Wartime heroes' football goes up for sale

It was hardly the World Cup but in the darkest days of the Second World War, all eyes in Halesowen were on a football match between two teams of real heroes.

A side from RAF Cosford representing the Royal Air Force took on a team from the Free Czech Army.

Nearly 70 years on, the score has long been forgotten but a memento of the match, a signed football, goes under the hammer next month. It is a reminder of a terrible period of the war and also of an appalling atrocity.

The Free Czech Army was made up of a few hundred volunteers who fled Czechoslovakia in 1939.

The little army was based near Leamington Spa and provided the two-man team which assassinated the Nazi ruler of Czechoslovakia, Reinard Heydrich, in 1942.

In retaliation the Nazis shot hundreds of hostages and destroyed the Czech village of Lidice, near Prague.

Nearly 200 men over 16 years of age from the village were murdered by the Germans. The rest of the population were sent to concentration camps.

As the Czech team played football against the RAF Cosford side at the home ground of Halesowen Town FC, The Grove in 1941, they could have had no idea of the blow their comrades would later strike and the terrible retribution that would follow.

The hand-sewn leather ball was signed by all the Czech team and is among a varied collection going under the hammer from 10am at Fieldings Auctioneers in Mill Race Lane, Stourbridge, on July 3. Auctioneers expect it to sell for around £120.

Also for sale are an enamelled badge and photographs of the teams. On the reverse of one of the photographs is the message "Mayor of Halesowen Cllr W Hogetts and Cllr L Harper with the team from the football match between RAF and Czech freedom fighters 1940-42".