A towering presence in the centre of our team this season, Marcos dos Santos plays with his heart and soul every time he goes onto the pitch. The Sao Paulo native is a boyhood Corinthians supporter and says representing Casuals is a source of great joy for him and his family. Dominic Bliss caught up with him to ask how he is enjoying his first season in Tolworth and embracing the fan culture…

How has this season has gone for you so far?

I feel great joy in being with this group this season. I understand that despite having some players from previous seasons in the squad, we are a group that is starting a project from scratch and this requires a lot of work and dedication from us. Whether we like it or not, it takes time to build everything we want, but it is clear to see that we have great and good fruits to reap soon. I am happy and motivated with the group and also happy with my performance so far.

Can you tell us about your football journey to this point?

When I was 14 years old, I went to my first club to play in the Paulista Under-15 youth league, playing for São Bernardo. I stayed there for a year, when I went to the centre of São Paulo, and after that I played for several other clubs. Then, in August 2018 I went to do pre-season at Penapolense to play in the São Paulo Junior Football Cup.

From there, I went to Grêmio Barueri, and I stayed there for about a year and a half, in the Under-20s, during which time I went up to the professional team and played in the Paulista Cup, as we reached the quarter-finals. After the first team were knocked out, I went back to the Under-20s, where we were champions in the Paulista Cup.

Soon after that, there was the outbreak of coronavirus, and I ended up without a club for a while, but I had a short stint at Colorado Caieiras, who were playing in the second division of the Paulista Championship.

I ended up tearing the ligaments in my ankle and was unable to play in the championship due to the long recovery. I got treatment at the club and then came to London, in search of realising my dream of playing in Europe.

I already had family here and the first club I played for had a lot of Brazilians, so I was able to get used to it quickly. Here in London, I had a stint at NW London, where I was champion in Step 7, and won two cups, then I played for St. Panteleimon in Step 5 last season, before having the great honour of defending this great shirt with Corinthian-Casuals.

How did you come to join Casuals?

Emerson Pilonetto and I already had an old friendship, even off the field. We had already played together on some teams, and he was talking to someone from Corinthian-Casuals and he was going to do a trial. He asked me if I was interested as well, because he knew I was a Corinthians fan. Of course I wanted to, so he sent a video of me performing, the coaches liked it and after that we started coming to training. Thank God everything went well.

How much do you know about the historical connection between Corinthian-Casuals and Brazil?

I remember watching the Corinthians game against Corinthian-Casuals in 2015, but since I arrived in London I never fully knew about it. One time, when I looked at the profile of the Fiel Londres, I saw that they were going to games here in London, so I did some research and started connecting one thing to another and remembering the game in Itaquera. But I confess that with each report I see and each bit of the history I learn, I become prouder to be at this club. Knowing that I am where it all began is a source of great joy for me.

How have you enjoyed your time here?

I already joined this club loving it, but I was very well received by the committee. The players are very close and I believe that the affection of the fans is the main thing – they really welcomed me.

I’ve played 32 games this season, and among all these games there are two that really marked me. The first was when we were traveling to Jersey for a game far away, where we took a plane. I know that in all the games the fans are present and they always go and sing and encourage us a lot, but when we arrived in Jersey and were on our way to the stadium, we passed in front of a bar and I had the impression of having seen a pink Casuals shirt. I thought that it was just my imagination, but when the bus passed I saw all those people, and it was a massive party! Everyone was shouting, I couldn’t believe they would travel all that distance, and I felt a huge pressure because I wanted to come back with the victory at all costs, not just for myself but also for the club and for them.
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The second game that made an impression on me was against Abbey Rangers at home. It was a game in which we conceded a goal in the 15th minute and from then on, we were trying to equalise, but the ball wouldn’t go in. I remember very well our fans sang the whole game but when it was around the 80th minute it seemed like the atmosphere had changed, because the fans were singing louder and louder and banging on the stands. It seemed like we were winning, and their singing renewed my strength. I believe it wasn’t just me, because we were already attacking but from then on we started to be more intense and it was no surprise at the 84th minute when Diogo scored a goal, and with one minute left in the game Shea scored the winning goal. At that moment we could see how strong our group is and how powerful our fans are. In that game I felt a very strong connection between us.

We’ve all heard the story of the Corinthian Football Club and how it was brought into being by the need to gather the best English players together in one place to build a national squad capable of beating Scotland. The Corinthians’ white kit grew in fame and inspired Corinthians Paulista and Real Madrid to wear the same. It remains our away kit to this day.

The Casuals, on the other hand, have a more mysterious history regarding the choice of club colours. There are competing stories, in fact.

The team’s distinctive home colours of chocolate and pink have endured for 130 years and were reputedly the racing colours of one of Casuals’ founder members in 1883, Thomas William Blenkiron. However, it is just as possible they are based on the colours of Westminster and Charterhouse schools, whose players made up the bulk of Casuals’ early squads.

The alternative pink-and-chocolate history is a more romantic tale. According to this version, Blenkiron, a former student of the Charterhouse public school decided to dedicate the colours of his team to Mrs Marion “Annie” Haig Brown, wife of the headmaster and active supporter of all the school’s sports clubs. 

Mrs Brown was known for her pink shawl which she wore in support of the school teams. When deciding on the livery of his team, Thomas went back to his training days and without a doubt in his heart, he knew he would honour Mrs Annie. He chose pink for the colour of Mrs B’s shawl and brown as a nod to the name of his first-ever supporter.

After the merger of the two clubs, it was agreed and constituted that the team would wear the pink-and-chocolate team kit for official matches, while for friendly matches or special tournaments it would wear white in honour of the “Corinthian” history. After several years this fell by the wayside and Corinthian-Casuals went back to wearing a white shirt and blue shorts. 

The return to pink and brown took place in 1997, when manager, Trevor Waller, spoke to the board of directors about the financial difficulty the club sadly found itself in. The members were aware that the club needed new kits, because theirs were worn out, but they could not afford the costs of all the new home and away shirts. 

Trevor suggested, as a way to save money, that we go back to the “Casuals” model. The idea was simple: with that unusual combination, there would hardly ever be a colour clash with any other team, and this way they wouldn’t need to buy two sets of new shirts, just one would be enough! 
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The committee approved the proposal and today the “Corinthian” colours are used as an away kit. A practical but winning choice, the Corinthian-Casuals kit is arguably the most interesting and original kit in the entire English football scene and beyond. You can choose which version of the pink-and-chocolate history you want to believe!

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E. Farquhar Buzzard, or to give him his full name, Sir Edward Farquhar Buzzard, 1st Baronet, KCVO, FRCP, may not be one of the most often-celebrated Corinthians of his time, given he played for the club during its golden age in the 1890s. However, Buzzard had one of the most extraordinary off-field stories of any player to have represented this great club.

A renowned medical mind, he was not only Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford, but also served as physician to three reigning British monarchs. He was Physician-in-Ordinary to King George V between 1932 and 1936, and then to Edward VIII in 1936, before being made Extra Physician to George VI in 1937.

Between 1936 and 1937, he was also president of the British Medical Association, gaining the rank of Honorary Colonel in the service of the Royal Army Medical Corps and being made a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO) in the 1927 Birthday Honours.

All those achievements, however, pale in significance as far as our audience is concerned next to his 20 games for the Corinthians, in which he scored twice, and a further 20 appearances for the Casuals, for whom he totalled four goals.

Buzzard’s talent had shown itself early, as he was a First XI player at Charterhouse school, where he played as a forward and was renowned for his goalscoring prowess, netting four times as his team managed eight in a crunch game against old rivals Westminster in 1890.

Then, at Oxford University, representing Magdalen College, he switched to full-back as his side won the Inter-Collegiate Cup three years in a row during his time there. They were so dominant that, in the 1893 season, the Magdalen first and second XIs scored a combined 102 goals and conceded just six. According to A.M. Cooke’s biography of Buzzard, the team’s celebrations after one of those cup successes were “of such character that the dons were moved to take action,” threatening to send down the team officials if they repeated the feat and celebrated in any such fashion again.

As one of the triumphant college’s best players, Buzzard – nicknamed “The Bird” for obvious reasons – was also part of the Oxford University team, showing his versatility further by playing half-back, in sides that beat Cambridge in the varsity match. Alongside him in that dominant Oxford team were fellow Corinthian legends C.B. Fry, G.O. Smith and G.B. Raikes, all of them among the greatest amateur footballers of their time.

He managed to get his mate Fry into deep water on one occasion, persuading him to pose nude in various athletic poses to portray muscular structure. The photos later appeared in a book, much to the shock of Fry’s sister’s friend, who came across images of her acquaintance unclothed in the window of a bookshop in Regent Street.

After graduating, Buzzard played for Old Carthusians at the peak of their powers, as they reached 11 major finals (Amateur Cup, Charity Cup and London Cup) between 1892 and 1897. In one of those finals, he chose to represent his old boys against the Casuals in the London Senior Cup final in 1896 and finished up on the winning side.

Most of his games for Corinthian came in the 1894/95 season, when he was a regular at left-half and scored in a thrilling 5-4 defeat to Aston Villa. Among the other games he played was the traditional New Year’s match against Queen’s Park in Glasgow, where once again his team lost a high-scoring game by the odd goal, going down 3-2 in front of 10,000 people. That formed part of the team’s tour of the north and Scotland that winter, in which Buzzard played a key part, scoring in a 6-3 win over Dundee Wanderers. One game – a 2-2 draw at Aberdeen – was played in six inches of snow.

For all his exploits in varsity and amateur club football, however, Buzzard missed out on an England cap, which comes as a surprise when you consider his time with Corinthian overlapped the period in which they provided the entire England XI. He came agonisingly close on one occasion when the player he was slated to stand in for rose from his sickbed, insisting on playing.

Buzzard was an all-round sportsman, earning an Oxford blue in lawn tennis, and continued to wield his racket into his 70s, often defeating opponents half his age at tennis and squash. He entered the singles draw of the local tennis tournament near his home in Godalming well into advanced age.

In all sports, he always played “with intense concentration, because his aim was to win.” After seeing his son doing handstands in the outfield of a family cricket match, he reportedly returned home looking “very glum”, saying, “To think that I should have a son not keen on games.”

He needn’t have worried, as that son, Anthony Wass Buzzard, became an accomplished sportsman and played tennis at Wimbledon, including doubles alongside his younger brother, Teddy. Anthony’s daughter, Gillian, who helped us with our research for this article, competed at Junior Wimbledon and represented London University on the tennis court.

Footballing prowess seems to have been limited to the one generation, though, as Farquhar’s younger brother, Archie Dougan Buzzard, also played a handful of games for Casuals.

Farquhar strongly believed that team sports were good for the mind as well as the body, pointing out that they put players into a constantly changing environment in which they were expected to react quickly and precisely to the challenges they faced. It was, he said, good training for life to “make rapid decisions in rapidly changing surroundings.”

Buzzard passed away in December 1945, at the age of 73.

Words: Dominic Bliss

Corinthian-Casuals and Epsom & Ewell have decided to end our groundshare agreement at King George’s Field at the conclusion of the 2024/25 season.

Unfortunately, regular use of the pitch by both clubs’ men’s first teams, as well as Corinthian-Casuals’ Under-18s side, has taken too much of a toll on the playing surface. Consequently, we have come to the difficult decision to end the groundshare after one season.

All at Corinthian-Casuals would like to thank Epsom & Ewell for their help in making improvements to the ground this season and wish them the very best in their search for a new home.

We look forward to the remainder of the current campaign, in particular the game between our two clubs on Saturday 8 February.

Corinthian-Casuals will not be seeking another groundshare arrangement for the foreseeable future.

Our secret weapon from Brazil, Diogo da Silva is a lifelong Corinthians supporter who arrived in England last summer after previously playing in Albania and Kosovo.

The 29-year-old has been a revelation this season, top scoring for us with 14 goals to date from his role behind the striker. As a boyhood Corinthians fan, he is living his dream every time he pulls on the shirt. Here’s what he had to say about his first season in Casuals colour so far…

Diogo, how much are you enjoying this season and your performances?
I am very happy with my performance at Corinthian-Casuals, being able to score goals and play well.

What has been your journey in football?
I started playing for my hometown club, Sampaio Correia in Maranhão, then I went to Atlético Mineiro in Belo Horizonte and then I went to Audax in Rio de Janeiro. Soon after, I moved to Albania, where I played for Dinamo Tirana for three years before I went to Kosovo and played for Drenica KF. When my contract ended, I came to London.

How did you come to join Corinthian-Casuals?
Just two days after I arrived in London, some friends invited me to play in a football tournament in Epsom, where I met our coach, Mu Maan. He saw me playing and invited me to come to Corinthian-Casuals.

Do you know much about our historical connection to Brazilian football?
I know a little bit. The Corinthians were one of the most responsible for the spread of football in Latin America, and so Sport Club Corinthians Paulista was formed with the intention of showing that the new club could become as big and well-known as the English Corinthians.

How do you like it here?
I really like this team, I’m a die-hard Corinthians fan, and everyone in my family is Corinthians, so I play with all my heart to win wearing this jersey.

What level were you playing in Brazil and Albania, and how did it compare to this level of English football?
In Brazil the level is very high, many players have experience. In Albania and in English football, however, there is a lot of physical contact. I leave all the games feeling sore, but I have a bit of quality where it’s better for me to be able to help the team. In English football, I’ve learned that you have to be more dynamic, you have to keep the ball as little as possible, and you have to be quicker.

What are your hopes for the future with this club?
My wish for this club is to become champions and move up to the next division.

Interview: Dominic Bliss
Images: Stuart Tree

Our deep-lying midfielder started out in the professional game and had decided to hang up his boots, until a chance meeting with Casuals coach Gabriel Odunaike encouraged him to head to Tolworth this season. Dominic Bliss caught up with him as 2024 draws to an end…

How did you end up at Corinthian-Casuals this season?
I had actually stopped playing for a few years, and then I saw Gabs [Odunaike] in Ikea. He told me he was down here as assistant and said I was too young to stop playing and whatnot.

I’ve known Gabs for a long time. We played together at Walton Casuals when I went there one pre-season, so that’s when I got to know him, but I’ve played against him loads of times as well.

I love that a chance meeting in Ikea has led to you returning to the pitch.
The funny thing is, I wasn’t even buying anything there – I was just getting my window changed!

Did you seal the deal over some Ikea meatballs?
It’s funny you should say that because that’s actually where we saw each other – I was getting some food! He just told me to come down to Corinthian-Casuals and I did.

How would you summarise the season so far?
It’s a newly assembled group, it’s the management’s first job, and only a few of the boys had played together before. As a collective, it’s a new group and we’ve been getting to understand each other and what the manager wants. We’ve had some bad luck, but the manager always comes into the changing room with a positive attitude. There are 11 games left, so we just have to try and stop conceding, and killing ourselves so early in games. If we do that we’ll give ourselves a chance of getting more positive results.

How have you found the club as a whole?
I love it. I love the fans, and that’s what makes results like Guildford and Jersey at home really difficult, because even if you do well for large parts of the game, you feel like you’ve let the fans down. Even shaking their hands at the end of the game is hard, because you really feel like you’ve let them down. But they’re always positive and singing – I love them.

It’s a credit to the club. I played against Corinthian-Casuals a few times in the past and I didn’t know too much about the club, I just knew that they had a link to the Brazilian club. But being here, you can see it’s a really special club and I really appreciate the fans, the whole squad does.

What’s it like having Brazilian team-mates?
It’s good! I’m terrible at languages but I’m always asking them for Portuguese words. I was in Portugal in the summer and the only words I came back with were ‘tudo ben’! So I always say that to them! But they’re cool guys, and they’re really talented as well. They love football too.

Tell us about your early football career.
I was at Brentford as a youth player, then I went to Chesterfield when I was released at 18, and I was there for two years. In that time, I went on loan to Sheffield FC, who are another historic football club. They’ve got a good fan base as well, and this club reminds me a bit of them actually. I went to Gateshead for a bit as well, and played in the Conference, which was good for me at a young age.

After coming south again, I ended up at Dulwich, Kingstonian and a few other clubs. Dulwich was the main club I played for down here.

How do you feel about the potential of this Casuals squad?
The young players in the team, like Shea, Kiyo and a few other boys, are really talented. There’s a lot of talent, a lot of good attributes, it’s just game know-how now and that comes with experience and continuously educating yourself. The best way to do that is to watch football and watch what players in your position do, then try to expand that to look at what the whole team is doing in different parts of the game. As a whole, our team is gaining experience with every game that will help us in the future. I think success will come.

Mo Maan returned to Corinthian-Casuals on his brother Mu’s coaching staff this summer and has poured his heart and soul into the role in the months since. Dominic Bliss caught up with him last week to talk about the Maan family work ethic, his hopes for the future and being ready to take the field when the situation demands it…

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Can you give us an idea of the sense of excitement among the two Maan brothers when you found out you’d be returning to Corinthian-Casuals in the summer?

I remember this well. I was in the office [at Skip It] and he was outside working on the premises, and he rang me up and said, “Mo, guess what! I got the job.”

I said, “No way!” and since then he’s been like a kid at Christmas every single day. I was buzzing for him, because everyone knows how much he loves Casuals and what Casuals means to him, and I know that when he does something, he gives a million per cent.

He was like, “Mo, I want you to come in, I want you to do this, I want you to do that.”

To be brutally honest, I was a bit apprehensive when he first told me because, obviously, we’ve never done this, but then I was sitting at home with him and talking about his plans and what he wants to do. The more I spoke to him, the more I bought into it, and come pre-season, when we started training, I was like, “Wow, we’re actually here, we’re actually doing this.” It was one of the most exciting times I’ve had for a while.

What I respect about you two is that you set your sights on something and go out and do it, as you’ve shown in business, with Skip It, and as you’ve done here as well. It takes courage to take on a project and back your vision.

The thing is, with business, there’s been no fear of failing. If we fail, we pick ourselves up and go again. That’s why we’ve got a successful business. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve had a lot of knock-backs and hard times, but we get back up and we go again. It’s the same with football. We’ve had hard days and good days, and the hard days make us what we are now.

How much of your time does Casuals take up?

Not as much as it does Mu’s! But we’ve not always got a kitman and stuff like that, and I enjoy going early to games. He’s always like, “You’re so early to everything!” but I’ve always been like that. Even playing football, I used to turn up long before the match and just sit around and zone in. But I enjoy doing something to switch off from work, and it’s worth it.

I’d say the same thing about my commitments at the club. It’s worth it and it’s enjoyable most of the time. It’s a good thing to do!

It is! And what these fans do for this club is just unbelievable and I’ve never played in front of a crowd like that, so it’s nice to be part of a club that has a big following.

We caught up with our Brazilian left-back to talk about his journey from Brazil to London, via Italy, and the unique aspects of this club where he has found a tight-knit group of players and a fanbase like no other…

Interview: Dominic Bliss
Images: Stuart Tree

How has your first season with Corinthian-Casuals gone so far?

It has been a great experience for me because the Corinthians are a big team – I have played before at the same level, but there is a big difference because the supporters here give us an extra feeling. I know the history about the Corinthians in Brazil and here, so to be here now is perfect.

Did you say you’ve played at this level before?

Yeah, I played for St Panteleimon last year, but the team is no more for financial reasons – it costs a lot to run a team, it’s not easy to manage.

How did you and the other Brazilian players find out about Corinthian-Casuals?

Someone sent my video to Mu and he told me to come to training. I had come in last year, but the team was not doing good, so I didn’t go because I thought it wasn’t the time. Then, this summer, someone saw the Brazilian players and now we have a lot of Brazilians here because everyone knows someone else who can play… like I did with Marcos. I said, “Gaffer, I have a player here who I think you might be interested in.” He said, “Bring him to training.”

Tell us about your football background.

I started in Brazil, playing Under-15s for Paranaense in my region, Parana. Then I moved to São Paulo, to play for Rio Claro. It was good there because São Paulo is the place where most people see you play, so you get more visibility and you can get an agent, and things like this.

After this, I played in the Under-17s for a team called Paulista, and some agent saw me play there and said he liked my game. He told me he wanted to sign me and started to work with me. He brought me to Italy, but I didn’t have a good experience there because I didn’t have the documents I needed. I could only stay in this one place for three months and I lost time in this crazy situation. He told me one thing, but when I arrived there it was another.

But my family come from Italy, so I started to do the work to get the documents I needed, to do things right. It took about a year to do this, and I didn’t play for this year.

After I got the documents, I was able to play again, and I played for Akragas in Sicily, in a league called Eccellenza, which is like the National League here. They are quite a big club because they had played in Serie C in the years before, and had a big stadium with a lot of supporters. It was a great experience I had there. After that, I moved to another Italian team, Ellera, but that was when the pandemic happened, and after that I moved to England.

How come you came to England?

They stopped the championship and everything because of the pandemic and I told friends I wanted to come to England. I had this feeling to come here, and it was the right time to do it because I hadn’t been playing in Italy during the pandemic.

After I came here, I started to play again but it was at quite a low level, with a team called North West London, who have many, many Brazilians – Marcos [dos Santos] was playing there too. It’s quite funny because I brought him there too, the same as I did here – in Brazil we had the same agent, but we had never actually met. When he came to England, he sent me a message saying, “Bro, I came to England, do you know any teams here?” And, yeah, he’s a good player.

Who was the first of the Brazilians to arrive at Corinthian-Casuals?

I need to remember! I think it was the two keepers, Murillo and Welber, and then they started to bring other players.

What do you think this group of players can achieve?

This group is special. We are like family and everyone understands how big Corinthians is. We can’t stay in this division long, because when other teams come to play against us at our home, they give everything because they know how big the game is.

The group is good, and everyone respects us. Even though we don’t have very good English, they understand us and it’s nice because sometimes it’s hard to adapt, but not here.

And the fans…
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For me, they are amazing, they are great people and I already know all the faces! They always support, if we win or if we lose, they sing and I love this. I will always try to give my best for them.

In the first edition of a new feature giving a voice to our loyal supporters, Dominic Bliss speaks to a man who has quickly become part of the fabric of our fanbase…

Kev, tell us how you first came to Casuals and how you ended up becoming a die-hard fan.

The first time I went to a Casuals match was the day I moved to Berrylands in March 2023. My mate George, who has been going for years, asked me to go to get out of the way of the removal men. It was against Enfield Town and we lost 3-0, but I’ve been going ever since.

What is it about this club that has drawn you in and which keeps you coming back?

I come back because it’s only five mins up the road, and I feel welcome at the club. I’m not just George’s mate or a number and I’ve made lots of friends through going to Casuals. The football is only a part of it.

How important is the social side of matchday for you?

The social side is important to me. I don’t think I’d do half the things I do now if I didn’t talk to other supporters – things like going to away games, including getting on a plane to Jersey. Then playing and managing a walking football team, or going to watch cricket at the Oval.

Does non-league football appeal to you more than the professional game, and why?

The professional game has got too much money in it. How can you have the drive and determination on getting better if you are a millionaire at 16-17? Also, at the end of the game, you don’t see the players go over to the fans after a loss – they run down the tunnel. It is such a different game!

You’ve commented in the past that it’s unusual to see disabled supporters at non-league grounds. Why do you think that is?

I really don’t know why there are not ANY disabled supporters at non-league grounds. George and I have been to seven-ish away games and haven’t seen another wheelchair. The facilities have been good at most of them – some a little bit strange (like going through a DIY shop to get to the toilet), but that’s all part of an away day.

What do you think non-league clubs could do better to make the grounds easier for disabled fans to navigate and welcome more disabled people to their matches?

The biggest thing is access, and I don’t mean putting a ramp in where its steeper than a ski jump. Think about what you are doing, ask a wheelchair user what they would like. Next for me is getting to a useable toilet. Many grounds at this level have got good facilities but believe me I’ve been in some which is similar to an escape room. One thing which I enjoy about non-league grounds is I can sit wherever I want to, with all the other Casuals supporters, not being forced to sit with all the disabled fans who I don’t know!

What have been your stand-out moments as a Casuals fan?

Going to Jersey for the weekend to watch Casuals play has to be the top highlight so far – seeing them play in Europe (sort of), and hopefully I’ll get to do it again someday. Another moment is getting on the front cover of a Casuals programme. There haven’t been many footballing moments… YET, but that comeback win against Abbey Rangers was a great one.

How do you feel about the current setup and our prospects for the future?

The future of the club looks bright. Things look pretty stable at present. After two years of dross on and off the pitch, the club appears to be turning over a new leaf with a good manager and a core of players who really want to do their best to help Casuals move in the right direction. Hopefully, this will lead us to promotion in the next few years.

Is there anything else you’d like to get across that hasn’t been covered by my questions above?

I would like to thank the club for accepting me and making me feel like I belong. They’ve done little things to make my life easier – for example, they introduced a pitch-side bar, and how many clubs have one of those?! The supporters have been great to me too. Many of them find it difficult to understand me in the beginning, but we get there in the end. Finally, a very big thank you to my good friend George. He takes me to most of the games and I really do appreciate it.

Words: Llew Walker

For those visiting the club for the first time, the Corinthian Roll of Honour in the clubhouse is a sobering reminder of the sacrifice made by so many over 100 years ago. The mantle lists 22 of our players who fell in ‘the war to end all wars.’ Most were also Casuals players; some had represented England or played for professional clubs.

The number of Casuals who had fallen was never calculated or commemorated. It was not until 2009 that a rough estimate of ten fallen Casuals was suggested. But in recent years, research has revealed another dozen Corinthians and more than 100 Casuals, many of whom appeared for both clubs. Currently, 124 players have been identified and it is highly likely that this number will increase in the future as research reveals more. Corinthians and Casuals lost more players in the Great War than any other association football club, so it is right and proper that we remember and honour those who played for the club in years past and who gave their lives in the service of their country.

They were members of a generation who understood that taking up arms to fight for King and Country was not just their duty but a matter of personal honour and moral obligation. There were no ulterior motives, no hidden agendas. They all truly believed that volunteering in their country’s hour of need was the right thing to do. They hoped they would act honourably, nobly and bravely in the face of danger, but they were all tormented by the fear that they would be found wanting. However, they faced their fate with a determination and acceptance that modern generations would find hard to comprehend.

Most were junior officers, ‘subalterns’, responsible for the soldiers in their charge. They led by example, were the first over the top and the last to retire. Consequently, life expectancy for a junior officer on the battlefield was only six weeks.

Some of those who fell were household names at the time, but most were reasonably unknown outside footballing circles. They were all unpaid amateurs who loved the game, but football came second to their occupations or studies. Yet when the call came, they immediately volunteered, leaving their jobs, families and studies and putting their lives on hold.
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Even though many had long since retired from the game, as young men, they had played for the club. Some made dozens of appearances, others only a handful and some played only once. John Hyland Fosdick never played for the club at all, even though his name appears on the mantle in the clubhouse. He had been invited to tour South America with Corinthians and was halfway across the Atlantic when war was declared. Without having played a game, the whole team immediately returned to England to sign up. Fosdick died in July 1915 when he was struck in the head by shrapnel while defending the Hooge Crater. He was 20 years old and still a student at Cambridge.
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At the other end of the scale, Thomas Sowerby Rowlandson played 150 games for Corinthian and 20 for Casuals. He made his debut as a 15-year-old schoolboy at Charterhouse, drafted into the team for the injured Casuals goalkeeper. He kept a clean sheet that day. His football career included appearances for professional teams like Sunderland and Newcastle, and he was also selected to represent England. Tom fell, leading his company in an attack on a German trench. He had tied a red handkerchief to a walking stick and held it over his head, so his men could see him and follow. Reaching the trench first, he was hit by a bomb or grenade, and although he was carried from the battlefield, he later died from his wounds. He was 36 years old.

Aged between 20 and 57, they came from all corners of the British Isles. They fell in Flanders, France, and around the world, in places with haunting, infamous names such as Gallipoli, Ypres, Loos, the Somme and Passchendaele. Many suffered from shell shock or were wounded and hospitalised, always choosing to return to the regiment, the men and their fate.

Most were killed in action or died from wounds. Some died from faulty munitions, accidents or illnesses and three, damaged by the war, took their own lives. Others were listed as missing in action, and 27 have no known graves, their bodies lost to various battlefields. Several were killed by friendly fire, and five sets of brothers who played for the club fell. Around half were married, and over fifty sons and daughters lost their father. A handful were unmarried only sons, their deaths ending their family’s bloodline.
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It’s been 110 years since these men answered the call to arms. Their names appear on countless monuments and honour rolls at home and abroad. In Fallen, for the first time, they appear together as our club mates, their sacrifices commemorated and their stories told. We share a bond with them. They are our fallen comrades, and they shall never be forgotten. ​