Edwin Cecil Russell Christmas (13 January 1886 – 7 October 1916) was an English amateur

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who played twice for

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

in 1912.

Playing career

Born in

in early 1886, he joined Southampton as an amateur in 1908 and made several appearances for the reserve team, but his business career prevented him devoting much time to football. In 1910 he left football to devote himself full-time to his family hotel business, but was persuaded to return to The Dell by reserve team manager George Carter the following year. In March 1912, following the dismissal of first choice

centre forward Forwards (also known as attackers) are outfield positions in an association football team who play the furthest up the pitch and are therefore most responsible for scoring goals as well as assisting them. As with any attacking player, the role ...

Henry Hamilton for a serious breach of club discipline, Christmas was drafted into the first team. Despite his "''pace and dribbling skills''" he was not a success and he returned to the reserves. Following serious injury, at the end of the 1911–12 season he "''gave up trying to make the grade''" and ended his football career.

Military service and death

During the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

he enlisted in the 1/28th (County of London) Battalion (

Artists Rifles The 21 Special Air Service Regiment (Artists) (Reserve), historically known as The Artists Rifles is a regiment of the Army Reserve. Its name is abbreviated to 21 SAS(R). Raised in London in 1859 as a volunteer light infantry unit, the regimen ...

), London Regiment in June 1915, before being commissioned as

second lieutenant Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces, comparable to NATO OF-1 rank. Australia The rank of second lieutenant existed in the military forces of the Australian colonies and Australian Army until ...

in the 18th (Service) Battalion (Arts & Crafts)

King's Royal Rifle Corps The King's Royal Rifle Corps was an infantry rifle regiment of the British Army that was originally raised in British North America as the Royal American Regiment during the phase of the Seven Years' War in North America known in the United St ...

in March 1916, effective from December 1915. He died in France on 7 October 1916, aged 30, of wounds received in action in an attempt to secure the road between

Le Sars Le Sars is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Hauts-de-France region of France. Geography Le Sars is situated south of Arras, at the junction of the D11 and the D929 roads. Population Places of interest * The church of St.Pi ...

and Flers during the

Battle of the Somme The Battle of the Somme ( French: Bataille de la Somme), also known as the Somme offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and French Third Republic against the German Empire. It took place bet ...

, and is commemorated on the

Thiepval Memorial The Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme is a war memorial to 72,337 missing British and South African servicemen who died in the Battles of the Somme of the First World War between 1915 and 1918, with no known grave. It is near the ...

, and on the

Southampton Cenotaph Southampton Cenotaph is a World War I memorials, First World War memorial designed by Edwin Lutyens, Sir Edwin Lutyens and located in Watts Park in the southern English city of Southampton. The memorial was the first of dozens by Lutyens to be ...

Personal

Christmas was the son of Edwin and Margaret Abigail Christmas, of Southampton. He was initiated into the Freemasons' Lodge of Peace and Harmony in January 1915.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Christmas, Cecil 1886 births 1916 deaths Footballers from Southampton English men's footballers Southampton F.C. players Southern Football League players British Army personnel of World War I British military personnel killed in the Battle of the Somme King's Royal Rifle Corps officers Freemasons of the United Grand Lodge of England Men's association football forwards Military personnel from Southampton Artists' Rifles soldiers