The yearly remembrance usually brings to mind McCrae’s Battalion, the team that fought for Great Britain, among the maroon-clad hordes, and this year will be no exception, despite the mounting euphoria surrounding their great start to the season.

Hibernian, Raith Rovers, Falkirk, Dunfermline Athletic, and East Fife were among the clubs represented in the 16th (Service) Battalion of the Royal Scots, the first of the so-called footballers or buddies battalions formed during World War I in 1914.

But no fewer than 16 Hearts players, who were widely regarded as one of Britain’s best teams and were leading the Scottish league at the time, enlisted in a unit named after its charismatic colonel Sir George McCrae, the former Liberal MP for Edinburgh East, along with 500 supporters.

On July 1, 1916, McCrae’s Battalion sustained horrific casualties during the first day of the Battle of the Somme on France’s Western Front. They lost 12 officers and 573 men, representing approximately 80% of their invading force.

Three Hearts footballers died on that dreadful day: Harry Wattie, Duncan Currie, and Ernie Ellis, while a fourth, Jimmy Boyd, was later killed in a conflict that is now regarded as one of the deadliest in human history.

Garry Halliday, an Edinburgh bricklayer who was one of the founding members of the Foundation of Hearts fan ownership group in 2010, believes that wearing a poppy and remembering the war dead on Remembrance Sunday has a special meaning for him and his fellow supporters because of what happened to their forefathers over a century ago.

“When we were setting up the foundation, our tagline was ‘Own the History, Share the Future’,” according to him. “The history of Hearts is distinct because of McCrae’s Battalion.

It would have been tragic and soul-destroying to lose that as a result of Vladimir Romanov’s mismanagement of the club. “Imagine what the Remembrance Day service at Haymarket would have been like if there had been no football club?

I would have thought, ‘These soldiers went to war to preserve the entire country, and we didn’t step up to save our club’. For me, that would have been awful.

“I believe that the wearing of the poppy and Remembrance Sunday hold special value for Hearts as a club and for all Hearts supporters because of McCrae’s Battalion. It is something the club should be based on.

The Hearts procession from Haymarket to Tynecastle (Image: Alan Rennie/Shutterstock)

On Sunday morning, Hearts chaplain Andy Prime will lead the Remembrance Sunday ceremony at the Heart of Midlothian War Memorial in Haymarket, and manager Derek McInnes will deliver a reading in memory of the team that went to war and the ultimate sacrifice that many of them made.

Halliday and the Foundation of Hearts were instrumental in having the memorial repaired and returned to its original site after it was moved and damaged during the long-term building of the tramline in Edinburgh’s city centre from 2008 to 2014.

“Jack Alexander, the author of the McCrae’s Battalion book, and the McCrae’s Battalion Trust did a fantastic job getting the memorial put back up,” he told me. “At one point, it appeared like it would be relocated somewhere.

It has shifted slightly due to the tram construction, but it is still roughly where it was previously. “It took roughly 12 years to put the monies together. My late friend Robert Craig, an architect, built the paving around the Haymarket memorial.

He was a Rangers supporter, but he made sure it received a little more respect than it had previously. Unfortunately, it wasn’t given the best care while in storage.

“Bob selected the quotes that were etched into the masonry. Unfortunately, he died before we could finish the pavement, so he never got to see it. But there’s a heart with his name on it.

We thought it was an appropriate memorial to him. “It is part of the Maroon Mile project, which is now being created between the Haymarket Memorial and the Tynecastle Museum.

There is an opportunity for students to learn about it. You don’t want that to be lost for future generations.” McCrae’s Battalion is likewise remembered far and wide.

Alexander helped build a memorial cairn at Contalmaison, France, where numerous Hearts players lost their lives in the early days of the Battle of the Somme, as well the introduction of an annual ceremony to honour those who lost their lives on July 1.

Halliday attended for the second time earlier this year. “It was a wonderful day,” he added. “They erected a marquee and provided beer and wine for everyone.

There were armed forces from throughout the world present. The group handed the mayoress a gift. They pretty practically shut down the village. The schoolchildren are involved.

This is a very moving ceremony. “The cairn is composed of Clashach sandstone from Scotland. It’s the toughest sandstone you can obtain. The Hearts crest on the Haymarket memorial is constructed of the same sandstone.

The McCrae’s Battalion Trust raised the monies needed to construct it, and it is right that something permanent be built in their memory in Contalmaison.”I attended because of McCrae’s Battalion and what they represent for Hearts.

However, my great-grandfather, William Cook Halliday, was killed at the Battle of the Somme at the age of 33. His burial is not far from Lille, therefore I usually go there while I am in Contalmaison.

“The Foundation of Hearts is something I am pleased to punch. We have now raised about £20 million, and we are in good shape as a club both on and off the pitch.

But the way McCrae’s Battalion is remembered should be a source of pride for all Hearts fans.”

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