Forever Keele Issue 10 | 2015 | Page 49

FOOTBALL FOCUS Mark Holtz (1993) arranged with Sainsbury’s Hanley to provide bars of commemorative chocolate, seen in a famous Christmas advertisement portraying the 1914 truce football match, for the Keele team to give to their German counterparts. The Aachen players presented the Keele players with “Aachener Printen”; traditional Christmas cakes from the Aachen Christmas market. The Keele players invited the German team to Keele to replay Operation Friendship in 2015 where they would compete for a commemorative leather football signed by both teams and presented to Aachen. Operation Friendship fully earned its name as the teams met together again in the heart of the ancient city to revel in its Christmas market, voted the second-best in Europe in 2014. During their return journey the Keele team made a detour to Tyne Cot War Cemetery, near Ypres, Belgium, where they laid a wreath and held an act of remembrance. WATCH THE DOCUMENTARY HERE q Keith Harrison watch the interview here Forever Keele 2015 | 49