Football club's unique record
RSL (Port Pirie Sub Branch) Inc.Recruiting in Port Pirie.
Mr Leo de Dear, the Honourable Secretary of the Proprietary Football Club, writes:
The Proprietary Football Club has perhaps put up a record for the Commonwealth in regard to volunteering by its active members. Already no fewer than 13 players of the past season have left to join the Australian Expeditionary Forces, to say nothing of the number of honorary members. Of the 13 players who have left, six are winners of gold medals for brilliancy in some department of the game.
The names of the players are: A.E. Moyle (Captain), F. Pearce (Vice-captain), J.S. Bushell, J.H. Job, A. Bushell, E. Birtles, C. Palmer, J.R. O'Neil, E. Sjostrom, W. Sweetland, L. Basnett, L.T. Simpson, and R.L. Johnston. Messrs. Job and Sjostrom left by yesterday's train. It is not at all unlikely that one or two more players might be leaving shortly. Surely other sporting clubs could well follow this grand example.
Captain G. E. Cresswell, the area officer, has commenced recruiting at Port Pirie again. Yesterday he dispatched Messrs. W.H. Moyle, J.H. Job, and E. Sjostrom to the Adelaide encampment. All three are well known. Private Moyle, whose younger brother Albert, is already with the forces, is a son of Mr. E.H. Moyle, our well-known townsman. Mr. J. Job is part licensee of the Barrier Hotel and was among the best all-round athletes in the town, while Mr Sjostrom has lived here since boyhood and is one of the cleverest players in the Proprietary football team for which he has played for many years.
The following volunteers have submitted their names for enlistment: Messrs. B.A. Halliday, W.R. Smart, H.W. Reichelt, S.G. Stronghold, J.R. Owens, W. Loader, S.T. Wilcox, E.J. Turner, C. Pares, and F. H. Pierson.
These men, and any others who apply in the meantime, will be medically examined on Friday afternoon at 3 o'clock, and those who pass the test will leave for Adelaide on Saturday.
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As Australia’s first Victoria Cross recipient in the First World War, Albert Jacka’s image was often used on recruitment posters in Australia to enlist sportsmen into the Australian Imperial Force in 1917. It was said that one of the reasons he was such a good soldier, and had such a fighting attitude, was that he had been a boxer before the war.
Surrounding Jacka are colourful depictions of healthy young men engaged in a variety of sports, including AFL football, boxing, rowing, cricket, tennis and golf. The campaign to enlist sportsmen was fuelled by a strong belief that by playing sport young men developed specific skills and qualities that could be used on the battlefield.
