Julmatchen på västfronten : fotboll i Ingen mans land 1914

by Pehr Thermaenius

Historien om det stillestånd i första världskriget som rådde under julen 1914. I fem månader hade kriget pågått och soldaterna befann sig i fasansfulla skyttegravar på västfronten. På julnatten avstannade striderna och på juldagen gick soldaterna ut i Ingenmansland och bytte souvenirer och spelade fotboll mot fienden.

Genres: Nonfiction, World War I

223 pages

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Andy N · Rating 3 out of 5]

Blurb:

After four months of intense fighting, the war in Flanders between German and British soldiers fell silent on Christmas Eve 1914. The soldiers started singing instead of shooting. On Christmas Day they came out of their trenches and met in No Man’s Land. Some chased rabbits. Some played football. This true story is about two footballers and soldiers, one Saxon and one Scot, who were in units that played a match in a field between the French villages Houplines and Frelinghien.

Scotsman Jimmy Coyle had played professional football before the war. Saxon Albert Schmidt played in the third team for his local club. On Christmas afternoon they each got the chance to defeat their opponents without weapons. Pehr Thermaenius has tracked both Jimmy’s and Albert’s stories through military archives; from mobilization in August to the hard frozen mud in that field in Flanders that became a football field on Christmas Day. The story of the football match is a light in the darkness as the world remembers the tragic waste of a hundred years ago.

Strengths and Weaknesses:

A few of you know I have being working on a series of anti war books with my friend, fellow poet and artist Nick Armbrister since 2013 which we called Europa and through that and I have learnt a lot about various individual stories in the Second World War, most of which terrible and heartbreaking.

The First World War however apart from one brief poem in Europa in 2014 is a part of history I have yet to really delve into with my work in Europa (but I will). The one poem covered the above topic, the Christmas Match in 2014 and has proved a topic of interest ever since to me.

This book it has to be said I discovered by accident recently picking it up at a second hand bookshop and thought hmmm.. this could be a interesting read, and well it was interesting.

It was clear from the beginning that this book was a labour of love by the writer who is a Swedish journalist. Apparently he worked for many years for Dagens Industri (a Swedish financial, daily newspaper) and has long been interested in the First World War.

In this book you can see the attempt by the writer to tell the story over a Scottish and a Saxon Soldier who may well have played in this match but while told whole hearteningly, I was left a little distant in this book by the way these two characters were built up which were left very two dimensional instead of fully formed and took me a lot out of the whole narrative.

Originally published in Sweden, whether this was a language barrier or the style of the writing is a bit trickier not really engaging me throughout the book. Thankfully, either way, the book is mercifully brief in a fairly large format totalling in just over 200 pages and proved easy enough to read through in a few days but it is little more than an introduction than what felt to be a decent, full sized study of an incredible moment in likely one of the most cruel wars in modern history.

8/10 – The historial element of the book.

6/10 – The actual telling of the book.

(This may feature in a few episode of Reading in Bed - Book Review Podcast. Available from all of the usual places including readinginbed.bandcamp.com)

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Christmas Match, the English edition, started with chapters about football, and the two soldiers profiled, and then details, horrific but mind numbing, about the beginnings of trench warfare. And written by someone whose first language is not English. Hmm. Shall I finish it? Then the chapter on the actual unofficial truce. Yes, three stars... Then the last part of the book on "What-ifs" and - finally - on mediation and what it can accomplish and how it might have been used. Really worth reading. Four stars.

[George Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic if you like First World War history. The author doesn’t spend too much time on context prior to the war, nor too much time on context of football prior to the War. Really in-depth about life in the trenches as well as going into great (but not overbearing) detail about specific skirmishes. It’s more of a first world war book than a football book, but there’s a fantastic job on detailing that actually there wasn’t simply one football match that took place, but many that broke out over the day (and indeed those that didn’t break out). Doesn’t stick around too long either, the author knows when to finish the book. Excellent read, thoroughly recommend it.

[Tim Corke · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fascinating count down to the infamous Christmas Day football match. It’s hardly anything to do with the match itself but the events leading up to it from both sides, their armies and how they got there, their battles and losses etc. this has been well researched and the author clearly has a passion for this subject but it was a military biography rather than focussing on the football and the Truce - arguably the last paragraph is all you needed!

[Steve Ginger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another book that I have had for a while but not got around to reading. I’m very glad to finally read it. Insightful into the futile nature of WW1 detailing through two characters. It makes one think that Russia and Ukraine should have a football match and discuss peace from there!

[Smh624 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very interesting short book about WWI. It's really about the events that led up to the Christmas Truce of 1914. I liked the simple, clear way the author described the start of the war and the lives of the soldiers on both sides of the conflict.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

The idea of following the war of two footballers who might have played during the Christmas truce held promise. Unfortunately the book didn't live up to it.