From playing field to battle field - sportsmen go to War

Send us Fan MailIn this episode we look at the sportsmen who laid down their lives for their countries during the Great War.Prompted by such eminent voices as Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, men from all sports rushed to enlist, with the campaign being so successful one battalion, the 17th Middlesex was known as the Footballers Battalion.  We start with how cycling was used to restore public morale once the fighting was over, and how the Paris-Roubaix race earned its moniker of "The Hell of the North".We hear about Bells Redoubt, the scene of a remarkable act of bravery by the first professional footballer to enlist, and how a violent assault on a competitor in a 400m race at the 1908 Olympics lead to a gold medal for one of Britain's runners.  We look at Phillip Neame VC, the only man to win both an Olympic gold medal and the Victoria Cross, and discover how a Warwickshire cricketer was the inspiration for literature's most ingenious and famous man-servant.