Football Fund for Luton

Vauxhall Motors Football Team, 1913-14 [Z1306/75/21/7]

Monday 25th October 1915: The Luton News continues to publish appeals for footballs and football outfits to be sent to the Front. Signaller Burley of the Royal Field Artillery asks if “any person in my native town would be so kind as to help the lads in my Battery to pass many a weary hour away, by supplying us with a football", and a group of Luton lads serving with C Squadron of the Beds Yeomanry hope that someone may have a football to spare. J. Hall, the former secretary of Luton Albion F.C. and now with the 3/1st Bedfordshires at Reed Hall Camp, Colchester, appeals for football boots, knickers, and stockings for the Luton boys stationed there who are running a football team and finding that “playing in ordinary attire is not at all comfortable”.

Subscriptions are being collected for a Football Fund set up by Albert Ansell of Havelock Road to help supply Luton men at the Front with the means to play their favourite sport. There is no doubt that the footballs supplied are very much appreciated. Corporal S. Impey of 15 Platoon of the 7th Bedfords says. “We received the ball the other evening and we thank you very much. The boys all agree that the ball is an excellent one, and they desire their appreciation to be known to the good people of Luton for subscribing.” Ansell’s brother Sid, who is with the same platoon, writes: “We are just going to have a game ... We are going to try and put the artillery into shape, with the ball, I mean. The guns will overlook us, so we shall be all right.”

Source: Luton News, 21st October and 28th October 1915