‘Pom-Pom’ Whiting was Chelsea’s second great goalkeeper, the successor to Willie Foulke. Foulke’s was an especially big shadow from which to emerge, but Whiting, formerly of hometown club West Ham, proved himself up to it, missing just two games in our first successful promotion season, 1906/07. He found time to take part in a long kicking contest, finishing second but confirming the reputation for missile-length clearances that produced his nickname.    

Having starred in the London’s first top-flight London derby against Arsenal, Whiting lost his way and was dropped before Christmas, swiftly moving closer to his Tunbridge Wells home by joining Brighton.

He was still with the Albion when war broke out in 1914 but, aged 30, returned to Fulham Town Hall on 31 December to enlist as a private in the 17th Middlesex ‘Footballers’ Battalion’.

Promoted to Lance Sergeant in June 1915 and sent to France in November, unsanitary conditions meant Whiting contracted scabies and he was hospitalised near to home in Brighton in May 1916.

From the army hospital, Whiting went AWOL for 133 days, his wife, Nellie, meanwhile, falling pregnant with their son Joe. This was a serious military crime for which the ultimate punishment was death.

Whiting was eventually captured and sent for trial in December 1916, demoted to private and ‘let off’ with nine months’ hard labour. However his imprisonment coincided with a shortage of cannon fodder needed for the great Arras offensive of April 1917.

Over 159,000 British casualties were suffered in the Arras push, with an average of 4,076 killed each day. On 28 April 1917 Private Robert Whiting was among 462 comrades killed in the village of Oppy. He is remembered at the Arras Memorial but his remains were never recovered.

Back in Brighton his grieving widow had to endure cruelly untrue gossip that ‘Pom-Pom’ had been shot for desertion. She took the extraordinary step of having a letter from his commanding officer published in the Brighton Argus. Whiting, it said, had been killed by shellfire while attending to the wounded ‘while doing his duty both well and nobly.’ 

poppy puss