Gas Masks for Goal Posts

Gas Masks for Goal Posts PDF Author: Anton Rippon
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0752471880
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
'I was 12th man for England against Wales at Wembley. Within a few minutes, the Welsh half-back broke his collar bone. They had no reserves and I was the only spare player to hand. That's how I made my international debut - for Wales.' - Stan Mortensen, Blackpool and England. When Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, football came to an abrupt halt. Large crowds were banned, stadiums were given over to military use, most players joined up. Then it was realised that if victory remained the national goal, soccer could help - and football went to war. For the next six years the game became hugely important to Britain. Boosting morale among servicemen, munitions workers and beleaguered citizens alike - and raising hundreds of thousands of pounds for war funds. It was a game with plenty of human stories. Some footballers were dubbed 'PT commandos' or 'D-Day dodgers'. Others, however, saw action. Pre-war heroes on the pitch became wartime heroes off it. This book captures the atmosphere of the time and tells the story of a unique period in football's history.

Gas Masks for Goal Posts

Gas Masks for Goal Posts PDF Author: Anton Rippon
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0752471880
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
'I was 12th man for England against Wales at Wembley. Within a few minutes, the Welsh half-back broke his collar bone. They had no reserves and I as the only spare player to hand. That's how I made my international debut - for Wales.' - Stan Mortensen, Blackpool and England. When Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, football came to an abrupt halt. Large crowds were banned, stadiums were given over to military use, most players joined up. Then it was realised that if victory was the national goal, soccer could help - and football went to war. For the next six years the game became hugely important to Britain. Boosting morale among servicemen, munitions workers and beleaguered citizens alike - and raising hundreds of thousands of pounds for war funds. It was a game with plenty of human stories. Some footballers were dubbed 'PT commandos' or 'D-Day dodgers'. Others, however, saw action. Pre-war heroes on the pitch became wartime heroes off it. This book captures the atmosphere of the time and tells the story of a unique period in football's history.

The QPR Miscellany

The QPR Miscellany PDF Author: Ash Rose
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0752490273
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
The QPR Miscellany is the definitive set text for every fan of the world famous Rangers. Packed with facts, fun, gossip, nostalgia and conjecture, it looks back over their glorious history to celebrate the personalities, victories and controversies of the sport's biggest name, culminating in their extraordinary return to the Premier League in 2010/11. Handily pocket-sized to pull out in the middle of those pub arguments over who was the fastest, dirtiest or biggest, this book will not only tell you who scored the most goals, what was the largest attendance or who was the longest-serving manager, but also who earned the most red cards and how the club became one of the richest in the world. Put down your pie and pick up a copy.

Sport, War and the British

Sport, War and the British PDF Author: Peter Donaldson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000048365
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
Spanning the colonial campaigns of the Victorian age to the War on Terror after 9/11, this study explores the role sport was perceived to have played in the lives and work of military personnel, and examines how sporting language and imagery were deployed to shape and reconfigure civilian society’s understanding of conflict. From 1850 onwards war reportage – complemented and reinforced by a glut of campaign histories, memoirs, novels and films – helped create an imagined community in which sporting attributes and qualities were employed to give meaning and order to the chaos and misery of warfare. This work explores the evolution of the Victorian notion that playing-field and battlefield were connected and then moves on to investigate the challenges this belief faced in the twentieth century, as combat became, initially, industrialised in the age of total warfare and, subsequently, professionalised in the post-nuclear world. Such a longitudinal study allows, for the first time, new light to be shed on the continuities and shifts in the way the ‘reality’ of war was captured in the British popular imagination. Drawing together the disparate fields of sport and warfare, this book serves as a vital point of reference for anyone with an interest in the cultural, social or military history of modern Britain.

Insane and Unseemly

Insane and Unseemly PDF Author: John Saville
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1848760345
Category : Horse racing
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
A comprehensive account of how and why horse racing was able to continue throughout the Second World War, despite repeated controversy over its doing so. Insane and Unseemly is based on extensive, original research into Home Office and Jockey Club papers and first-hand recollections of staff from three leading stables.

Bletchley Park and the Belgian Pigeon Service

Bletchley Park and the Belgian Pigeon Service PDF Author: Bernard O'Connor
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0244379378
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 437

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Book Description
During the Second World War, the British Royal Air Force's Special Duties Squadrons parachuted thousands of pigeons into Belgium. Bletchley Park, the nerve centre of the British Intelligence Service, had its own pigeon loft from where birds were sent on intelligence gathering missions. A secret organisation, MI14(d), was created to organise a pigeon service to occupied Europe. Those who found the pigeons were expected to supply military, economic and political intelligence for the Allies. This book includes the messages sent back from Belgium. In particular, it investigates the roles played by Josef Raskin and Jean Ceysens, the British Intelligence Services, the RAF and the brave individuals who, despite the possibility of imprisonment, sent messages to Britain in the hope it would help liberate their country.

Bletchley Park and the Pigeon Spies

Bletchley Park and the Pigeon Spies PDF Author: Bernard O'Connor
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0244666407
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 602

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Book Description
Over 15,000 pigeons were dropped into occupied Europe during WW2. Some were used by secret agents to send messages back to headquarters. Others were dropped by parachute into France, Belgium, Holland and Denmark in the hope that people would complete the attached questionnaire and provided military, political, economic or other intelligence of value for the Allies. Photographic negatives could be sent. Bletchley Park had its own loft for its pigeon spies. This book investigates the work of MI14, known as the Colomba Service, and for the first time sheds light on conditions in Occupied Europe described by extremely brave men and women who risked execution if found in possession of a pigeon. MI14 staff, decoded or translated messages and forwarded copies to SOE, SIS, MI19, RAF, RN, Ministry of Economic Warfare, BBC, Churchill, de Gaulle and President Benes of Czechoslovakia.

Masculinities on Clydeside

Masculinities on Clydeside PDF Author: Chand Alison Chand
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474409385
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
Masculinities on Clydeside explores the experiences of civilian men on Clydeside during the war, using oral history interviews as a means to explore subjectivity and arguing for continuous personal agency through major historical changes. While men in reserved occupations are understood as extensively influenced by 'imagined' discourses, often resulting in feelings of guilt and emasculation, their subjectivities were nonetheless ultimately rooted in their 'lived' and immediate local vicinities, and the people and places of their everyday lives. This ultimate relevance of lived existence and the everyday also meant that while wartime relations between men and women were clearly shaped by a range of gender discourses and continually renegotiated, gender boundaries were never fixed or truly separate.The analysis looks at wider subjectivities, encompassing national and political identities, class consciousness, religious subjectivities and social activities, as well as examining women's experiences of working in reserved occupations in wartime and their interactions with civilian men.

Men in reserve

Men in reserve PDF Author: Juliette Pattinson
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526106140
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
Men in reserve focuses on working class civilian men who, as a result of working in reserved occupations, were exempt from enlistment in the armed forces. It uses fifty six newly conducted oral history interviews as well as autobiographies, visual sources and existing archived interviews to explore how this group articulated their wartime experiences and how they positioned themselves in relation to the hegemonic discourse of military masculinity. It considers the range of masculine identities circulating amongst civilian male workers during the war and investigates the extent to which reserved workers draw upon these identities when recalling their wartime selves. It argues that the Second World War was capable of challenging civilian masculinities, positioning the civilian man below that of the 'soldier hero' while, simultaneously, reinforcing them by bolstering the capacity to provide and to earn high wages, frequently in risky and dangerous work, all which were key markers of masculinity.

Battle on the Lomba 1987

Battle on the Lomba 1987 PDF Author: David Mannall
Publisher: Helion and Company
ISBN: 1909982024
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
The climactic death-throes of Soviet Communism during the 1980s included a last-gasp attempt at strategic franchise expansion in Southern Africa. Channeled through Castro's Cuba, oil-rich Angolan armed forces (FAPLA) received billions of dollars of advanced weaponry including MiG 23 and Sukhoi fighter jets, SAM 8 missile systems and thousands of armored vehicles. Their intent - to eradicate the US-backed Angolan opposition (UNITA), then push southwards into South Africa's protectorate SWA/Namibia, ostensibly as liberators. 1985 saw the first large-scale mechanized offensive in Southern African history. Russian Generals planned and oversaw the offensive but without properly accounting for the tenacity of UNITA (supported by the South African Defense Forces - SADF) or the treacherous terrain typical in the rainy season. The '85 offensive floundered in the mud and FAPLA returned to their capital Luanda. The South Africans stood down, confident their 'covert' support for UNITA had demonstrated the folly of prosecuting war so far from home against Africa's military Superpower. The South Africans were mistaken. Fidel and FAPLA immediately redoubled their efforts, strengthening fifteen battalions with even more Soviet hardware while Russian and Cuban specialists oversaw troop training. As Cuban and Angola fighter pilots honed their skills over the skies of Northern Angola, David Mannall, a normal 17-year old kid completing High School, was preparing for two years of compulsory military service before beginning Tertiary education. Through a series of fateful twists he found himself leading soldiers in a number of full-scale armored clashes including the largest and most decisive battle on African soil since World War II. This is the David and Goliath story that, due to seismic political changes in the region, has never been truthfully told. The author lifts the hatch on his story of how Charlie Squadron, comprising just twelve 90mm AFVs crewed by 36 national servicemen, as part of the elite 61 Mechanized Battalion, engaged and effectively annihilated the giant FAPLA 47th Armored Brigade in one day - 3 October 1987. Their 90mm cannons were never designed as tank-killers but any assurances that it would never be used against heavy armor were left in the classroom during the three-month operation and never more starkly than the decisive 'Battle on The Lomba River'. The Communist-backed offensive died that day along with hundreds of opposition fighters. 47th Brigade survivors abandoned their remaining equipment, fleeing north across the Lomba, eventually joining the 59th Brigade in what became a full-scale retreat of over ten thousand soldiers to Cuito Cuanevale. ## The myth perpetuated by post-apartheid politicians goes something like this "Éthe SADF force that destroyed 47th Brigade on 3 October numbered 6,000 men and that all the hard yards were run by the long suffering UNITA!" The inconvenient truth is that there were just 36 South African boys on the frontline that day, but it is also true to say they would never have achieved such a stunning victory without the support of many more. This is their story.

The Wizard

The Wizard PDF Author: Jon Henderson
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1448114357
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
‘Stanley Matthews taught us the way football should be played’ Pelé 'I couldn't believe he was just a man. He was the best player in the world' Bobby Charlton 'He told me that he used to play for just twenty pounds a week. Today he would be worth all the money in the Bank of England' Gianfranco Zola Stanley Matthews is one of the most famous footballers ever to play the beautiful game. Nicknamed ‘The Wizard of Dribble’ for his deadly skills, he made fools of defenders around the world. He played 84 matches for England in a career that spanned an extraordinary 33 years and such was his popularity that attendance for his club teams, Stoke City and Blackpool, more than doubled when he played. He was a global superstar decades before Beckham, Ronaldo or Messi, yet what do we really know about this legendary man? This first full and objective biography looks beyond the public face of the ‘first gentleman of soccer’ to explore a life not without controversy. This was a player who clashed with his managers, who felt undervalued in the age of the maximum wage – leading to a charge of blackmarketeering – and who was criticised for his showmanship and perceived lack of team spirit. There were private dramas too – an unhappy first marriage that produced two beloved children, and a second, to the love of his life, a Czech with a dark secret even Matthews never knew and which acclaimed biographer Jon Henderson reveals for the first time. Recreating the magic on the pitch and analyzing the key moments that made Matthews great, this is a meticulously researched story of a national hero and a fascinating insight into English football in the 20th century.