Each year at this time the website asks readers to pause and remember
From this distance one can only speculate what it must have been like at the Annieslands and Balgray in 1919 when the club teams assembled to resume rugby after the Great War.So many of those who had finished playing in March 1914 were no longer there.

The war memorials at the three schools bear testimony to this

Glasgow Accies xv of 1913-14-- 8 killed 6 wounded
"No more shall we see Tommy Stout scoring a try for the Accies"

Glasgow High School Former Pupils 480 killed
William Hutchison the only player from Scotland or Ireland to score a try against the 1912 Springboks lost his life in the German offensive of 1918

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The birds, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

Glasgow Academicals 327 killed
Eric Young played against England in 1914 and was killed at Gallipoli in 1915
By 1918 Five of the English team and six of the Scottish team had been killed

Kelvinside Academicals 131 killed
Within 16 months of the War starting 10 per cent of serving Kelvinside Academicals had lost their lives

27 Accies(Glasgow and Kelvinside) killed in one day 28 June 1915 at Gallipoli with the 52nd Lowland Division-a plaque and a peal of bells in Oran Mor(the former Kelvinside United Church) records this terrible day

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."

This article was posted on 8-Nov-2007, 11:24 by Hugh Barrow.