THOMAS ELLISON played for the club during the 1912-1913 and 1913-1914 seasons as a forward, scoring twice in six appearances.  He joined up at the outbreak of war, becoming Gunner 37654 in the 13th Battalion of the 32nd Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery.  He was killed on 20 October 1914 and is buried in the Bailleul Communal Cemetery in France.  Unfortunately, his was one of several graves destroyed when a shell hit the cemetery in 1918, with the result that his headstone merely records that he is "known to be buried in this cemetery".  He also played for Colchester Town and Grays Athletic, but it appears that Croydon Common was his only senior club.  On Saturday 11 October 2014, before an F.A. Cup 3rd Qualifying Round match with Bromley, the players, supporters and officials of Grays Athletic F.C. marked the 100th anniversary of his death by holding a minute's silence, while the club captain laid a wreath on the pitch and a bugler sounded the last post.

FRANK HESHAM was born in Chorlton, Lancashire in 1878 and played for local junior club Gorton St. Francis before signing on with Manchester City for the 1897-98 campaign. However, in his two seasons at the club, he only made 3 Football League appearances, without scoring.  After short spells at both Crewe Alexandra and Accrington Stanley, he joined Stoke where he played 17 Football League matches during the 1904-05 season, scoring once.  Then, he had spells with Leyton (33 games, 5 goals), Oldham Athletic (40 games, 10 goals) and Preston North End, where he made no first team appearances.  He joined Croydon Common just after the beginning of the 1909-10 season, the club’s first in Division One of the Southern League, and he was the club's top scorer that season with 17 goals from 32 matches.  His good form continued the following season and he scored 13 goals in 24 games.  At the end of the campaign, he moved back to the Manchester area and joined Hyde and then Newton Heath Albion two seasons later.  During the war, he firstly served with the 4th. Volunteer Battalion, Manchester Regiment and was awarded the 1914-1915 Star.  However, he was killed in action on 17 November 1915 while serving with the 21st. Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery.  He is buried in La Clytte Military Cemetery in Heuvelland, Belgium.  One newspaper reported his death with the comment that “The news of his gallant sacrifice will be received with mingled feelings of pride and regret”.

WILLIAM KIRBY was born in Preston in 1882 and was known throughout his playing career as “Sunny Jim”.  He played for local junior club Emmanuel Rovers before signing on with Preston North End in 1900, but he made no first team appearances before joining Oswaldtwistle Rovers.  In 1902, he came south and played for Swindon Town (33 games, 11 goals) in 1902-03, West Ham United (36 games, 11 goals) in 1903-04 and Swindon Town once more (21 games, 4 goals) in 1904-05.  Thereafter, he spent seven seasons with Portsmouth, where he scored 107 goals in 277 Southern League, Western League and F.A. Cup matches; an impressive strike rate.  He was the club’s top scorer during the 1906-07 season when the club came second in Division One of the Southern League.  In October 1910, Portsmouth awarded him a benefit match to acknowledge his one hundredth goal for the club and he received the sum of £220.  Strangely, while he was playing for several Southern League clubs between 1901 and 1911, his registration was still retained by Preston North End; this is because it was a Football League club and there was no reciprocal arrangement between that league and the Southern League regarding contracts.  However, he returned to Preston North End for the 1911-12 season and finally played in the Football League after ten campaigns in the Southern League. He scored 14 goals in 39 Football League and F.A. Cup matches to make him the club’s top scorer that season.  The following season he scored 8 times in 17 Football League matches as the club won the championship of Division Two.  However, at the start of the 1913-14 campaign, he moved to Exeter City, where he played 5 Southern League matches without scoring before completing the season with Merthyr Town, playing 29 Southern League games and scoring 6 goals.  While at Merthyr Town during the 1913-14 season, he played in several matches with Alexander Weir; they would later play together for the Robins during the 1915-16 season.  At the end of the 1913-14 season, Merthyr Town was relegated from Division One of the Southern League.  His war service reduced his opportunities to play for the club during the following season, but he fractured two ribs playing against Swansea Town on Christmas Day 1914.  He joined Croydon Common halfway through the 1915-1916 season, when the club was competing in the London Combination following the discontinuation of the Southern League after the outbreak of war.  He scored 6 goals in his 16 games for the Robins and played in the club’s last ever game. The following season, after the club had folded, he appeared for Brentford in the same competition (18 games, 2 goals).  When the war started, he originally joined the Royal Engineers, but he was invalided out and so worked at the Woolwich Arsenal; however, he apparently did not enjoy the conditions there and so he instead enlisted with the East Yorkshire Regiment.  However, shortly afterwards, he was killed at Ypres on 3 October 1917 and he is buried in the Bard Cottage Cemetery near Ypres, Belgium.  Sadly, he left a wife and five children.

NORMAN WOOD played for Croydon Common in the 1911-1912 season, scoring 18 goals in his 38 games as an inside forward.  His display against Chelsea Reserves so impressed the Football League side that they immediately put in a transfer bid and he moved across London, but he did not make any first team appearance for his new club.  He was also on the books of Tottenham Hotspur early in his career, featuring on a Taddy Prominent Footballers cigarette card in 1908 in the club's kit, but he played no first team games there either.  However, he made four representative appearances for the London Select XI around that time.  He later played for Crystal Palace and Plymouth Argyle before joining the Robins and his last club was Stockport County.  Oddly, he played in goal for the Robins in their record away win (12-2 v. Chesham Town in the Southern League on New Year's Day 1912) when the selected goalkeeper failed to arrive.  At the outbreak of war, he enlisted in Chester and joined the 17th Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment, famously known as The Footballers' Battalion.  As Serjeant F/663 in No. 3 Company, he was killed on 28 July 1916.  Unfortunately, he has no known grave and so his name is listed on the Thiepval Memorial in France, along with 72,000 others.

According to "The Greater Game" by Clive Harris and Julian Whippy, which provides details of footballers who died during the war, F/28 L/Cpl HERBERT DERSLEY of the 17th Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment (the Footballers' Battalion), who was living in Upper Norwood, Croydon when he was killed in action on 1 June 1916, was a player with Croydon Common.  This may indeed be the case, but there is no record of him making any appearances for the club's first eleven, although he could perhaps have played for the reserve side.  He is recorded on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's website as Herbert Dersley.  However, it would appear that his surname was actually Derisley.  "When the Whistle Blows" by Andrew Riddoch, which sets out a history of the Footballers' Battalion, records that he was the nephew of a Crystal Palace F.C. director and "The Final Season" by Nigel McCrery records that he was an honorary steward for that club.  He was born in Hillingdon in Norfolk and is buried in Cabaret-Rouge Cemetery in Souchez.  A photograph of his name on the war memorial in Old Buckenham in Norfolk appears on the left.