SWINDON Town FC will remember its WW1 war heroes at an immersive walk around the town next week.

History and performance group Radical Stroud will visit on October 6 to lead the walk to remember those killed, reciting poetry and reading declarations of the Swindon players with the date they died.

Starting at the Cenotaph, it will move up to Christ Church, to Radnor Street cemetery and St Mark's Church, before visiting the war memorials at the Outlet Village and Steam Museum and finishing at the County Ground in the afternoon with an emotive reading.

“Names from another century come back to haunt us, names once shouted over a football pitch,” the crowd will hear from leader of the walk and poet Stuart Butler.

“The imperatives of a football team replaced by new orders and khaki, with night patrols, barbed wire and machines guns; muddied football boots forgotten in the trench foot field of Flanders.

“The clamour from the ground and stands, no match for whizz-bangs, mortars, and howitzers.”

The walk is part of a nationwide remembrance of Walter Tull, a professional footballer who played for Northampton Town and was the first officer of non-European descent in the British Army.

Stuart, originally from Swindon, told the Adver: “He was absolutely revered by his men.

“There are a huge number of national events to commemorate the life of Walter Tull and I thought it would be a nice thing to link Swindon and Northampton.

“I will set the scene by describing what it was like when the Cenotaph was unveiled. So we create the atmosphere of what it was like after the First World War.

“We’re used to performing in public, in the streets, it will be a very performative walk.”

John Holloway, head of Swindon Town FC in the Community Trust, added: “From our perspective it’s fantastic that Stuart will be leading this here in Swindon. We’re really looking forward to joining him and learning more, but from our perspective, it’s really important to recognise the players who lost their lives.

“I don’t know a huge amount about those players, so I’m looking to finding out more and hearing more on the walk as well.”

The walk will meet at the Cenotaph at 11.30am and finish at the County Ground at 2.15pm.