'Over the top: a foul a blurry foul' - the first football charge of the First World War

Our collection of First World War records is one of the largest in the world. It includes, among many other documents, service records, letters, diaries, maps and photographs. Part of Britain's folk memory of the First World War is of long lines of Tommies bravely going over the top, resolutely kicking and passing a football as they walked into a hail of machine gun fire.Iain Adams, of the International Football Institute, looks at what really happened when the London Irish Rifles performed the first football charge at the Battle of Loos on 25 September 1915.The International Football Institute is a research partnership between the University of Central Lancashire and the National Football Museum.