Comment: Should FA Cup be renamed after Harrogate war hero?

Is it time to honour his heroics by renaming this year’s FA Cup tournament after him?

Columnist Tom Richmond, writing in our sister paper The Yorkshire Post, believes so.

Who is the greatest? It is a perennial question where the answer becomes even more polarised when it comes to any discussion about England’s foremost footballer. The ensuing debate invariably becomes the proverbial game of two halves – the merits of the 1966 World Cup talismen like Bobby Moore and Sir Bobby Charlton versus contemporary celebrities like David Beckham and Wayne Rooney.

Yet, in the centenary year of the First World War’s outbreak, there is one other name which should not be overlooked. Step forward Harrogate-born Donald Simpson Bell – the only professional footballer ever to be awarded the Victoria Cross and who paid with his life on the bloody battlefields of the Somme.

A brilliant all-round sportsman who supplemented his wages as a teacher at Starbeck School by signing pro with Bradford Park Avenue in 1913, his sense of duty was such that he had already volunteered for conscription before Lord Kitchener’s ‘Your country needs you’ call-to-arms.

“Please don’t worry about me, I believe God is watching me and it rests with him whether I pull home or note,” wrote Bell in a moving letter to his mother, explaining his charge against a German enemy line that earned him the VC.

The words are even more prophetic because they were the last this modest hero – a hero in the truest sense of the word – ever penned. He was killed five days later in July 1916, and before the letter reached its destination, as the Green Howards launched a counter-attack against German soldiers.

A comrade described the fateful moment: “Bell dashed forward with an armful of bombs, and started to clear out a hornet’s nest of Huns who were ready to take toll of our advancing troops. He advanced with great courage right up to where the enemy were posted. He took careful aim and bowled out several of the Germans. Unfortunately he was hit... for a while he fought on but he was hit again. He got weaker and weaker, and had to relax his efforts. He collapsed suddenly and when we reached him he was dead.”

Why does this matter? This is supposed to be “Football Remembers” week when the sport honours those who did not return from the front line, including Tottenham Hotspur’s Alexander McGregor who died on December 14, 1914.