16 May Dell Stadium to host first Duncan Edwards Peace Field Festival
Dudley’s Dell Stadium will host a unique football festival on Sunday, May 22 with the final game played on the recently dedicated Duncan Edwards Peace Field Pitch.
In recent months, a partnership has been formed between Dudley and three other Peace Field projects in the UK – George Best (Belfast), Denis Law (Aberdeen) and Sir Tom Finney (Preston) – and football teams representing each of these will take part in the tournament.
Dudley will be represented by a team of players from the Stourbridge & District Youth Football League.
In the week leading up to Christmas 1914, German and Allied soldiers stopped fighting to sing festive songs. On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, some ventured into no man’s land to exchange gifts and play games of football.
Today the truce is remembered as a symbolic moment of peace and humanity and as part of an initiative by the National Children’s Football Alliance, 39 peace pitches have been established across five continents in countries including the USA, Argentina, Ghana, Israel and Australia.
The tournament winners will receive a specially commissioned Duncan Edwards Trophy. Every player, coach and official participating in the festival will be presented with a Duncan Edwards Peace Field Medal by Dennis Mortimer, captain of the Aston Villa side which won the European Cup in 1982. Dennis recently led the youngsters representing Dudley in a coaching session to prepare for the event.
Mayor of Dudley, Councillor Anne Millward, said: “The Duncan Edwards Peace Field is a wonderful initiative and a sobering reminder to us all, of the sacrifices that have been made in battlefields around the world to preserve our freedom at home.
“The fact that for a few brief hours, two sets of adversaries, laid down their arms and came together to share a game of football is so very poignant.
“I am proud that the Dell Stadium, in the Dudley Borough has been chosen to host this inaugural Peace Field Football Festival in the name of Duncan Edwards.”
The festival has been previewed in the Express & Star and on the newspaper’s website.
Stourbridge News featured the event on the front page of its May 19 edition and on the website.
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