Peace game to mark Armistice centenary
Footballers from Newark will travel to Belgium to play a peace game on the centenary of the end of the first world war, to honour those who fell during the conflict.
Newark Town FC’s Sunday side will play FC Emmendingen, from Newark’s twin town in Germany.
A previous peace game played in 2014 on the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of war ended in a 4-1 win for Emmendingen against a Newark Town under-21 side.
The Newark team will travel to Belgium on November 9.
They will lay a wreath and pay respects at the British Commonwealth and German War Graves before attending an evening service at the Menin Gate, Ypres.
The Menin Gate memorial bears the names of more than 54,000 soldiers who died before August 16, 1917, and have no known graves.
A visit is also planned to the site marked by a wooden cross in a field near Messines where, for a short time on Christmas Day 1914, fighting stopped, troops emerged from their trenches and exchanged gifts of whisky, cigarettes, cigars and Christmas pudding — and played a game of football.
Lewis Poole, Newark captain, said: “We are pretty excited. It is quite rare for a Sunday team to do something like this.
“We will be hoping to win this time around, but it is all in good spirit and we will go to the memorials and pay our respects together as one.”
The peace game will kick- off at 11am on Sunday, November 11, commemorating 100 years to the hour since the Armistice signalling the end of the war.
The event will also remember those killed who had a connection with Newark Town, including William Grocock whose death was reported in the Newark Herald in October 1915.
The report read: “Another Newark-born son has laid down his life in the great cause. He is Pte. William T. Grocock whose family is well-known.
“He enlisted in the 8th Duke of Wellingtons, January 1914.
“He went through the Dardanelles and was in the Suvla Bay retirement, after which he was sent to Egypt, leaving there for France in June 1915 and was killed on 14th September this year.
“He was very fond of football and played occasionally for Newark Town, taking the outside left position which had been so splendidly filled by his brother Ted.
“The latter went to Burton Wanderers and William then had a regular place in the team until his brother’s return.
“He played most of the season 1894-95 and took part in the preliminary rounds and the semi-final of the Notts Senior Cup.
“In that year, Newark won the cup for the first time in their history.”
Two other Newark men, brothers not directly related to William but having the same surname, also died in the war.
Just eight days before the Armistice, George Grocock, 35, also a keen local footballer who had played for Newark Armatures, was killed in action.
According to the Herald, Mrs Kate Grocock, of Charles Street, was told by letter that her husband, of the 8th Lincolns had died leading his platoon in a raid into enemy lines on November 3.
George, a father of two, enlisted two months into the war and had been severely injured in April 1917, but bravely returned to the front at the start of 1918 after recovering from 29 shrapnel wounds.
He had a younger brother, Corporal Arthur H. Grocock, a former landlord of the Robin Hood And Little John pub on Lincoln Street.
He died of a haemorrhage of the lungs on May 12, 1917.
Arthur is buried in Lijssentoek cemetery, Belgium, close to Messines where Newark Town will be staying in November.
