Oars, war and a dying Day: When Leicester Fosse won at Fulham
When the Union FS party boat from Blackfriars to Putney arrives for Leicester City’s first away game of the 2024/25 season, it will be docked close to where another boat ended its journey hours before our first victory at Craven Cottage on Saturday 21st March 1914.
This journey’s end is more famous as a start. Putney Bridge marks the beginning of the Championship Course of the Men’s Varsity Boat Race, used in all but four editions of the contest since 1845.
But in 1914, the Cambridge crew prepared for the race by rowing the course in reverse from Mortlake to Putney.
Our first away day in Fulham had taken place six years earlier on 4th April 1908, with the Leicester Daily Mercury reporting that “there were twenty thousand present, including many from Leicester to cheer the team on”.
Leicester Fosse lost 5-1. The third goal was the worst of the lot by the sound of things, with “the Fosse backs appearing to think play had stopped”. The Mercury didn’t hold back in its assessment of the game, stating: “An avalanche has fallen on Leicester Fosse. That is all one can say about the catastrophe.”
This Saturday, the City players will run out from the same pavilion as the Fosse players did that day. And to their right, they will see the same stand. Originally the Stevenage Road Stand, it was renamed in honour of the legendary Johnny Haynes after his death in 2005 - the centenary year of both the pavilion and the stand.
Craven Cottage provides one of the greatest contrasts between old and new - on the opposite side of the pitch, construction of the new Riverside Stand has suffered from severe delays and is still not fully completed, with a range of “experiences” currently expected to open in December.
It is just one example of football clubs thinking outside of the box, and the rest of the pitch, as they constantly seek new sources of investment. Earlier this year, Fulham’s new stand hosted a fan zone for the 169th edition of the Boat Race.
Wind the clock back 110 years and in 1914, the talk of the Thames in the week leading up to Leicester’s visit was the upcoming 71st Boat Race.
On Monday 16th March, five days before the game, the Evening Standard reported “exciting rowing incidents on the Thames”:
“The full effects of Saturday’s gale were felt at Putney, where the crews afloat on the river had a most trying experience, which might easily have resulted in a calamity.
A little sea was running in the reach along by the Fulham Football Ground to Harrods, and the big crowd of spectators on the banks, attracted by the practice of the university eights, and the fact that it was the opening day of the season for several of the London rowing clubs, saw many exciting incidents.
The climax came later in the afternoon, when three eights of the Vesta Rowing Club, who were engaged in a race, sank simultaneously. Fortunately a passing tug was able to rescue all the oarsmen, one of whom was very exhausted.”
On Friday, heavy snowfall in the capital saw the postponement of Woolwich Arsenal’s home game with Grimsby and gave the Oxford crew an excuse for their poor trial run.
The Daily Telegraph reported that:
“It was snowing hard, and in every way the weather was perfectly miserable when the Dark Blues launched their boat at 9.45.
Off the Fulham football ground the crew ran into a slight wash from a string of barges, but it did not upset them to any extent.”
When Saturday arrived, bringing Leicester Fosse’s players and supporters to Fulham, the Cambridge crew rowed past Craven Cottage in preparation for the following weekend’s contest. They finished their trial run at Putney Bridge in 19 mins 19 seconds, 71 seconds quicker than Oxford’s attempt the previous day.
The Daily Mirror thought the weather conditions would help Leicester.
“Fulham have Leicester for opponents at Craven Cottage. The heavy state of the ground will be all against the Londoners, and they will probably be defeated.”
Whatever this was based on, it turned out to be accurate. The Daily Telegraph’s match report applauded the visitors’ greater appreciation of the conditions:
“Although they scored the first goal of the match against Leicester Fosse at Craven Cottage, Fulham in the end had to admit defeat by 2 goals to 1.
On the whole they played fairly good football, but they certainly did not adapt themselves so well to the conditions as their opponents.
They tried to do things which should only have been attempted with a dry ball and on a firm ground, and the defence prevailed.”
The attendance was 10,000, but if Sir Henry Norris had had his way, it would have been greater. Norris, chairman of Fulham between 1903 and 1908, had moved on to become chairman of Arsenal in 1912. His intention was to merge the two clubs and create a London superclub, but the football authorities rejected his plan and he moved Arsenal north of the river instead.
When Arsenal kicked off the 1913/14 season in north London, their opponents were Leicester Fosse and the first goalscorer at their new home was Thomas Charles Benfield - a key protagonist in Fosse’s first victory at Fulham a year later.
As the Telegraph reported from Craven Cottage:
“Before Coleman gave Fulham the lead Bown had brought off a remarkable save from Taylor. A little later Benfield equalised, and in the second half Mortimer obtained the winning goal from a penalty kick.
Leicester Fosse were seen to excellent advantage in the opening half, but during the later stages of the game they had to struggle hard to keep their lead.”
Seven days later, the crews of Cambridge and Oxford took to the river for their own competition. Huge crowds lined the Thames as the men removed their woollen scarves and jumpers in readiness to row, the dark blues of Oxford closer to the north bank of the river, the light blue of Cambridge closer to the south.
Cambridge led throughout and replicated the success of their training run by winning comfortably, four and a half lengths the margin of victory.
It would be six years before they got the chance to defend their title.
On 4th August 1914, the British Empire declared war on the German Empire after Germany failed to withdraw its troops from neutral Belgium.
Three days later, Lord Horatio Herbert Kitchener, newly-appointed Secretary of State for War, made an appeal for the first 100,000 men to fill the ranks of a new voluntary army. Within seven weeks, more than 750,000 men had enlisted to serve.
The first man across the line in the 1914 Boat Race, the Cambridge bowman Dennis Ivor Day, answered his country’s call and joined the Naval Division.
There was broad support for the war, but question marks over its effect on daily life. One month on from the country’s declaration of war, the English Football Association asked the War Office for official permission to continue the 1914/15 season which had just kicked off, stating they were also ready to abandon the whole campaign if requested.
There was no response, so football carried on. Saturday 5th September 1914 saw the second round of matches, Leicester Fosse winning 1-0 at home to Birmingham while Fulham ran in four goals without reply at home to Leyton Orient.
Perhaps some of those in attendance at Craven Cottage were readers of London Opinion magazine, which that morning carried on its front page an image that would become iconic.
The famous portrait of Lord Kitchener, designed by Northamptonshire-born Alfred Leete, was reproduced in poster format and would aid recruitment to Kitchener’s Army.
Meanwhile, in the small town of Melun just to the south of Paris, the French commander-in-chief Joseph Joffre was banging his hand on a table at the British Expeditionary Force headquarters and shouting that “the honour of England is at stake”. The German Army was marching ever closer to Paris. Two days before, France had given capital status to Bordeaux in the southwest as the threat to its biggest city loomed.
The British commander, Field Marshal John French, responded to Joffre’s demands by agreeing to France’s operational plan and at dawn the next day, over one million French and British soldiers assaulted the German line. This offensive marked the start of the First Battle of the Marne which would rage for a week, while Germany’s response signalled the start of the trench warfare that would typify the rest of the war.
In December 1914, nine months after his victorious day on the Thames, Dennis Ivor Day became Second Lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery, attached to the 24th Division, 106th Brigade - part of Kitchener’s Third New Army.
The New Army would also become known as Kitchener’s Mob. Its early days were characterised by a chaotic lack of authority and resources. After months of disorganisation, final training for the 24th Division took place in Aldershot in June 1915. By August, they were ready to be inspected - firstly by Kitchener, the next day by King George V.
The order came to move to France and despite a lack of adequate preparation, Dennis Ivor Day was among those drafted into the reserve for the British assault on the first day of the Battle of Loos.
Extract from the War Diary of the 24th Division, 106th Brigade, written by Second Lieutenant Henry George Orlando Bridgeman, held in the National Archive
Saturday 25th September 1915
“Fired 288 rounds during the night. At 5.45am the attack began. Tasks had been allotted by a detailed programme. At 6.30am the infantry assaulted and were successful though the extent of the success cannot be reckoned at present.
Fired about another 600 rounds during the day, forming barrages of fire in front of the infantry. Lt. Day, who was Forward Observing Officer, was dangerously wounded in the head early in the morning.”
(This account of the first day of the Battle of Loos describes how Day’s task as an artillery observer attracted the attention of a German sniper, leading to Day being shot in the eye)
30th September 1915
“Rained again in the afternoon. Orders received late at night to be ready to march early in the morning. Still no news of Lieut. Day”
9th October 1915
“At 9am orders received to march at 12.15pm to the neighbourhood of Reninghelst - about 9 miles. Reached billets about 5pm.
The farm chosen for the battery’s billets was one in which both Capt. Bridgeman and Lt. Maskell had spent 6 weeks in January and February last when with 52nd Battalion. No orders as yet for going into action.
News received with great regret of the death at Boulogne from wounds of Lt D. I. Day.”
Lieutenant Dennis Ivor Day had been hospitalised in Boulogne but never regained consciousness. He died of his injuries at the age of 23 on Thursday 7th October 1915.
Fighting alongside Day on the first day of the Battle of Loos had been two brothers, Bernard and Arthur Vann. Both, like Day, had also been Cambridge students. Both, like Day, were sportsmen. But the Vann brothers were footballers. Born in Northamptonshire, both played for Burton United and Derby County with Bernard also appearing in two games for Leicester Fosse Reserves in 1907. While Bernard was wounded at the Battle of Loos, Arthur was killed on the first day of the conflict.
During the First World War, Bernard Vann won the Victoria Cross, the Military Cross on two occasions and the French Croix de Guerre.
The book “Northamptonshire and the Great War” details Bernard’s exploits on 29th September 1918 that saw him awarded the Victoria Cross:
“Through a thick fog and in the face of a fearful fire he skilfully led the 6th Notts and Derby Regiment across the Canal [du Nord]. When they reached the high ground above Bellenglise the attack was held up by fire “of all descriptions” from both flanks.
The situation was full of peril, and the gallant colonel instantly recognised that everything depended on the advance going forward with the barrage. Leading the front line with absolute contempt of danger, he changed the entire situation, for his men were so encouraged by his example that they swept irresistibly forward.
They were then temporarily held up by a field gun. Revolver in hand, he crept forward alone, and single-handed knocked out the detachment, thus enabling the whole line to advance.
His thrilling bravery was watched with bated breath by his officers and men, who, as many occasions had proved, would have followed him anywhere, and were fully of apprehensive anxiety at what seemed such a reckless disregard for his own fate.”
Bernard Vann would meet his fate just four days later, again leading his battalion in an attack near Ramincourt when he was shot and killed by a sniper.
The succession of Allied victories during these final months of the war, known as the Hundred Days Offensive, had begun in August 1918 with the Battle of Amiens. In September, fighting was taking place about 15 miles west of Ramincourt and one of the Allied soldiers was another man to have played for Leicester Fosse - a scorer at Highbury and Craven Cottage, Thomas Charles Benfield. Serving as a sergeant in the Leicestershire Regiment, Benfield - like Day and Vann - met his end when shot by a sniper.
Tommy Benfield and Bernard Vann were two men who wore Leicester Fosse colours and two of 412,000 British casualties during the Hundred Days Offensive. The fighting finally ended with the Armistice on 11th November 1918.
Four of the nine men who claimed victory for Cambridge in 1914’s Boat Race were killed during World War One, with Dennis Ivor Day, the first of the nine across the line, also the first of the four to lose his life.
In October 1924, a war memorial to the 24th Division in which Lieutenant Day served was unveiled in Battersea Park - south of the Thames, on the winding river route between Blackfriars and Putney.
Watch footage from the 1914 Boat Race on the British Film Institute website.
