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From the Five Nations of 1914 to war - Introduction

Having started the year with a piece about the French rugby captain Philippe Struxiano volunteer Peter Bloor’s series for the upcoming Remembrance period continues the rugby union theme. As he outlines below, his series will look at England’s campaign in the Five Nations of 1914 and the contributions of the seven players who would go to war four months later but not return.

‘Even Marshal Foch was anxious about Struxiano’

When Philippe Struxiano refused to play in the France-England match of March 1921 he was refusing to play in one that was deeply symbolic and emotionally charged. The two teams had played at the Stade de Colombes in the last Five Nations match before the Great War and both had lost players killed – and yet here was the French captain refusing to play on that same ground in that same fixture, before which a memorial (image above) to the twenty-one French “Rugby players who fell for the Fatherland” was to be unveiled by Ferdinand Foch.

Foch had ended the war as Allied Supreme Commander but Struxiano, ‘a member of that vital, colourful faction the Awkward Squad’ who had served in his army, could not be moved to play even by some brief words from him and so both the unveiling and the match went on without him.

“The Englishmen will also lay a wreath…”

The England players did however play their part in the commemoration and laid a wreath at the memorial. They too had players to remember and it is seven of those from their unbeaten 1914 Five Nations team - Ronald Poulton, Alf Maynard, Francis Oakeley, Arthur Harrison, J.H.D. Watson, Arthur Dingle and Robert Pillman – who this series will also remember in the context of their respective contributions to that unbeaten record.

Remembering also the French players of France v. England in 1914

Although the series does not look at them it would be wrong not to remember the five French players “Mort pour La France” who also played in that last Five Nations match of 1914 before they too went to war and did not return - Léon Larribau, Marcel Burgun, Felix Faure, Emmanuel Iguintz and Jean-Jacques Conilh de Beyssac.

Series dates

Below are the dates when parts of the series will be published:

Part One: A puzzling trial match before England v. Wales – 23 October 2025

Part Two: England v. Ireland and Scotland – 29 October 2025

Part Three: J.H.D. Watson, the surgeon at centre three-quarter – 4 November 2025

Part Four: Remembering the last internationals – 9 November 2025

References

The information in this article is taken from the Daily News and The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News of 1921 and “the awkward squad” quote from the ESPN Rugby site.

Image: Agence Rol, Source gallica.bnf.fr/Bibliothèque nationale de France.