OFFICIALS from football rivals Hearts and Hibs travelled to France yesterday to pay tribute to players who died at the Somme.

Men from both teams fought as comrades and sacrificed their lives in the World War I bloodbath 90 years ago today.

One Hibs player and 15 from Hearts joined the 16th Battalion The Royal Scots.

It was nicknamed McRae's Battalion after its charismatic colonel, Sir George McCrae.

And seven of the players died in action during the war.

Both Edinburgh clubs will put aside football rivalry as they remember their bravery today.

The group will be joined by Rebus star Ken Stott, a lifelong Hearts fan, for an emotional ceremony at the site of the battle.

He will read from the letters of an officer and head maths teacher at an Edinburgh high school who was killed in action.

A Hearts spokesman said: "We must not and will not forget the greatest achievement in the history of Hearts. We are forever indebted to those brave men."

A Hibs spokesman added: "We are proud of the part these men played in making the ultimate sacrifice. We are grateful for any opportunity to remember them."

The footballing volunteers went over the top on July 1 1916. Hearts captain Sergeant Duncan Currie led his teammates into action on the first day of the Somme offensive.

Three of the Hearts men -Private Harry Wattie, Private Ernest Ellis and Lance Corporal James Boyd - died almost instantly along with three-quarters of the battalion.

Sergeant Currie died later that month.

No bodies of the Hearts players were ever recovered but their names appear on the Thiepval memorial along with more than 72,000 others who have no known graves.

Today, a colour party from the battalion, made up almost entirely of sportsmen, will unfurl the same Union flag that was carried on the first day of the battle.

It will be their last official engagement before being amalgamated into the new Royal Regiment of Scotland.

Executive minister Margaret Curran will also attend, along with Edinburgh Lord Provost Lesley Hinds and Royal British Legion Scotland vice-chairman George MacDonald.

They will lay wreaths in La Boisselle in France at the Lochnagar Crater, where a German mine exploded on the morning of the battle.

More wreaths will be laid at a 14ft-high cairn erected at the nearby Somme village of Contalmaison in 2004.

British Legion spokesman Neil Griffiths said: "We are commemorating the biggest disaster ever in the history of the British Army."

Taken from the Daily Record