Jumping for Recovery:
Monday, 7th Mar 2016Dunfermline Athletic jumps in tandem with the Army Personnel Recovery Centre (Edinburgh)
On 29th June 2016, a bus will leave East End Park, the home of Dunfermline Athletic Football Club (DAFC). It will travel to Belgium and France to mark the centenary of the First Day of the Battle of the Somme one hundred years before, on 1 July 1916.
With that bus, will travel two members of the Army Personnel Recovery Centre (Edinburgh), with Fife connections, helped by money to be raised by a soldier who has successfully been through the recovery process, and is himself a veteran of theatres of operation abroad. This is Corporal James Morell of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (5 Scots).
Corporal Morell will be taking part in a sponsored tandem parachute jump at Fife Airport on Saturday 28 May in order to raise funds to send the two soldiers on the bus.
Dunfermline Athletic Heritage Trust have set up a Just Giving page at http://www.justgiving.com/Dunfermline-Athletic
where anyone wishing to sponsor the jump can do so. Alternatively, sponsorship monies can be sent to Dunfermline Athletic Heritage Trust c/o East End Park, Halbeath Road, Dunfermline KY12 7RB.
In conjunction with McCrae’s Battalion Trust, the Dunfermline party will represent their forebears who formed 14 Platoon, D Company of McCrae’s Battalion, at the Contalmaison Cairn ceremony on the Somme.
There they will be joined by representatives of Hearts, Hibs, Raith Rovers, Falkirk and East Fife whose players and supporters also joined McCrae’s Battalion, often known as the Scottish Sporting Battalion. Descendants of men who served in this battalion will be on the bus.
On 2 July they will travel to Moeuvres where one of Dunfermline’s two First World War Victoria Crosses was won by David Hunter of Kingseat in 1918. David’s grandson, Ian Hunter, a Director of DAFC, is in the group along with his son Graham. The group, arranged by Dunfermline Athletic Heritage Trust, will also visit the Menin Gate and the battlefields around Ypres and on the Somme.
DAFC Chairman Bob Garmory, whose son is a serving officer, said “What happened in the First World War was an absolute tragedy for many families in Fife. However, our focus is on the present, and we wanted to take two soldiers with us to show our support for the recovery process which many soldiers have to go through today. It is as real an issue in 2016 as it was in 1916, but in recent years great steps have been made in recognising the issues that can confront young people in the Army. We are delighted that one of those people wants to put a little back by supporting his comrades at the Edinburgh centre.”
Lieutenant Colonel Alex Freeborn, Commanding Officer of 51 Infantry Brigade Personnel Recovery Unit, and a former pupil of Queen Anne High School, Dunfermline, added “It’s a great opportunity for our wounded, injured and sick soldiers to be able to work with Dunfermline Athletic Football Club in memory of those that sacrificed so much during the First World War. Equally I’m very grateful to the club for supporting our present day soldiers, particularly those who are recovering from injury or illness.”
Major Del Hamilton, Commanding Officer of the Army Personnel Recovery Centre Edinburgh, said “we have a volunteer, Corporal James Morell, who will take part in a sponsored tandem parachute jump in May, at Fife Airport, with ‘Skydive St Andrews’. Monies raised will go firstly towards sending two soldiers to the Somme with the Dunfermline party. Any additional sums raised will go to a military charity of the soldier’s choice which supports the recovery of veterans.”
DAFC wreath laid by John Simpson lon 1 July 2015 at the McCrae Battalion Cairn at Contalmaison (DAFC are life members of McCrae Battalion Trust).
Donald Adamson, trustee of the Dunfermline Athletic Heritage Trust, said “On 1 July 1916, ten Dunfermline men fell with McCrae’s within minutes of the start of the Battle of the Somme, and these included Davie Izatt and Jimmy Morton of Dunfermline Athletic. We are aware of at least another five Dunfermline players who were killed in the War, and they are among close to a thousand names on West Fife war memorials. My own grandfather returned with a Military Medal and shell-shock. He lived with us when I was a boy, and for me this is not ancient history. I am glad that the Club wants to do something positive to recognise the issues in the current days for service personnel who need to recover from experiences suffered in the line of duty.”
Contacts:
Donald Adamson, Dunfermline Athletic Heritage Trust (enquiries@daht.org.uk); 07770 574560
Bob Garmory, Dunfermline Athletic Football Club (directors@dafc.co.uk)
Fiona McNaught, Army HQ Scotland, Media and Communications (Fiona.McNaught841@mod.uk)
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