Football and War at Wolverhampton Wanderers FC

02/07/2025  -  4.21

Alex Alexandrou

During the 2024-2025 season, there has been a series of Football and War events sponsored and supported by the Army FA and the Western Front Association. The final event took place on the 28th June, at Wolverhampton Wanderers FC and was hosted by the Wolves Museum. 

The event was supported by a temporary Football and War exhibition that had three key themes. The first covered the Army FA’s Games of Remembrance played between the British Army and German Bundeshwer representative teams between 2014-2018. 

Event Exhibition - Games of Remembrance. Source: Author's Collection

The second theme, curated by football historian, Steve Bolton, exhibited 100 years of Women’s Football History, from the early decades of the 20th Century to the current day. 

Event Exhibition - Steve Bolton and 100 Years of Women's Football History. Source: Author's Collection

The third theme, curated by the Rotherwas Together project team was entitled - Factory Girls and showcased the Rotherwas Munitionettes factory football team based in Hereford.

Event Exhibition - Factory Football and the Rotherwas Munitionettes Team with Clare Wichbold and Elizabeth Semper O'Keefe. Source: Author's Collection

There were five presentations in total.

Clive Harris, the esteemed military and football historian, based his talk in Gallipoli by discussing how and why football was played on this peninsula during the First World War and gave the example of the Dardanelles Cup competition. 

Clive Harris. Source: Author's Collection

Peter Crump, the Wolves club historian, gave a talk entitled Wolves and World War Two, which was a season-by-season account of how the club and its players fared both domestically and, in the conflict, abroad. 

Peter Crump. Source: Author's Collection

Simon Briercliffe, a local historian from the Black Country Living Museum, switched the attention from football to the city itself, with his talk entitled – Wolverhampton During the Second World War, highlighting the city’s contribution to industrial wartime production, the impact of the Black Country Blitz, the service of the local Home Guard and Air Raid Precaution personnel, the post-war celebrations and modern-day memorialization of the war effort. 

Simon Briercliffe. Source: Author's Collection

The Women’s Football historian, Steve Bolton showed the film Granny, based on the life of his famous footballing grandmother, Lizzy Ashcroft and then went on to give a talk about 100 Years of Women’s Football at Molineux, that included a match his grandmother played at Molineux in the 1920-21 season for St Helens against Stoke Ladies.

Elizabeth Semper O’Keefe from the Rotherwas Together project concluded the day’s event with a talk entitled – Factory Football, which gave a fascinating insight into the Rotherwas munitions factory based in Hereford and the Women’s team that emanated from it during the First World War, with fascinating accounts of a number of the players, as well as accounts of the factory inter-section matches played by the munitionettes, particularly the Canteen team!

Biography

Alex Alexandrou is the Co-Founder and Chair of the Football and War Network