Palman Qui Meruit Ferat
| ANZAC DAY 2010 |
Lest We Forget
At half time in the senior's match on Saturday 24th April 2010, representatives of the Fitzroy Football Club will lay a wreath at the War Memorial Arbour at the Brunswick Street Oval to remember all Australians who have have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.
This year's service is particularly poignant because the club will add a long lost player's name to its' World War heroes. Corporal Thornton Gainsborough Clarke, killed at Fromelles in northern France, in 1916, will be the 12th Royboy to be honoured at the War Memorial Arbour.
Clarke who played four games in 1911, was among the Australians whose remains were identified after the discovery of a mass grave near Fromelles. "With Thornton, we now have eight (senior players) who lost their lives in the first war and three (senior players) in the second." said treasurer-director Bill Atherton.
"The discovery of Thornton Clarke's remains by a football historian at another club has given this year's ceremony added meaning."
The Fitzroy Players & Officials who gave their lives for our Country
THORNTON CLARKE 1917
6 GAMES 1912 & 1915
HAROLD COLLINS 1917
6 GAMES 1912 & 1915
JACK COOPER 1917
136 GAMES 1907 - 1915
GEORGE ELLIOTT 1917
1 GAME 1905
UNIVERSITY 79 GAMES 1908 – 1913
ARTHUR HARRISON 1917
19 GAMES 1913 - 1914
ARTHUR JONES 1915
KILLED IN ACTION AT GALLIPOLI
7 GAMES 1914
SYDNEY O’NEILL 1915
KILLED IN ACTION AT GALLIPOLI
1 GAME 1909
TOM McCLUSKEY 1917
5 GAMES 1911
TOM CORRIGAN 1943
107 GAMES 1922 - 1928
FRED HEINTZ 1942
14 GAMES 1931 - 33
ARTIE GAY 1943
COMMITTEEMAN – CHANGI
DESMOND CHARLES KEAYS 1943
RESERVES PLAYER - CHANGI
A LETTER WRITTEN BY JACK COOPER, A FITZROY PLAYER, FROM THE TRENCHES IN FRANCE 1916, TO HIS OLD MATE BOB KING, THE FITZROY TIMEKEEPER.
The following is a letter that was sent to Bob King, Timekeeper of the Fitzroy Football Club – 12th June, 1916.
Dear Bob,
Many thanks for your great letter written 2nd March, 1916, it was like breathing fresh air for a change. Letters sometimes take up to three months to get here, sometimes they get lost but it’s great when they finally arrive.
Glad to hear we might have a good year. I suppose it is hard to get any number of new players and losing so many old ones won’t help.
I enjoy reading about the “club” and all the players and also about the great committees who always try to do their job. From what you tell me there are still blokes there who are “talkers” and never do anything “real” for the Club, but that’s been for so many years, hasn’t it?
I see Mick Arrowsmith and Mick Green have said we finished with a bank balance of 12/9/7 ½ for 1915; that hasn’t changed either; we still seem short of funds? I am sending you a weeks pay 35/- for the Club fund and I have spoke to George “Yorky” Shaw and told him of this and he said I’ll send them a “quid” too, the lousy bastard. He is in the same battalion and we see each other often and talk about the wonderful days when we were home in that beaut little place – called Fitzroy. You really don’t know how important Fitzroy is until you leave it, and come what may I don’t think I will ever smile again until I see that maroon and blue flag flying in front of those 2 old grandstands.
Do hope the 35/ and the quid will help and until we meet again Bob, to you, Margaret and Lizzie, good health to all our friends at the Club, please give them all of my best regards.
Please keep writing, as your letters are a God Send. Pray for me as I’ll be praying for you and the Roys.
Your old friend
Jack Cooper
Jack Cooper was killed in France in 1917. He played 135 games between 1907-1915.
Yorky Shaw came home in 1919 and followed Fitzroy until he passed away in 1976.
The War Memorial Arbour, Brunswick Street.
Where
The Brunswick Street Oval takes up the south-west corner of the beautiful Edinburgh Gardens in North Fitzroy. The memorial is about 15 metres back from the oval, on the northern side. If walking from Brunswick Street along the northern flank towards the grandstand, you turn left off the path after 20 metres. A five-metre path then leads to the memorial, which is against the back wall of the Fitzroy Bowling Club pavilion. The memorial looks out over the oval.
Dimensions
About four metres high, eight metres wide, four metres deep.
Arbour
According to the Oxford English Reference Dictionary, an arbour is a "shady garden alcove with the sides and roof formed by trees or climbing plants". Wisteria vines framed Brunswick Street's memorial arbour until recently, when the vines were trimmed back. Until then, few passers-by would have realised the arbour was there.
Structure
In an Edinburgh Gardens "conservation management plan" that was written for the oval's owner, the City of Yarra, the memorial is described as: "A concrete arbour supported by six Tuscan order columns resting on pedestals with six moulded caps."
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| The War Memorial Arbour, Brunswick Street Oval Photo: Vince Caligiuri |
The report, which was prepared by city architecture firm Allom Lovell in conjunction with John Patrick, notes that the perimeter beams - those around the outside of the structure, immediately above the columns - have a textured rendered frieze and moulded cornices. On top of these beams, a series of parallel rafters have served to support the vines.
Plaque
The memorial's marble plaque, which is about 20 centimetres high and 1.5 metres wide, was originally fixed to the easternmost beam, facing the grandstand. It is now on the southern beam, facing the oval, and reads: "This memorial has been created by the Fitzroy cricket, football, bowling, baseball and tennis clubs to perpetuate the memory of members who fell in the Great War 1914-1919."
Significance
According to June Senyard, a member of the Fitzroy History Society and a sports historian at Melbourne University, the arbour has strong significance simply as a war memorial. It's also distinctive because five Fitzroy sporting clubs that were based in the Edinburgh Gardens combined to build it. Architecturally, it's a rare example of a memorial arbour in the late Edwardian classical style.
Sub-plot
After being erected in 1919, the arbour stood over the main path along the northern side of the ground. Spectators would have been hard-pressed to avoid walking through it if they were in the region behind the cricket club stand, which still looks proudly over the ground today, and the football club stand, which burned down in 1979. In the absence of the football club stand, the main path has been shifted away from the arbour towards the oval. The most significant development, however, has been the construction of an electricity substation next to the arbour. If you're walking along the path from Brunswick Street, you're likely to miss the arbour because the substation, which is essentially a large concrete block, shields it from view. The substation has been detailed to complement the arbour, but it's hard to imagine an uglier companion. The Fitzroy History Society has tried to have the substation moved, unfortunately to no avail.
Vale
Seven former Fitzroy footballers died in action in World War I: Harold Collins (1912-15, six games); former captain Jack Cooper (1907-15, 136 games); George Elliott (1905, one game); Arthur Harrison (1913-14, 19 games); Arthur Jones (1914, seven games); Tom McCluskey (1911, five games); and Sydney O'Neill (1909, one game). Every year, present Fitzroy Football Club secretary Bill Atherton commemorates the footballers who died by laying a wreath at the arbour on the closest Saturday to Anzac Day. In 2010, Bill Atherton will lay the wreath at half time of the senior game between Fitzroy and Ajax at approximately 3.30 pm.
Final word
"A lot of people don't know the memorial is there. Its position next to the substation compromises its integrity completely."
- June Senyard, Fitzroy History Society
courtesy of The Age: http://www.theage.com.au/news/Sport/Landmarks/2005/04/22/1114152321085.html
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