the Great War.  

In May 1916, Captain Nevill went home to England on leave. To provide his men with a familiar symbol from home he purchased two footballs - some say four - to take back to France. He hoped that his “team” would kick and dribble their way to the German trenches and so on to victory.  

 On the first of July 1916, the first day on the Battle of the Somme, Captain Nevill, commanding B Company in the 8th (Service) Battalion, the East Surrey Regiment, issued each of his platoons with a football. He had offered a prize for the first man to score a goal into the German trenches. 

At 7.27 am, he climbed out of the trench, kicked off one of the footballs and advanced. The attack lasted over nine hours, and only about 250 men reached Breslau Trench unwounded. Nevill was shot in the head and killed just outside the German wire, in the first five minutes of the battle. He was 21.  

Two of the footballs were found the next day and returned to England. In Britain Nevill became a national hero standing for courage and strength of character, whilst in Germany his act was regarded as British madness. 

The second football perished in a fire in 2015.