When Australia entered World War 1, interest in the 1914 football season was at an all-time high. The Division One title race had become a three-way tussle between Training College, Claremont and Thistle with just a handful of games remaining. And beyond the league were the traditional post-season Challenge Cup and Charity Cup knock-out competitions to look forward to.
But in the space of a few weeks the local football scene found itself drained as West Australian men answered ‘the call of the Empire’ by enlisting in the all-volunteer Australian Imperial Forces. Across the next four years around 500 players, officials and administrators of the round ball game in Western Australia played their part in key theatres of battle, on the Gallipoli peninsula, the Middle East and Western Europe.
Australian Prime Minister Joseph Cook announced the nation’s entry into World War 1 in the early hours of 5 August, 1914. At the time the eight-team Division One was topped by Training College, two points clear of Claremont and Thistle with the latter having a game in hand. It was a similar situation in the second tier where Claremont Glebe, Rangers United and Northern Casuals were in the mix for top honours.
Six days later recruitment offices opened at army barracks around Australia. The outbreak of war had been greeted in Australia, as in many other places, with great enthusiasm and in the first few months thousands of men joined the AIF. West Australia had the nation’s highest rate of recruitment with 9.9% of the State’s total population – and one third of all men in the State between the ages of 18 to 41 – enlisting.
Western Australian’s 11th Battalion, formed on 17 August, was one of the nation’s first infantry units to be raised. That same day the first volunteers arrived at the newly formed Blackboy Hill military training camp at the foot of the Darling Ranges. It was to become the birthplace of the AIF in the west with over 32,000 recruits passing through the camp before heading off to Europe.
Footballers from across the state answered the call to arms in grand fashion. Amongst those to volunteer in the first few weeks were Jack Booth, Chris Ewing, Josiah Skinner (Austral), Oswald Gomme, Elgar Hale (Claremont Glebe), John McTavish (Fremantle Albion), Frank Gill (YMCA), Frank Matthews, Wally Blair and Samuel Jackson (Training College) along with Geraldton pair Fred Ashton (Town) and Vince Allen (Rangers).
This sudden exodus turned the local game upside down. “The war has played ducks and drakes with many of the teams, and also robbed the competitions of a deal of interest,” penned ‘Unomi’ – aka Alex McDowall, chairman of the British Football Association of Western Australia – in ‘the West Australian’ newspaper of 29 August. “All grades have been affected, but the first junior clubs are experiencing great difficulty in fielding full sides week by week.”
It’s not surprising that the first team to exit were RAGA, a junior league team drawn from the Royal Australia Garrison Artillery supply base in Fremantle. Not long after Austral withdrew their junior team and as the season limped to a conclusion a further three clubs followed suit, while a number of games were postponed as teams increasingly struggled to bring together eleven players.
Thistle came from behind to claim the 19th Division One crown, securing maximum points from their final four games to finish ahead of Training College. Claremont Glebe pipped Rangers by a single point for the Division Two title. In the championship play-off, the Wanderers Cup, Laurie Carr, Jack Berlinsky and Billy Smart – each who’d join the war effort inside 12 months – netting to give Thistle a 3-0 win over Claremont Glebe.
The same teams met in the Challenge Cup Final where Billy Smart’s second half strike gained Thistle a 2-1 win. Despite calls for it to be abandoned, the Charity Cup produced a surprise with Northern Casuals upsetting Claremont 3-2 on the Esplanade. Casuals’ winner was scored by Phil Hall, who only weeks earlier had joined the AIF, while Claremont’s goals came from Don Leutchford and Wally Gardner, who would both soon enlist.
The first contingent of soldiers destined for the war left Albany on 1 November. A convoy of 38 Australian and 10 New Zealand transports sailed to Egypt, where those on board undertook four months of intensive training. It was while at Mena, near Cairo, that Frank Parker, a Perth BAFC player from the inaugural league season of 1896, succumbed to meningitis on 18 March, 1915.
By early 1915, fighting in Western Europe was at a stalemate. In an attempt to weaken Germany’s war efforts, the Allies turned their attention to securing the Dardanelles, Turkiye, and claim a decisive victory over the Ottoman Empire. The Australian and New Zealand forces, together with British, French and Indian troops, were selected for an amphibious landing on the Gallipoli peninsula.
On the morning of 25 April thirty-six rowing boats carrying men from the 9th, 10th and 11th Battalions – recruited from Queensland, South Australia and West Australia, respectively – landed at Gallipoli around Ari Burnu, known these days as ANZAC Cove. It is believed as many as two dozen 20 West Australian men connected to football took part in the initial landing at Gallipoli, which would be the final resting place for over 8,000 ANZACs.
Amongst those killed in the landing was 20-year old Bob Mackie (Fremantle Caledonian). Jack Frappell (Claremont), 20, was killed in action on 28 April and referee Harold Amos, 24, died of wounds on 29 April. 2 May was a particularly dark day which saw the passings of Wally Blair (Training College) and Leslie Price (Perth), both 21, along with brothers Vince, 26, and John Allen, 22, of Geraldton clubs Rangers and Thistle.
Fremantle Albion midfielder William Nicol, who played for Western Australia in 1908, died in the ill-fated attack on Gaba Tepe on 4 May. Another State representative, 23-year old Frank Matthews (Training College), was killed the following day. Subiaco’s Phil Hall, scorer of the winning goal in the 1914 Charity Cup final, died of wounds on 16 May at the age of 23. Ten days later Perth secretary Aubrey Hardwicke, 25, was killed in action.
Even though football had taken a back set to the events in Europe, the 1915 season had kicked off in late April with twelve teams – two less than the previous year – across two leagues. After three games Rangers and City United amalgamated under the banner of City Rangers. A few weeks later Training College, who featured only three of the previous seasons players, withdrew from competition.
By the middle of the year it was reported Claremont had about 35 of their number enlisted, Training College contributed over 30 recruits while Austral’s total was 17. Not surprisingly, players “filling in” for rival clubs became common practice, although Fremantle Albion were pushing their luck somewhat when only six players turned up to face Rangers United. The game was postponed.
Amid the disruption a full season was somehow achieved. Thistle defended their Division One title by finishing four points above Claremont. The Jags also retained the Wanderers Cup. Claremont avenged being pipped for the league by lifting the Challenge Cup with a 2-0 defeat of Thistle. An eight-team Charity Cup closed out the season, Thistle claiming the spoils 2-0 over Northern Casuals.
“The European war has played havoc with all winter pastimes, for every branch of sport has nobly responded to the country’s call, and Westralian soccerites in particular have well maintained their name of sportsmen by giving their best to the army at Gallipoli,” penned ‘Unomi’ – aka Alex McDowall, chairman of the British Football Association of Western Australia – in ‘the West Australian’ of 16 October.
“On looking back on the past year, the uppermost feeling of the soccer community must be sadness with a measure of pride. Pride in the knowledge of the self-sacrifice made by many of our comrades in answering the appeal of the nation, and regret at the pitiless sacrifice of life. A number of those who were with us this time a year ago will no longer play the game. They fill honoured graves on the heights of Gallipoli”.
David Ashby, 23, a prominent member of the Moora football association, died in a Cairo hospital on 30 June after sustaining of wounds to the spine. On 2 July referee James Edmondson, 31, was killed in action. Junior association chairman Frank Ulrich, 29, was killed on 6 August in the Battle of Lone Pine. The 10th Light Horse Regiment’s charge at the Nek on 7 August claimed the lives of Australs captain David Jackson, 23, and Leopold Roskams, 29, a former Perth defender.
On 10 August John McTavish (Fremantle Albion), 22, died as a result of gunshot wounds to the shoulder and a compound fracture of the humerus. Thistle defender Frank Slade also passed away on 10 August as a result of shrapnel wounds inflicted at Lone Pine. 22-year old Frank Gill (YMCA) of the 3rd Field Ambulance was killed in action on 22 August. Colin MacBean (Claremont) was 23 and Arthur Leake (Perth) 28 when they died in the final attempt to take Hill 60 on 29 August.
The Allies had made little progress at the Dardenelles and the arrival of winter in November led to the evacuation of over 16,000 troops suffering frostbite and exposure. Soon after the Imperial War Cabinet decided to evacuate all troops from the peninsula. Across five nights from 15 December, 36,000 troops were withdrawn to the waiting transport ships in what was the most successful operation of the campaign.
After leaving Gallipoli, a large part of the AIF relocated to Egypt in preparation for service on the Western Front. In eight months on the peninsula the ANZACs did not advance any further than they had on the day of arrival. For that, the AIF experienced casualties of nearly half the men who served at Gallipoli, with 8,709 deaths and 17,924 wounded. Unfortunately, far worse was to come during the next three years on the muddy fields of France and Belgium.
