A soccer ball British soldiers used to try to make a "goal" into the German trenches at the Battle of Loos has turned up in an old box at a regimental museum.

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The London Irish Rifles Museum will put the ball on public display this weekend, The Guardian reported.

Nigel Wilkinson, vice-chairman of the regimental association, said the ball was never really lost but had been forgotten and neglected over the decades.

"It was in a very poor condition and was at risk of disintegrating into dust," he said.

The regiment was known for its soccer team and, at the Battle of Loos in 1915, soldiers decided they would take six balls on an advance and kick them into the German trenches, Wilkinson said. An officer who heard of the plan found five of the balls and shot holes in them but Frank Edwards, a private and the team captain, hid the sixth, deflated, under his tunic and then reinflated it.

After he kicked it off, his comrades passed it back and forth until it became caught on barbed wire. Soldiers managed to retrieve it and bring it home.

"His story is one that has been forgotten about, so I'm delighted that his ball has been conserved for the future," Edwards' granddaughter, Susan Collins said.