Celtic’s Fallen – Patrick Slavin lost his life at the Somme

Patrick Slavin, Leigh Roose, Donnie McLeod, Archie McMillan, Robert Craig, John McLaughlin and Peter Johnstone. The Celtic Players who lost their lives in the First World War. Celtic historian David Potter is looking at adding his own thoughts on this later today. Meanwhile we’re grateful as always to The Celtic Wiki for their superb site which allows us to provide you with some information on each of these former Celtic players today.

Here is Patrick Slavin’s story, courtesy of the research efforts from the team over at The Celtic Wiki…

Shotts-born Patrick Slavin, the son of a Fauldhouse quarryman from Letterkenny, Co Donegal and a mother from Kilross, Co Sligo, signed for Celtic on 6 February 1897 from Fauldhouse Hibs.

The outside-right played his only league match for the Bhoys in a 2-0 league defeat at St Mirren on 13 March 1897, a hard defeat and can be deemed to have ended Celtic’s chances of winning the league title in what was at that time a very competitive push for the title, with only four points between the top four sides at the end (Celtic ended up in fourth place, with Hearts taking the league title for the first time in their history).

He was tried-out as Tommy Morrison’s replacement, and he had played his first game in the green and white stripes against Third Lanark at Parkhead in the Glasgow League on 27 February 1897. He scored the opener in a 3-1 win (An Alphabet of the Celts by Eugene MacBride & Martin O’Connor).

With Celtic on the verge of becoming a Limited Company who were planning to invest in new talent to bolster the first team, Patrick Slavin was deemed surplus to requirements and departed for Motherwell on 5 June 1897.

Playing career for “Patrick Slavin” (From the book An Alphabet of the Celts):

Extract from “Celtic Football Club and the Great War” by Robert Hoskins

The second Celtic player who lost his life on the Somme (along with Leigh Roose) was Sergeant Patrick Slavin whose playing career included spells at Fauldhouse Hibs, Heatherbell, Celtic, Broxburn and West Calder Swifts.

Sergeant Slavin was with the 2nd Bn Royal Scots and died on Monday 13 November 1916. Patrick lies buried in Serre Rd No 2 Cemetery in the same cemetery as my Great Great Uncle Harold Bates, which is the largest cemetery on the Somme, containing 7,126 graves.

Patrick’s Regiment was involved in one of the most significant Battles of the Somme campaign – the 2nd Battle for the village of Serre. On the fateful day of Patrick’s death, fog was thick as zero hour approached at 5am which signified the start of the 2nd ill-fated attack on Serre.

The Regimental diary states that they were not as prepared as they might have been for the unexpected weather conditions, suggesting that tapes should have been laid in advance to guide Patrick’s comrades to where the gaps were in the German barbed wire.

One cannot begin to imagine what it must have been like for Patrick and his comrades waiting to go over the top at 5am into ‘insufficient light’ plus thick fog with no tapes to guide them to where the enemy was.

If that was not bad enough the diary also informs us that not only had the German wire not been properly cut to the extent reported, but also the enemy lay in wait in ‘greater numbers than expected’.”

One suspects that even if Black Adder’s batman Baldrick had been in charge that day, his cunning plan would not have involved this suicide mission which resulted in 23 soldiers including Patrick being killed, 84 missing presumed dead and 177 wounded.