A Bigger Field Awaits Us
The Scottish Football Team That Fought the Great War
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A Bigger Field Awaits Us
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Narrated by:
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Dave Gillies
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By:
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Andrew Beaujon
About this listen
Each November, about a hundred people with paper poppies pinned to their coats gather around a memorial in Edinburgh. They're there to commemorate the more than a dozen members of the local football team, Heart of Midlothian - almost every member of its starting lineup and many of its backup players - who went to war.
When they enlisted in November 1914, the Edinburgh Evening News ran pages of splendid photos of the Hearts players in McCrae's Battalion. After the war, surviving soldiers, many of them wounded, gassed, and suffering from what was then called "shell shock", returned home to a public that had only the weakest grasp of what had happened. Perhaps the pointlessness of so much suffering and death was too awful to contemplate. All of Edinburgh threw a parade for the men of McCrae's Battalion when they marched off to war, but no one wanted to be reminded that their commanders later traded their lives and health for a few yards of French mud.
A Bigger Field Awaits Us tells the little-known but poignant story of a group of Scottish athletes and their fans who went to war together - and the stories of the few who made it home.
©2018 Andrew Beaujon (P)2018 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
What listeners say about A Bigger Field Awaits Us
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Michael K.
- 05-03-21
Fantastic
Really enjoyed this book
As a hearts fan it was great to learn more about some of the clubs players and the story of the war and what they went through
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Josh
- 01-10-23
Must listen for any linked with The Roya Scots
Outstanding telling of just a few Battalions from The Royal Scots. Anyone linked with the regiment would love this reading. Also anyone interested in the 1st World War.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Rose
- 27-08-21
I can’t finish this
This book is like a romantic three course dinner. The soup’s good, the candles are nice, the main course is average and the dessert is dreadful. that’s this book. The performance is overdone (like the main course steak) the beginning is good, (like the starter of the meal) the end well, I don’t intend to get that far but stodgy is my verdict at the part where the troops go over the top. Journo-speak abounds. They ‘recalled’ ‘remembered’ ‘aid later’ ‘They recollected’ well, of course they did. That’s why the words are in quotes. If i wanted a newspaper about the war I’d find one and buy it from some archive or other. I wanted a book and got something that reads more like a newspaper. utterly dreadful given three stars only because the beginning is really very good.
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