The solemn reflections at the heart of ANZAC remembrance have in recent times become intertwined with a sporting calendar where football, Australian Rules and rugby league have all linked themselves to varying degrees with powerful national legends.
Many footballers went to fight in the Great War and never returned. The country has sworn an oath to honour those dead and the thousands that followed in other conflicts. We will remember them.
The First World War also opened a door for Australia to the wider world of football, although that is a story less well understood or examined.
Sports journalist Harry Millard commanded Chinese labourers in France he thought would make fine sportsmen. This led him down a track which culminated in the Chinese football tour of Australia in 1923.
Darwin born Kwanglim Kwong was an organiser of Chinese labour groups at the end of the war and had already organised a football club for Chinese students in New York. He went on to be a significant figure in Shanghai football in the 1920s who organised and managed the Chinese tour of Australia in 1927.
The War also provided some Australians with the opportunity to play the world game with others from outside the British domain they had grown up in. One fascinating and unexpected arena for this new experience was Paris.
Former French international Maurice Vandendriessche came to Australia before the war and played for St Kilda before moving to Sydney, where he joined Northern Suburbs. He was selected as a reserve for New South Wales and played for a Sydney selection against an Illawarra side which included Judy Masters. The Australian maestro also played football during his war service overseas and went on to captain his country and become the game's first national team star.
He returned to Europe when war broke out, signing up with Belgian armed forces. He played football whenever he could and organised matches in France to drum up money for Belgian refugees.
French newspapers report some of these matches included Australian and New Zealand players.
One match given some prominence by the leading sports paper L'Autowas between French Cup holders CASG Paris and a side billed as ANZAC F.C. The match preview makes extravagant claims about the number of international players on the field, but the listed line-up for CASG includes not only Vandendriessche but also French international Devicq, future international centre half Jourda, and Belgian international guest players Gaston Hubin and Fernand Wertz. CASG won the match 2-1.
In the early 1920s, Vandendriessche was quoted by theAdelaideAdvertisertalking about other games he arranged for Australians around the time of the second battle of Bullecourt. In the late stages of the war, Vandendriessche captained the unofficial Belgian military selection in a 3-0 victory over France played before the guest of honour, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the head of the Olympics, who Vandendriessche introduced to his players.
Vandendriessche played for Flanders in 1919 before returning to Australia to rejoin St Kilda and win selection for Victoria in matches against New South Wales and the 1923 Chinese tourists. He won a Victorian championship and Dockerty Cup with St Kilda.
Vandendriessche was a friend and advisor to Ernest Lukeman, the secretary of the Australian national association, and kept him informed about the European football scene which he followed on his frequent trips back to Europe in the course of his business life as a wool buyer.
He arranged matches for Australia's aborted 1928 European tour and told the Advertiserhe had watched France's games against Spain and Italy and thought Australia would have a chance against them. A bold claim, certainly, but one made by an experienced international who was the only man to have direct knowledge of top level football in both Australia and Europe.
Kwong, Millard, Vandendriessche and Judy Masters all had formative football experiences during the seemingly endless years of wartime agony. Seeds were planted which would come to fruition in Australia's peacetime.
It is proper that we consider war and loss, sacrifice and community on ANZAC Day. As football fans, we might also spare a moment to consider that thoughts grown out of football helped shape some different ideas about Australia and the world of the future.
Want to know more about Australia's football history? Check out Trevor Thompson's Playing for Australia – The First Socceroos, Asia and the World Game published by Fair Play Publishing and available online, at good bookstores or via iBooks and Amazon.