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25
Feb
Harrogate man's Victoria Cross returns to Yorkshire for exhibition on sporting soldiers
The Victoria Cross awarded to a Harrogate teacher and footballer during the First World War has gone on display in his home county.
Donald Simpson Bell’s medal forms part of an exhibition called ‘Battle Bowlers & Football Boots’ at the Green Howards Regimental Museum in Richmond, timed to coincide with the 110th anniversary of his death.
Harrogate roots
Donald Bell’s parents lived on Queen’s Road in Harrogate, and he attended St Peter’s Primary School and Harrogate Grammar School, both of which have plaques commemorating their former pupil. There is also a plaque to him in Harrogate’s Wesley Methodist Church, where he was a Sunday School teacher.
He trained as a teacher in London and played as an amateur with Crystal Palace and later for Newcastle United.
Returning to Harrogate, he became a schoolteacher at Starbeck County School – now Starbeck Primary School.
Schoolteacher Donald Bell (far left) with his class at Starbeck County School, now Starbeck Primary School.
To supplement his salary, in 1912 he signed professional forms with Bradford Park Avenue, which was promoted to the First Division two years later.
Into battle
It was then, in 1914, that war broke out and Bell became the first professional footballer to enlist into the British Army, joining the West Yorkshire Regiment as a private. He was promoted to lance corporal and then commissioned as an officer into the 9th Battalion, Green Howards (Alexandra, Princess of Wales' Own Yorkshire Regiment), which was the regiment of the North Riding of Yorkshire.
Second Lieutenant Bell left for France in November 1915 and was ordered to the front line at the Battle of the Somme on July 5, 1916.
That very day, he crept up a communication trench then rushed over open ground to attack a machine gun emplacement. He killed the gunner with his pistol and silenced the gun with grenades.
Bell's Redoubt was named after 2nd Lt Bell.
In a letter home, he described it as “the biggest fluke alive”. He was killed five days later carrying out a similar attack, and was awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously.
He is the only English professional football player to have been awarded the Victoria Cross, which is the UK's highest honour for valour "in the face of the enemy".
A feature of the battlefield, Bell's Redoubt, was named after him and in 2000 a memorial, in large part funded by the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA), was unveiled there.
In 2010, Bell’s Victoria Cross was purchased for a reported £221,000 by the PFA and was put on displayin Manchester at the National Football Museum, which has loaned it to the Green Howards Regimental Museum for this exhibition.
The exhibition Battle Bowlers & Football Boots – ‘battle bowler’ was slang for a tin helmet – explores the sporting and military lives of Green Howards footballers and runs till Wednesday, December 30.
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