THIS was Harry Myers, captain of the Keighley Rugby Football team, regarded as “one of the smartest half-backs in the country”, having played for both the county and for England. He captained Keighley for nine years.

On November 3, 1906, during a match against Dewsbury while running bent with the ball, he collided with an opposing forward and broke his spine. After a month at Dewsbury he was transferred to the Keighley and District Victoria Hospital, where he died on December 19. It was questionable whether he had been fit to be moved, but both he and his wife wished him to. He was 31 and left four children.

“Probably never before has there been a funeral in Keighley at which there has been such a large concourse of people of all classes,” reported the Keighley Herald. Crowds lined the route from the Parish Church to Utley Cemetery, where an estimated 6,000 to 8,000 trampled among the graves and where “no little damage must have been done, despite the frost-bound state of the ground”. Floral tributes were heaped on his grave.

The photograph has been supplied by Mr Kevin Seaton, of Shann Lane, Keighley.