Reports on footballs dribbled towards enemy lines during a successful charge on German trenches and their subsequent display in Kingston.

BATTLEFIELD FOOTBALL. East Surreys Dribbled Into the German Trenches. Four Footballs in a Charge. Describing some of the countless thrilling incidences of the great advance Reuter's special correspondent refers to the brilliant exploits of the East Surreys, though, he says, they are typical of the experiences of every other regiment which took part in the historic attack. "The captain of one of the companies" he says, "had provided four footballs, one for each platoon, urging them to keep up a dribbling competition all the way over the mile and a quarter of ground they had to traverse. As the company formed on emerging from the trench, the Platoon Commanders kicked off and the match against Death commenced. The gallant captain himself fell early in the charge, and men began to drop rapidly under the hail of machine gun bullets. But still the footballs were booted onwards, with hoarse cries of encouragement or defiance, until they disappeared in the dense smother behind which the Germans were shooting. "Then, when the bombs and bayonets had done their work, and the enemy had cleared out, the Surrey men looked for their footballs, and recovered two of them in the captured traverses. Those will be sent to the regimental depot at Kingston as trophies worth preserving. " I spoke to one man who claims to have slain seventeen Germans with his own hands in this same fight. This was confirmed by his comrades. " One of the finest performances was that of two men of the machine-gun section, who, on hearing that a German machine-gun had been discovered in a dug-out, asked permission of their officer to try and get the 'blighted' thing to work. Consent being granted, they brought the weapon out on to the parapet, and trained it upon a communication trench in which a large body of the enemy were stubbornly disputing the advance of our men. By the time they had enfiladed this position with three belts, the East Surreys had a clear enough passage at this point. Then, sighting an artillery ammunition column conveying ammunition along a road some three-quarters of a mile in the rear, the busy couple swept their gun around, and let fly three more belts. The convoy broke into a desperate gallop, and it is pretty certain that damage was done. The machine-gun with two others also taken, in now a battalion trophy." Tribute from Mr. W. Beach Thomas, the War Correspondent. Mr. W. Beach Thomas, the well-known war correspondent, in an article in the "Daily Mail" yesterday, describes in the following extract the intricate labyrinth of trenches over which the East Surreys charged on July 1- "In the valley and up the slope a delta of trenches is etched out, each delta separated from the next by a great fort or dam: Montauban, Mametz, Fricourt, La Boisselle. The whole is a maze, labyrinthine, Daedalian. We talk of crossing one, two, three, four German trenches. We have crossed fifty, running in as many directions as the diagram of a snow crystal. "There are short, fat bunches of trenches; long-legged, vagrant trenches, canal-like trenches, which some foul machine gun could rake from a forgotten village ruin a kilometre away. There are tight, narrow trenches, and chambered trenches; trenches in the open; trenches that play hide-and-seek through cellars or among the roots of trees. Trenches run horizontally, vertically, diagonally to the front, boxing the compass and confounding geometry. "The system, formed slowly as a real delta is formed, we have taken root and branch over an eight miles front, without reckoning minor gains to the north and the spacious French gains to the south. It is a debt we owe to our soldiers - such soldiers as the East Surreys, of whose historic charge of July 1 I was hearing to-day - to realise that they have crossed a bristling tangle such as is not again found between the Somme and the northern boundary of France." From Surrey Comet dated 12 Jul 1916- See report in original format. THE HISTORIC FOOTBALL. Exhibited at the Town Hall to help Soldiers' Comforts Fund. The football kicked off by the late Captain Wilfred P. Nevill, of B Company, 8th Serve Battalion, East Surrey Regiment, and dribbled into the German trenches at the assault and capture of Montauban, on July 1st, is being exhibited daily to the public during this week at Kingston Town Hall. A small fee is charged for admission, and postcard photographs of this peculiarly interesting souvenir of a wonderful and heroic charge are on sale at the entrance, the whole of the proceeds both of the exhibition and of the sale of postcards being devoted to the fund for supplying comforts to the gallant East Surreys fighting at the Front. The exhibition opened on Monday evening, and within a few hours nearly 200 People inspected the trophy. The following morning the doors were opened at 11 O'Clock, and the football is now on view each day. Unable on Monday to attend owing to an engagement elsewhere, the band of the East Surrey Regiment, under the able direction of Mr. W.F. Bradshaw yesterday played excellent selections of music outside the Town Hall and attracted crowds of people, many of whom visited the exhibition. "Lion," the Great Dane, who has now become familiar in the town as the East Surrey's mascot, went about collecting for the Comfort Fund and brought in a fine harvest of coin. From Surrey Comet dated 16 Aug 1916- See report in original format.