Following the withdrawal from Gallipoli in December 1915, the Australia Imperial Forces re-grouped in Egypt. At the sprawling Tel el Kebir camp, located between Cairo and the Suez Canal, soldiers spent long days marching and drilling, cleaning their kits, attending lectures and preparing in general for new deployments in France, Belgium and the Middle East.

Sport, particularly football and cricket, was a popular way to wile away any spare hours while also being encouraged by the military authorities as a means of maintaining fitness and promoting camaraderie. It is believed members of the AIF were involved in over 500 games of football, often played against other Australian battalions but on occasions they also met teams of French, English and Scottish soldiers.

“We have plenty of football (soccer). We have formed a team out of this company, but it’s the same old story (as) only about half of us know the game,” penned 28-year old Bob Anderson, who had played for Geraldton’s Moonyconooka club, in a letter written in Heliopolis, Egypt, to Geraldton British Football Association secretary JG Scott dated 12 January, 1916.

“We have had three matches and haven’t been beaten – two wins and a draw. I’m captain of this lot, and it’s not too easy a job, as sometimes the best men either go to town (Cairo) or are out on duty… I hope this finds all of you Geraldton boys in the pink. Give one and all my kindest regards. I’m afraid I won’t be back in time for the football this season, so au revoir.”

In Perth, a series of friendlies were played between armed services teams and a British Football Association of Western Australia representative side. Played on the Esplanade and with proceeds going to charities such as the Red Cross and the Sick and Wounded Soldiers Fund, the games, featuring soldiers who had returned from the front as well as those in training, were well received and continued through the year.

Whether a league season should take place was the topic of much debate. Questions were asked of the merits of playing sport during wartime and whether it was hindering recruiting efforts. The Association chose to go ahead with what would be a seriously disrupted season featuring four depleted clubs. Of those, City Rangers withdrew after the first weekend leaving only Claremont, Thistle and Perth Combined.

The league title was declared after ten rounds with Claremont and Thistle joint winners, level on 12 points. The decision to end the season early was probably made because many games were susceptible to protests as teams were calling on juniors and even spectators to make up the numbers. The Challenge Cup and Shield as well as the Charity Cup were mothballed.

By the time the AIF arrived on the Western Front, the French, British and Germans had been fighting for almost two years. Troops were initially sent to a quieter section of trenches at Armentieres, France, where they were exposed to new weaponry, such as gas. It was in this environment that Les Keals, founder of junior leagues club Queens Park, was killed in action on 21 May.

The AIF’s first major action was near the French village of Pozieres, in the Somme valley, where they lost as many men in seven weeks of fighting as they had during the eight months on Gallipoli. Sid Hollands (Fremantle Albion), 21, and Sydney Forbes (Training College), 22, were killed in action on 25 July. Four days later Cyril Hutchison (Claremont), 22, and David McKinnon (Fremantle Caledonian), 27, met with the same fate.

Another Fremantle Caledonian player, 28-year old James Simpson, passed away on 7 August, the same day William Revell (YMCA), 23, was killed in action. Meanwhile, the 10th Light Horse Regiment were engaged with the Ottoman Empire in Egypt, which is where 21-year old Herbert Bell (YMCA) died on 9 August while defending the Suez Canal.

Claremont’s Graham Hayes, 19, was killed in action at Pozieres on 16 August. Fifteen days later clubmate Allan Hammond, 23, passed away at the same location. On 30 August David Henry (Fremantle Caledonian) died at the age of 34. Douglas Swan of Geraldton’s Queens Park club was 23 when he was killed on 5 September. Australs 28-year old secretary Colin Parsons perished near Flers on 3 November.

The Somme valley offensive was abandoned on 18 November, by which time the allied forces had advanced no more than twelve kilometres. The AIF had suffered 23,000 casualties; 6,800 men were either killed in action or had died of wounds. Australia’s official historian of the war Charles Bean commented that Pozieres ridge “is more densely sown with Australian sacrifice than any other place on earth”.

By now, the return to Australia of maimed and wounded soldiers was leading to a slow change in attitude towards the war. Richard Iles’ (Rangers United) was invalided home after being shot in the leg at Gallipoli on the morning of 25 April, 1915. While landing at the same location eight days later, James Harold of Training College suffered shrapnel wounds to the chest and shoulder.

John Tipping (Claremont) returned home suffering from a concussion and dysentery. Sid Taylor (City United) had his right leg amputated following a shell explosion which killed two colleagues. Thistle midfielder Bob Ogilvie was evacuated after 42 days of service having received a leg fracture and severe gun shot wounds to both legs. Referee John Ashall requested his discharged while hospitalised with arthritis.

Claremont Glebe forward Tommy Murray has his left leg amputated just above the knee after being shot at Gallipoli, where he was rescued by David Jackson (Austral). Bouts of pleurisy, diarrhoea and dysentery in quick succession led to former State team attacker Evander Robertson’s return. Typhoid prompted the discharge of another State representative, Jack Booth (Austral).

Austral forward Chris Ewing, who donned West Australian colours in 1910, suffered wounds to his right leg and foot which required the amputation of two toes. Former Training College captain Raymond Bradshaw received a fractured left tibia which eventually resulted in amputation. Hospitalised in Boulogne, Claremont player Ernest Tobias had his left eye removed and shrapnel “fragments extracted from his face”.

John Garth (Royal Australia Garrison Artillery) was invalided home from France as a result of shot gun wounds to the face, left wrist and back. Ferdinand Medcalf (Claremont Glebe) was shot in the elbow and ankle while putting “the crew of a hostile machine gun out of action with a bomb and captured the gun”, an act for which he’d receive a Distinguished Service Order.

Sport in Perth – like the rest of the country – remained largely in recess. There was seemingly no attempt to play senior football in 1917, however, school and junior teams continued to take to the field. A season of sorts kicked off on the first weekend in June featuring Ex-Students, Modern School, Technical School and Bayswater, although the latter withdrew after only one game.

It’s unclear whether a ‘home and away’ season took place as local newspapers carried only scattered results and no league table was published. Perth City, the solitary senior team to make an appearance, won the war-time Challenge Cup by defeating Ex-Students 3-2; McLean, Gordon and Warden scoring for the victors in a final played on the Esplanade.

1917 was to be the worst year for the AIF with costly battles on the muddy fields of France and Belgium resulting in over 76,000 casualties. YMCA player James Jack was 24 when he died of wounds on 2 March after suffering a compound fracture of the ankle while in France. On 2 April Alf Fisher, who played nine seasons with Rangers, suffered gun shot wounds to the left thigh which resulted in him being invalided home.

The same fate befell Fremantle Caledonian player Frank Beisley, who was shot in the right hand on 2 April. 32-year old Jim Borthwick, vice-captain of Perth, died at Pozieres on 3 April as a result of gun shot wounds to the abdomen. Battle conditions were so dire that many of the fallen had no known grave.

From June, the AIF’s focus switched to the Ypres sector in Belgium. George Warrener (Claremont), 31, was killed in action on 8 June. Merchant Marine Richard Leonard (Fremantle Caledonian), 24, died of dysentery while at sea on 2 July. 2 August claimed the life of 26-year old Joseph Faragher of Geraldton’s Thistle club. On 19 August 20-year old Billy Chalmers (Fremantle Caledonian) died of wounds.

Josiah Skinner (Austral) was invalided home after being shot in both thighs on 5 August. Wounds to the right hand suffered on 20 September ended Claremont Glebe defender Standish O’Grady’s war. Harold Bennett’s (Claremont) active service came to an end after fracturing his right tibia and sustaining gun shot wounds to both legs, his chest, back and left eye at Paschendaele on 26 September.

William Kybert (Perth) returned home with back injuries after being “blown up by (a) shell” on 4 October. Elgar Hales (Claremont), 29, was killed in action on 5 October. Claremont forward Tom Nicholls was discharged after being shot in the left hand on 6 October. Alex Cowan (Fremantle Caledonian) suffered a severe shell wound to his right foot on 7 October.

Wounds claimed the lives of 33-year old Thomas McHutchison (Thistle) on 18 October and 24-year old Mal Stewart (Training College) the following day. On 20 October former City United captain Billy Davies (Claremont), 32, was killed in action. 24-year old William Chapman, who turned out for Thistle in Geraldton, met with the same fate on 30 October.

Barney Cowan (Fremantle Caledonian), 30, died in an English hospital on 24 November as a result of wounds sustained at Pachendaele. “Bullecourt and Menin Road. These places will never fade from one’s mind until the last day in this life,” recounted well-known Geraldton footballer John Wernli in a letter dated 11 April, 1918, which was published in ‘the Geraldton Guardian’.

In the early part of 1918 the AIF helped repel the advance of German forces during their Spring Offensives in France and Belgium. On 16 January Duncan MacColl, who’d played for Geraldton club Moonyconooka, was shot in the right buttock and lower back, injuries that would eventually lead to him being invalided home. Joseph Carden, of Kalgoorlie’s Boulder City, was 32 when he was killed in action on 22 January.

Hospitalised on 18 March, Bertie Squance (Moora) was discharged from active service due to arthritis of both knees. Charles Monteath (Fremantle Caledonian) died of wounds on 30 March. 32-year old Francis Burt (Perth) was killed on 24 April during the decisive victory at Villers-Brettonneux. 25-year old Ernie Higham, a former Fremantle player, died of wounds on 27 April.

Having previously survived being shot at Gallipoli and in France, 27-year old Don Luetchford (Claremont) was killed in action on 3 May. Claremont secretary Clarence Briggs was invalided home after being shot in the chest and left shoulder on 25 May. Life in the trenches contributed to the hospitalisation of Fremantle Caledonian goal scorer Frank Lyon, who died of pneumonia on 29 June at the age of 33.

At home, the Junior British Football Association of Western Australia was coordinating all aspects of the game. Perth City, Fremantle, Ex-Students, Palmyra, Collegians contested a home and away series of sorts with all teams a combination of senior and junior players. The premiership was won by Ex-Students, who lost just once across the two-month campaign, while Perth City claimed the only other trophy on offer, the Challenge Cup.

Local players continued to feature prominently in games played in Europe. “Just returned from the front is an old Fremantle soccerite, Fred Pearson, (who) informs me that whilst acting as linesman at a match in France he noticed no fewer than eight Fremantle soccerites amongst the players. Fred eagerly awaits his discharge to enable him to again don the Fremantle colors. He’ll be right welcome, too,” reported ‘Eye-Witness’ in ‘the WA Sportsman’ newspaper of 23 August.

That same month the AIF took part in a series of Allied offensives which pushed German forces back across the ground they had won earlier in the year. On the first day of the advance, 8 August, Fred Guest of Geraldton’s Thistle club was killed in action. Another Geraldton footballer, Rangers forward Edwin Powell, died of wounds on 27 August. Former Training College player John Bonney, 26, succumbed to malaria on 18 October in Damascus, Syria.

Hostilities between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies formally ceased on 30 October. Twelve days later on 11 November, at 11:00am, the guns fell silent on the Western Front. Australia had paid a heavy price with 60,284 men losing their lives and 155,133 were wounded, gassed or suffered some other form of war-related illness. Western Australia recorded 6,233 deaths while nearly 16,000 men were wounded.

The long process of repatriation and demobilisation began following the signing of the Armistice. Between December 1918 and September 1919, almost 152,000 troops were transported to Australia in 203 shipments. For many – beset with multiple woundings and in some cases amputations, gassing and what is now recognised as post-traumatic stress disorder – settling back into civilian life would be a struggle.

Bob Anderson was longing to return to Geraldton, and football. “I have not had a game of football since last July,” he wrote in a letter from France dated 9 December. “The last game I played was for the 2nd Division team against the Frenchmen. When the push started in August we had no opportunity of carrying on the game…. we will have to do our best to get the good old game going again when the boys come home.”

As soldiers returned from Europe, the British Football Association of Western Australia reformed. A nine-team Division One kicked off in mid-May, however, circumstances conspired against Corinthian and Hospital For the Insane with both clubs withdrawing before the season was out. Claremont, whose number included returned servicemen Ossie Gomme, Standish O’Grady, Tom Nicholls, claimed the 1919 league title.

Thistle won the revived Challenge Cup and Shield with a 2-0 defeat of Claremont thanks to second half goals from Bart Nesbit and Billy Smart, both who’d served in the war. Jimmy Gordon played his part in Perth City United’s 2-1 Charity Cup final defeat of Thistle, who had welcomed Fred Yeomans back between the posts.

Jack Roydhouse, Francis Bradshaw (Training College), John Julian (Burnbank Athletic), Jack Angelo (Fremantle), Jim Cutmore, Alec Marr, Charlie Croft and Wally Bing (Northern Casuals) also appeared during the season. West Australia’s first post-war outing – a 7-0 thrashing of the Australian Naval Fleet in July 1920 – featured six returned servicemen in Marr, Nicholls, Cutmore, Gordon, Nesbit and Wally Gardner.

Football also made a slow return to regional Western Australia with small league seasons taking place in Albany, Denmark, Geraldton and Katanning. Geraldton’s three-team competition was won by Town whose number included Fred Ashton. Mick Glendinning and Charles Taylor played for Rangers and Thistle, respectively, while Bob Anderson returned to playing “the good old game” with the latter in 1920.