9/2048 Private Robert Stanley Black, 23/8/1893-21/9/1916.

FOOTBALL.

RUGBY. 

Information is to hand from Nyasaland that D. D. Dobson has died of injuries received in an encounter with a hippopotamus. Dobson was a fine Rugby football forward. Educated at Cheltenham and Keble College, Oxford, he played for the Dark Blues against Cambridge in 1899-1900-1901. He gained six international caps for England, appearing against Scotland, Ireland, and Wales in 1902 and 1903. He was also an invaluable member of the Devon County pack. In 1904 he was a member of the Rugby Union team that visited Australia and New Zealand under the leadership of D. R. Bedel-Sivright. 

Footballers generally throughout New Zealand will regret to learn that amongst those reported missing at the front is Trooper R. S. Black, of this city, whose name on the football field was almost a household word in the seasons just prior to the outbreak of war. Bobby Black (says a Dunedin writer) was one of the few brilliant five-eighths which Otago produced after the retirement of Jimmy Duncan. He played for Pirates and subsequently for University, representing Otago, South Island, and New Zealand. A clever and brainy five-eighth, he was also the gamest of the game, but how unlucky! Bobby received more injuries on the football field than usually falls to the lot of most players. He was rarely unbandaged, but nothing seemed to hamper his game, and he afforded us many fine exhibitions. Black won his representative cap in 1911, and in 1912 was selected as one of Otago's representatives in the South Island team against North Island. The other Otago representative was Alexander, the University three-quarter. The two Otago men played an important part in the South Island victory. Black was injured in the game, and had to be carried off the field. Alexander was killed at Gallipoli, and now Bobby Black is reported missing in France. By the way, Black was a member of the New Zealand team which toured Australia in 1914, and was the fastest player in that combination.  -Auckland Star, 11/11/1916.

Bobby Black died on a day which was a tough one for his Regiment in the Battle of the Somme.  They had successfully taken an area of German trenches and held it against a strong counter-attack.  The next day, the day on which a Court of Enquiry concluded that he died, there was another:

There was no rest for the garrison, however, as much hard digging was required to fit the position for defence. Nor was the enemy content to leave the trench in our hands; for at 5.30 p.m. on the 21st he made a most determined counter-attack. Altogether about two hundred of his men worked up Goose Alley on the right flank, and up Flers Support and Flers Trench in the centre and on the left. The enemy bombers were well organized, bold and expert, and were much fresher than our men, who had been fighting all night and digging all day. The attack penetrated our line in several places; but the rest of the line stood firm, in spite of heavy fighting. Finally, led again by Captain Starnes, our men got out of the trenches, and from the open bombed the enemy parties which were still holding out in our trenches. Taking advantage of the confusion caused by this unexpected attack, our men charged with the bayonet, and cleared the trenches. During the fighting, a party from the 2nd Auckland Battalion, led by a private, without orders came overland from the North road to assist our right flank.

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Besides the captures mentioned above, the battalion had counted three hundred enemy dead in and about Goose Alley in the morning; and at a very moderate estimate it had killed another hundred in repulsing the counter-attack on the evening of the 21st. For his gallantry in the operations, Captain Starnes was recommended for the V.C., and received the "immediate award" of the D.S.O. The cost to the battalion had been very heavy. Out of eighteen officers and five hundred and twenty-three other ranks engaged, the casualties were:—

	Officers.	Other Ranks.
Killed	8	32
Wounded	4	156
Missing		49
	12	237

Bobby Black's name was inscribed on the Caterpillar Valley Memorial which commemorates 1200 New Zealand soldiers with no known grave.  His remains were found, however, and they lie in the Longueval Cemetery in France.

Naseby Cemetery.