A Centenary of the ANZAC Appeal and Footy
This year’s Collingwood and Essendon ANZAC Day match marks 30 years since the two clubs have showcased ANZAC commemoration on the AFL front, yet lesser known is another special anniversary.
This week the Australian Sports Museum located inside the MCG will for the first time display a range of documents and items recently found in the Melbourne Cricket Club’s archive that confirms that 2025 is the centenary of footy’s connection with ANZAC Day and the ANAZAC Appeal.
Back in April 1925, Australia was less than six years removed from the horrors of World War I and commemorating ANZAC Day was relatively embryonic compared to the traditions forged one hundred years later.
There was understandable uncertainty about how recreation on the day should be treated.
“In 1925 the VFL’s home and away season did not start until May 2,” says Alexandra McLennan, Museum Curator at the Australian Sports Museum.
“And for the first time since World War 1 ended, ANZAC Day fell on a Saturday.”
It had become standard practice for VFL clubs to prepare for the season with ‘practice matches’ in what we now know as intra-club matches.
A final trial of possibles versus probables from each club before the season began would routinely occur on the Saturday prior to the season starting.
Elsewhere horse racing had been cancelled for the day, which added a level of controversy over whether football would go ahead.
As the Herald reported the week prior on Saturday April 18 “the VFL approved of football clubs playing practice matches on Anzac Day”, but with a twist that echoes today.
It was “unanimously decided that the proceeds be given to the local branch of the RSL,” the Herald continued.
McLennan says that research from the MCC Library and Melbourne Football Club historian Lynda Carroll suggests that the concept had support from those that mattered most.
“Players who had served in WW1 were thought to be instrumental in the round of matches occurring. Ivor Warne-Smith and Albert Chadwick were some of the returned WW1 veterans playing for Melbourne at that time that are likely to have taken the field at the MCG on that day.”
Carroll’s research points to as many as 15 WW1 veterans playing in Melbourne’s practice match on ANZAC Day, with more veterans spread across other clubs doing the same thing.
The Argus described the MCG match as “a delightful exhibition… quite up to League standard”.
Dusted off from the MCC’s archives for the first time are two items that tie the reported promises of the day together.
First is a letter from the Returned Sailors & Soldiers Imperial League of Australia (today’s RSL) to the Melbourne Football club that reads:
“I understand through the medium of the “Argus” that the Football League Committee decided to make the proceeds of Saturday’s practice matches available to the local Branches of this League.
“Kindly allow me to so suggest that should it be the intention of your Club to comply with this decision, the amount received in this connection should be forwarded to Mr A.M . David at Anzac House who is the organising Secretary in connection with the Anzac Day Appeal.”
In return, the Secretary of MCC promptly signed off on a total of 19 pounds, 3 three shillings and 7 pence to the ANZAC Appeal; 13 pounds via gate receipts from the 620 attendees, the rest from a collection box at the ground.
The receipt book is on display at the Museum from this week too.
RSL Victoria President Rob Webster met with the MCC last week to look over the items before they went on display
“So many of players playing on that weekend would have been veterans adjusting to life after war. Football was one of those normalities that assisted the process of dealing with trauma they’d experienced, so I suppose it was a natural fit that footy would join forces with the RSL on the ANZAC Appeal.”
It appears every VFL cub did similar on that day.
For example, across the Yarra Paddocks, Richmond Football Club held an intraclub match between the ‘Yellow and Black’ and ‘Blue’ with proceeds going to the Richmond Returned Soldiers Association.
But not everyone was happy.
The Bendigo RSL and their counterparts in Geelong registered their disapproval with their city cousins playing games on ANZAC Day.
Warne-Smith’s involvement back in 1925 is particularly meaningful.
Falsifying his age to enlist for WW1, he was wounded multiple times, and his two elder bothers were killed in action. He started his VFL career in 1919 before heading to Tasmania and then returned to Melbourne in 1925. This would have been his first known game in the re-start of a VFL career where he’d win two Brownlow Medals.
After football Warne-Smith would again falsify his age to reenlist for World War 2 at the age of 43.
His grandson Drew Warne-Smith joined Dr Webster for a preview of the exhibition and said that despite all the research the family had previously undertaken, Ivor’s link to the first ANZAC day matches was a revelation.
“Our family is as proud of his war service as his football career, so to now learn that he most likely played a role in footy’s first effort to support veterans through the ANZAC Appeal is particularly fitting.”
Despite the passage of one hundred years Dr Webster sees the threads of this connection being as relevant as ever today.
“As we’ve sadly seen through the recent Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, the mental and physical health issues through service that were faced back in 1925 are just as prevalent in 2025.
“Just like in 1925, the ANZAC Appeal assists veterans settling back into civilian life and footy at the MCG helps bring the Appeal to the masses.”
Donate at www.anzacappeal.com.au
