On behalf of Birchfield Harriers I'd like to thanks you all for your help in this. Here's a few more details. The original plaque was probably bronze and stood about 36" high. It was donated by G H Alexander, a member of the family of WW Alexander, after whom the stadium is named. Two members of the Alexander family are named on the Plaque; both survived the war. It originally hung in the old Birchfield Alexander Stadium (now the greyhound track). When the club moved in the 1970's it was taken down and transferred to the new stadium, but never put back up. After that, no-one has a complete memory of what happened. Some remember a club member saying that they would take it home for safe keeping, but no-one remembers who it was.
The reason we have the photo of it, which is framed in the club committee room, is because the then club archivist, Wilf Morgan, found a photo of it when it had been lined up with club trophies for a display. Fortunately the photo was of good enough quality to be enlarged so that the names can be read. We have been working on research on the names for a couple of years, in between researching the constant flow of queries that come into the club from ex-members and their families, but when the Lives of WW1 website went live, this gelled into the idea of re-uniting the WW1 members together as a group on that site. That was when we realised we'd need some extra time and funds to achieve this.
We already have more information about these individuals than is currently on the website as we like to verify as much of it as possible before putting it on display, but more will be visible soon. An appeal by Wilf some years ago in the local press brought no news of the original plaque, but we live in hope.
Here's the account of how much it meant to club members in the 1920's (taken from the club report at the opening of the Alexander Grounds in 1929) " At the Annual lMeeting on October 16th, 1919, the ROLL OF HONOUR, the gift of Vice-President G H Alexander, was on view and was very gratefully accepted on behalf of the Club by the President Ald. T H Cartwright, J.P., and to-day this is one of the Club's most prized possessions and will occupy pride of place eventually our home when we are able to erect it. At a Social held in January, 1920, when a presentation was made to Lance-Corporal A Wilcox, V.C., the Rt. Rev. the Lord Bishop of Birmingham (Dr Russell Wakefield) dedicated the Roll of Honour "To the Glory of God and in memory of men who did their duty to King and Country"
If you're interested in the club's history there is a permanent exhibition of some key characters and athletes on the first floor of the current stadium. It is signposted up the stairs from the stadium reception area (not the Harriers entrance). It is free. Some of this exhibition has now been borrowed 3 times by British Athletics for their "Icon" tent at major meetings, most recently a few weeks ago at the Olympic Stadium in London. We also have a lot of artefacts that we bring out for exhibitions, but these are not in the free display. We hope to add more pictures and histories soon to the permanent exhibition and hope to take some of our history banners and artefacts to Handsworth Town Hall in September. We can host group history meetings if you have a group that would like to visit and see more. these can be arranged through Stuart Paul.
If you have any more information or queries on any Birchfield Harrier please get in touch and we'll do our best to help.
Thanks for reading