Today as part of our regular WW1 series we’re sharing another collection of powerful football images and propaganda posters spanning the years of the conflict.

Although organised football would eventually cease for the duration of the war, playing or viewing the sport remained an important leisure pursuit and a vital morale booster for the armed forces fighting on foreign fields or invalided back home to Britain.

Football on the Western Front, 1916

East Surrey Regiment

Hearts players in the Footballer Battalion, 1915

WW1 footballer recruitment appeal, 1914

British soldiers play football wearing gas masks, 1915

British football team wearing gas masks, northern France, 1916

WW1 football game in no-man’s land, 1914

Ex-Tottenham player Walter Tull (left) with fellow officers in 1917. He served as an officer in Italy and France & was killed in action

The Football Battalion, 1917

Officers v the ranks match with members of the 26th Divisional Ammunition Train (Service Corps), 1916

Armed forces watching the 1915 FA Cup Final at Old Trafford between Sheffield Utd and Chelsea

Balls made for entertaining the troops on the western front, 1916

WW1 football recruitment poster, 1916

Wounded soldiers play outside Blenheim Palace, 1916