PLAYED TOGETHER--SIGNED ON TOGETHER-- AND FELL TOGETHER




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




Each year as we come to Rememberance Sunday and approach the eleventh hour of eleventh day of the eleventh month this writer feels it is right that we pause and consider the terrible impact the Great War had on a generation of young rugby players from Anniesland and Balgray, young players no older than our present Hawks 1st xv


A generation of young players who tumbled out of our playing fields and volunteered themselves into the "friends" battalions that made up some of the great Scottish regiments,regiments like the Highland.Light Infantry. who sported the heaviest cap badge in the world because it took an elephant to hold it up--like the Cameronians(Scottish Rifles) whose colours GHK still play in today and like the "blue bonnets over the border" the Kings Own.Scottish.Borderers.These regiments helped make up the 52nd Lowland Division a Division that suffered huge losses at Gallipoli and on the Somme losses almost inconceivable today


They are remembered on our War Memorials at Kelvinbridge,Kirklee and in the Old Anniesland Pavilion
Many of the grounds that we play on today would probably not be here if it had not been for War Memorial Trusts set up following that terrible conflict.These trusts and the related founder clubs are now represented on the newly formed Hawks Sports Trust thus ensuring the memory and legacy of these young men carries on today and into future generations

When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say,
For Their Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today


The next time you are in that well known West End watering hole Oran Mor--- pause a moment because above you in the steeple of the old Kelvinside Church hangs a peel of bells funded by subscription to remember twenty seven of these young men from the clubs of Anniesland and Balgray all killed in one day on the 28th of June 1915 at Gallipoli


Every one of her sons must hear,
And none that hears it dare forget.
This they all with a joyful mind
Bear through life like a torch in flame,
And falling fling to the host behind --
'Play up! play up! and play the game!'

This article was posted on 8-Nov-2009, 12:56 by Hugh Barrow.