Fighting for Football: From Woolwich Arsenal to the Western Front - The Story of Football's First Rebel

by George Myerson

Long before Rodney Marsh or Derek Dougan, Tim Coleman invented soccer's awkward squad. At the beginning of the 20th century, soccer players were poorly paid wage slaves to the stern club owners. But Coleman led the first players' strike. He was a joker, a card--perhaps also the first ever media-literate player who knew the importance of a sparky quote in the right place--but he would not be taken advantage of. He stood up for himself, and for others. Then, in 1914, playing for Nottingham Forest after successful spells with Arsenal and Everton, he joined up with the Footballers' Battalion, and found himself on the Western Front in the run-up to the Somme. There he won the Military Medal for bravery. But he also participated in some of the most remarkable soccer matches ever played, when, scratch teams played on improvised pitches and contested the Army Cup--right alongside the trenches and shell holes of the front line. In later life he quietly sank into obscurity, cleaning windows in Kent, his illustrious past unknown to those around him. This is the first biography of one of Britain's most remarkable figures: a virtually unknown individual who nevertheless achieved things beyond the experience and the character of most players.

240 pages, Hardcover

First published April 10, 2009

Reviews

[Pete daPixie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quite interesting biography of John George Coleman, aka Tim Coleman. His football career picked out from the dawn of the professional game in the first decades of the twentieth century.
'Fighting for Football' charts the journeyman inside forward from Kettering Town, Northampton, Woolwich Arsenal, Everton, Sunderland, Fulham and Nottingham Forest before enlisting into the 'Footballers Battalion' in 1915. Although Coleman was an England international he failed to gain any League or Cup medals, but was awarded the Military Medal for extreme valour after surviving the Somme, Delville Wood, Oppy Wood and finally the second battle of Cambrai.
At the finish of hostilities Coleman was too old for league football, but went to Holland and coached Enschede to the national title.
Not surprisingly, Coleman ended up a forgotten man.

[John Newcomb · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a remarkable biography of an almost forgotten player. Tim Coleman started playing for Kettering in the early 1900s. He was a professional player, as opposed to the gentleman amateurs who ran and played the sport in those days. That didn't prevent him being capped by England, despite his professional and working class status. He was too good to overlook. Tim had an on going battle with the football class system, immitating Woolwich Arsenal's public school captain and leading the first players strike against the £4 wage limit and transfer slavery whilst at Everton. He joined the footballers battalion when WWI began and served as a private throughout the war winning the Military Medal for bravery and playing army matches behind the lines. As a manager, he won the Dutch Championship with Enschlade. But by the time of WWII, having no qualifications or trade, he was a labourer and died in an accident aged 59 clearing blitz rubble. There is definately a film in here somewhere.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dragged on for the first half but wrapped up really well

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fighting for Football is the story of Tim Coleman, a footballer who played around the turn of the 20th century for Arsenal, Everton and several other clubs, and who went on to serve in the "Footballers' Battalion" in the Great War, participating in the Battle of the Somme and other major campaigns, before dying in somewhat ignoble circumstances years later during the London Blitz.

Coleman appears to have been a very good, but perhaps not great, footballer, notable as much for his attitudes off the pitch as for his play on it. From blue-collar stock, he resented so called "gentleman players," amateurs who could afford to play in the league for free, and club and league management. He backed the first players' union, and was ahead of his time in his understanding of how to deal with the media and present himself in print.

Fighting for Football plods a bit for the first two thirds, charting Coleman's time at then-Woolwich Arsenal, Everton and other clubs, but picks up considerably upon reaching the start of World War One, and Coleman's entry into the conflict. Here, and perhaps due to more bountiful source material upon which to draw, Myerson takes us to the Belgian countryside and paints a bleak, dreadful picture of the brutal warfare that claimed so many promising young lives, whether outright or over a prolonged period thanks to the effects of shellshock and mustard gas. Myerson details the Footballer's Battalion, so named for its composition of volunteer players from around England, and relays the importance to morale of playing games among the troops, including official tournaments among teams drawn from various divisions and brigades.

Coleman survived the war and earned a medal for his valor. In contrast to today, neither his status as a professional athlete nor as a decorated war veteran provided him financial security or the promise of future opportunities. After a brief stint managing in Holland, Coleman returned to England and by World War Two was a labourer working in London. He fell to his death trying to repair a building damaged during the Blitz, and was remembered in his local newspaper only after his son sent them word of his demise.

If I could I would give this book 3.5 stars. I found myself trudging through the account of Coleman's pre-war career, which is dealt with deliberately and painstakingly. Looking back, I would have preferred one third of the book dedicated to his playing career and two-thirds to his time playing and fighting in the army, which on the whole seems far more poignant and worthy of remembering.

Though the author writes perfectly competently, along the way I found myself irritated by the repeated lack of sources given for quotations, either inline or footnoted. Readers are left to guess who may have given them and in what context.