A Suffolk historian who advised Sainsbury's on its Christmas advert uncovered a crucial new piece of wartime history while reading the account of a corporal from the 1st Norfolks.
Taff Gillingham was initially uncertain about being involved in the project because he was not aware of any historical evidence that conclusively proved football was played between the opposing sides during the Christmas truce of 1914.
Mr Gillingham, one of the directors of the Ipswich-based Khaki Devil which supplies historically accurate military uniforms to TV and film companies, had been looking for 15 years for information to corroborate the popular story of the British and German troops having a kickabout together.
But it was only in the course of his work for Sainsbury's that the final piece of the jigsaw fell into place.
He said: 'At first I was very sceptical about it. Football has hijacked the truce over the past few years.
'There is a danger that all of the true history is going to be lost because people think it was nothing more than a big game of football.'
Mr Gillingham was familiar with an account by Sergeant Frank Naden, of the 6th Cheshires, about a game with the German troops on Christmas Day in Wulverghem, Belgium, but had never seen anything to support Naden's version of events. It was not until he started helping Sainsbury's with the advertisement that he discovered a newspaper clipping in which Corporal A. Wyatt, of the 1st Norfolks, who fought alongside the Cheshires, describes the same football game.
The article from January 1915 tells of a letter written by Cpl Wyatt to his parents from the front: 'He says that when 'A' Company, 1st Norfolks, to which he belongs, arrived in the trenches on the 24th December they found everything quiet.
'There was no rifle firing. They had been in the trenches a short time when they heard someone singing Christmas hymns.'
The next day, Cpl Wyatt wrote, the troops from either side left their trenches and wished each other a merry Christmas.
His letter reads: 'We finished up in the same old way, kicking a football between the two firing lines. So football in the firing line between the British and Germans is the truth, as I was one that played.'
Mr Gillingham said: 'In all the years that I have been doing stuff about the truce I have never come across this account by Corporal Wyatt. There are several accounts of people who claim to have played football but a lot of them don't stack up.
'Just by complete fluke it just happened to arrive just at the right moment so we could actually corroborate it. So we could say, hand on heart, there was actually a game that the Norfolks and Cheshires played in.'
Mr Gillingham became involved in the Sainsbury's campaign because the chain wanted the advert to be as historically accurate as possible.
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